We’ve asked a number of people from GUC to ponder the question “Who do you say I am?” Every week we’ll put up a different person’s personal reflection. Perhaps it’ll inspire you to write your own, if you do please consider passing it on to us, we’ll start a GUC collection…
From my earliest memories, Jesus was an important part of my life. More than anything he was a friend – a friend, at a time in my life when I was often lonely and not good at making friends. I sang “Jesus loves me” in Sunday School and had complete confidence that this was so. At night, I could talk to Jesus in a way that I couldn’t talk to other people.
As I grew older my simple faith in Jesus was slowly replaced by questions, doubts and an intellectual curiosity about the world that tended to dismiss religion. For a time, I wasn’t sure that Jesus did have a place in my life anymore.
I don’t think, though, that Jesus every really left me. Instead, I needed to rebuild my own faith as an adult, in a way that could satisfy my questions, doubts and intellect, rather than rely on the faith that had been handed down to me by my parents.
Going through this process helped me to rediscover Jesus. For me, now, I see Jesus as the purest expression of God’s love at work in the world. His Gospel vision points the way to a world where there does not need to be divisions between rich and poor, men and women, people with and without disabilities, or people from different ethnic backgrounds – a world where love can be the watchword.
I see Jesus at work in the world today in interactions between people – in communities rallying to support refugees, in young people working together to plant trees and help the environment, in carers working for little pay to support people with disabilities, in friends supporting each other through times of crisis, or in volunteers at the food pantry spending time with people with little money and perhaps little hope. I also see Jesus in the faces of children who haven’t yet learnt to hide their real selves. Jesus continues to be, for me, the perfect example of love – and, yes, I still see Jesus as my friend.
Ngaire