Conversion Every Day

July 2nd is a very special day for me because it is the day which marked my reversion. While I may never lost faith that God might exist, I did have to return to His love. That journey began on July 2nd, 2011. That is a story for another time.

Most of us think that once we declare Jesus as Lord and Savior that we don’t have to do anything else.

One conversion. That’s all we need.

The problem with this theory is that once we start “living in the Light,” we discover that there are many more heartaches associated with faith than ignorance. Life does not get any easier by becoming a Christian. Eternal life is possible, yes, but no our lives are just as much, if not moreso, a challenge as before.

We fall away.

Or...

We try to find what we think God wants for us.

I was not immune to this effect. In my senior year of undergrad, I decided to apply to be a FOCUS missionary. It only made sense that a campus leader who worked closely with the faith groups on campus would do so in the future. I could be a missionary for two years, and then I could go on and do science.

God changed my plan.

Right at the interview.

A priest suggested to me that I went to Adoration and ask God to let me see what my life would be like if I went to Graduate School right away or if I were a Missionary first. This is not to imagine things, nor was it for me to project my will on my Lord. Instead, I was called to just listen.

I started with graduate school, because I thought I already knew what I would see: science and academia.

Instead I was shown a few specific people, down to their very labs and hometowns. God did not show me lab work, nor did He allow me to think about my science or my school or really anything other than the people revealed to me in that prayer. Praying for FOCUS did not enter my mind.

I could not see myself as a FOCUS missionary prior to graduate school.

This troubled me greatly. I thought that God wanted me to serve Him through FOCUS. After all, I had been running bible studies and discipling students for a while. Everyone had told me that I would be perfect for that role. Why, then, would God take me from a position that would only glorify Him?

That moment of prayer left my mind, but I never let it leave my heart.

What came to my mind was my science, my work, my career as a vocation, my love life. I moved forward with a vengence, and boy did I get a lot of work done on the way there. If God was going to change the plan, then I would have to do everything I could to fit that plan.

Not His plan, but what I thought His plan was for me.

Like I said, when we do not allow Jesus to enter our hearts often, we do everything we can to try to fit the plan. We blame ourselves for not understanding. Many of us will blame God for changing our lives, flipping them, turning them upside down. I was the former; I had to do what I thought God wanted me to do.

Exhausted yet productive, I worked on my science. I prayed my prayers. I hung out with my friends. I even made jokes about my love life. I had so many questions and so many interesting experiments and stories.

I felt so cool.

This freedom was in part because my advisor had not given me any direction. He is a hands-off sort of advisor, which is great for a creative mind, however, that is not good for a developing scientist. In a world where much is known and yet little is understood, it is very difficult for a scientist to navigate through their projects intelligently.

I felt so cool

And yet…I felt so lost.

I figured I wasn’t doing the right thing, so I just kept asking God to help me get through graduate school. The prayers from that FOCUS interview melted away, the reversion on July 2nd, 2011 was a distant memory. I just had to fit the plan. I had to fit.

“Whoever finds his life will lose it” Matthew 10:39

On that day my advisor told me that he didn’t know anything about my work. He didn’t even remember my big seminar talk I gave a little over a month prior. All of my work seemed utterly unimportant, and my entitled millenial self felt completely abandoned.

My only consolation in that meeting was that my mentee’s work was still in the forefront of my adviors mind.

Even if my work wasn’t a priority, at least I had been able to make sure my mentee was important.

Hurt and angry, I rushed home to get ready for a concert that night, and a million thoughts rushed through my mind. I did what I thought God asked me to do: science. Each experiment I offered up to Our Lord, and He always provided with a result. I spent hours and hours teaching myself the material that everyone else already understood. I prayed in the lab, just like I remembered seeing in my heart.

If God brought me here, then shouldn’t I matter…at least enough for my talk to be listened to?

That evening I went to an Audrey Assad concert. It was an amazing concert, as expected. What I received was not in the music itself. It was not in the people who were among me. It was not in the beautiful smile of the performer. The comfort I received were from a song I sang.

“And You walk with me

You’ll never leave

You’re making my heart a garden”

~Garden, Matt Maher ft Audrey Assad

As I sang the song, I closed my eyes and repeated the phrase over and over, internally begging God to explain to me what was so important at Notre Dame that He would bring me here without making my science “matter.”

And I remembered a beautiful moment.

There I was, dancing like a fool down the basement hallway. There was a young man, one whom I had not seen smile in quite some time, standing at the end of the hall. He was watching me, and I saw the most unexpected thing:

He laughed.

His unexpected laugh came to my mind as I prayed that prayer. A person who I never thought I would see look so happy was genuinely happy watching me dance.

I was doing exactly what God had sent me here for.

God did not send me to Notre Dame strictly to find out what STARD9 does, nor did He make me a biologist because He wanted me to receive praise and accolades. Maybe I’ll be a Nobel Prize Winner someday, but it won’t be because God wants me to receive that Earthly reward.

I’m here because of who I am: Felicity Rose Newton.

I’m here because I am able to dance like no one is watching. I’m here because I can laugh at anything. I’m here because I am fiercely loyal. I’m here because I am a devout Catholic who just loves Jesus, my family, science, and food. I’m here because I am maternal. I’m here because I am analytical and motivated by deep thinking.

I’m here because I am happy.

More importantly, I’m here because I’m happiest when I am making other people smile.

There were souls crying out to God for His love, crying out for joy to come in to their lives again, mine included. And because God always provides for His children, He answered the prayers held deep in these hearts, even mine.

I wanted to show my love and joy.

I wanted that more than anything, and that was why I wanted to be a FOCUS missionary.

I did not want to be a missionary because of the title. I wanted to be a missionary because I wanted to share the love that God has for all of us. It was that love which brought me out of the darkness, and it was that love which lead me each day. 

I was always a missionary, just not in the place I expected I would be.

I didn’t have to do anything, not anything different on this Earth at least.

But I did have to make a change.

I had to turn my heart to Christ again. If His love is what gives me joy, then I should be more willing to spend time with Him, love Him. His sacrifice brought me to life in Him, and as I live in Him, I am brought to new places with new people and new experiences.

We have to be willing to turn around and look at Jesus again.

Our lives do not have to have a dramatic change in order to do so. All we need to do is look at the One who loves us and trust that whatever He may give us is exactly what we need. Whether it be a joyful moment or a painful realization, Jesus is drawing us closer and closer to Him.

It is up to us to go with Him.