“Rising to sit for a moment in bed before getting up, I don’t feel that joyful spirit I felt last night, when Ron and I were laughing. But still, I feel . . . different.

Something has changed. But what?

Do I still wish I were dead? Not that I would do anything about it, but do I still wish it?

No. I don’t. And I don’t because I can’t.

I can’t wish I were dead anymore. I can’t even think about harming myself. Because God loves me. He created me, so he must have a purpose for keeping me alive. And Jesus is his Son.

From now on, I have to learn to be happy.”

…………

“I had an overwhelming feeling that the Catholic Church was the only home left for me. Even if, upon arriving there, I still wasn’t happy, there was no other place where I could be. The saints were there. Any truth to be found was grounded there. So Jesus must be there in a manner in which he wasn’t present anywhere else. And if he was there, I would not be satisfied unless I was there, too.”

…………

“I wish I had known of the beauty of the Church in college and saved myself years of wandering in the wilderness. But then it occurs to me that God must have known what he was doing. Perhaps if I had entered the Church back then, I wouldn’t have had a strong enough foundation to cleave to it. Also, my relationships with some of my family members have deepened since that time; loved ones accept my conversion who might have distanced themselves from me had I converted back then.”

Dawn Eden Goldstein / Washington, D.C.