Faith is a much easier thing to lose than it is to find. We all lose it, come by it, experience it and define it differently. My faith is not right for everyone. The only thing I know is that it is right for me, and I’d like to share how I came to have it.
I’ll start at the beginning. I was raised Catholic, but I just went through the motions for the most part until I was 12 years old. I had a child’s faith. There was belief, but it stood mostly on my ability to accept what I was told without worrying about whether it was true or not or the implications of such.
When I was 12, I began to become frustrated with religion in general, particularly my own because I saw it as oppressive, narrow and possibly entirely false. I rebelled through music and seeking influences that were the opposite of Christian, which at the time I considered oppressive.
I think that I would have first considered myself an atheist when I was about 14 years old. Between 12 and 14, I was mostly just rebelling and not understanding why. In my high school years I would say that I subscribed to an atheistic view of the world. The idea of a god existing with such strict rules and detailed dogmas when the universe was so large, mysterious and undiscovered just didn’t make sense to me. I immersed myself in atheism and had a brief bout with Scientology when I was 17. I bounced back and forth between atheism and Scientology for a couple years.
My conversion experience began when I was a sophomore here at Loyola. I had just experienced one of the most trying weeks of my life, and I had a breakdown and realized that I did believe in a higher power. I realized that for my life to work, and for me to be able to get through each day with any sense of purpose, that I had to put faith in this higher power. It took me some time after that to truly embrace a Catholic identity. It took the realization that Christ won’t oppress me for who I am. Only other people who are misled and think they know God’s will, or that their will is God’s will, can try to oppress me, and they’ll only do so if I let them.
My journey back into Catholicism has been a complicated one, and it is certainly not over yet. It’s a conversion that will last for the rest of my life. Each day I continue to grow in my understanding of what I believe and why, as well as face new challenges to keeping my faith in the face of a tumultuous existence. It took the clarity of coming out of a nervous breakdown for me to discover this faith. I’m lucky in that I have mentors and friends who help me nurture my spirituality. The Loyola University Ministry community has been there for me in ways big and small. Their acceptance and love has helped me come to a fuller realization of my faith and a deeper comfort with both the concept of God and myself.
Nolan Storey is an English Writing Senior. He can be reached at
