"My First Priest"

I just learned that my first priest, "Father Smith," died last year. And it reminded me of when I first met him, in Fall of 1971.

My world was falling apart, it seemed. My beloved Uncle died at an early age quite suddenly. One of my best friends in high school was killed in a car crash.  And the girl I thought I loved was moving to another state. I was a pretty unhappy, sensitive 16 year old in a VERY bad, unstable home situation.  At times, yes, I felt suicidal. Around that time, some of my Christian friends in school (an "Art" school) told me about the Lord and I felt like I had come face-to-face with Jesus for the first time, through them. So, in Art Class, I did a painting of "me"....sort of "coming face-to-face"....with "Jesus."

In the painting, I was standing, nude (back to the viewer) on a beach looking up to the face of "Jesus" (in the colorful clouds), taken aback in obvious AWE. My long hair in the oil painting made it uncertain if I was a man or a skinny woman, frankly, because, again, only my butt was showing. And, in the sand by the waves in my painting was scrawled the word......AND.

Weird, eh??

Now, around this time I started going to a Catholic Charismatic prayer group with mostly priests and nuns who greeted me WARMLY despite my long hair. (I went THERE because it was walking distance from my house...the church that my Christian friends went to was on the other side of the city and I had no car.) Father Smith was the leader of this Catholic group, and he made me feel welcome from day one. But after a few weeks, I nervously decided to show him the painting.

He previewed it in PRIVATE, at the church, and insisted I show it to the entire Sunday night group which, again, was filled with priests and nuns.  He even unveiled it to the group FOR me. From that point on, people in that group became like my real "family" because I saw they TRULY accepted me DESPITE my......unusual ways (acceptance which was more than I felt I got from my REAL family).

Three and a half years later, I had a TRUE encounter with Jesus, got saved and left the Catholic church. I'm sure "Father Smith" and the others were disappointed in me, and I regret THAT but I don't regret LEAVING. Still, I've never forgotten my first priest. Had he laughed at my painting, or REFUSED to show it to the group because he thought it was "porn," not art, they might never been in my life with the "family support" I lacked and craved at home. As a Catholic friend once said, "They saved your life, Chet."  More accurately, God PRESERVED my life....using THEM.

Yes, at that key point in my life when I was lonely and needed acceptance, God used Father Smith, my first priest, to keep me from total despair.

And I'll always, always remember him for that.