Hello, and thank you for reading my blog: “Jen’s Spiritual Cafe!” It is such a privilege to have you here! My name is Jen, and I would like to treat you as a guest; as one who stops by for coffee, or who chats at a favorite coffee shop. This blog is intended to be a safe space to discuss all things spiritual. A casual and laid back experience of discussing the most important matters one could ever talk about. Here, we can talk about it all: God, philosophy, reality. It’s somewhere to discover where we are spiritually.
If I may, I’d like to introduce myself and tell you the story of how I came to pursue God. Or rather, how He came to pursue me. My name is Jennifer Carrico and I’m 34 years old. I was born on a military base in Rota, Spain to a Spanish mother and an American father. I have one brother. We started life as this amazing adventure! Living a military life, we got to travel a lot and explore all sorts of places. I even got to explore places like Portugal and London. We lived near relatives from my mother’s side and lived amongst friends in such a tight knit community. I have so many fond memories of my childhood that I will treasure forever. I’m young, but I miss those days already.
At about 12, my dad received orders to move to the States. Unfortunately, we couldn’t live in that little base forever. We ended up moving to Virginia Beach, Virginia. I made lots of new friends there (2 who were especially close) and we lived there for about 3 years. When my dad retired from the Navy, we decided to make the move to Jacksonville, Florida (where I currently reside). That way, we could finally live nearby my dad’s side of the family.
I was entering my second year of high school when we got here. I found it difficult to make new friends. My social skills weren’t the best in the world. I kept in touch with my close friends who were still in Virginia. This was before I graduated back in 2009, so iPhones wasn’t a thing yet. (This was the age of the flip phones) So I chatted with them on AOL almost every day.
And little did I know that this would be the very beginning of my journey with God.
You see, up until this point I was quite secular. To me, spirituality was this vague notion of something that certain isolated groups of people practiced. Sure, I was baptized Roman Catholic as an infant. And I went to Mass to complete the rituals for my “First Communion.” But other than that, religion was a completely foreign concept to me. That is, until one fateful day. On the computer I was chatting with one of my best friends. We talked like we usually did. But, out of nowhere, I asked her something that I was suddenly curious about. I asked, “Do you believe in God?” “No.” She said. “Really, you don’t think He exists?” “Well, I just believe that we don’t need Him in order to explain reality.”
My heart sunk.
I had always believed in God. Or, at least that He always existed. I was having an existential crisis because I never once considered the possibility that God might not exist. And a dreadful fear came over me that we might not get to live forever after all.
So then, the search for God began.
I didn’t know where exactly to turn. There was nobody in my life who was spiritual or religious. So I looked into evidence for God’s existence on the Internet. (Mostly YouTube). I wanted to start the search with evidence for the existence of the soul. Because I figured that if the soul existed, then therefore the supernatural existed, thus, it would at least be possible for us to live forever. I looked into things like ghost footages, near-death experiences and anything of the sort.
Just as I began to run out of ideas, I began to type “Shocking,” in the search engine on YouTube. When I did, I already had a list of several recommended videos. One of those videos was called, “The Shocking Youth Message,” by Paul Washer. It was a Christian sermon. And I watched it. Captivated by his words from the very beginning, I took in everything that this preacher was saying. In this passionate plea, I learned of my predicament before a holy God. That I was in trouble because of my sins. But then, I came to understand the solution: the cross of Christ. And that night, I gave my life to Jesus.
The next day, in the excitement of my heart I told my family that I had become a Christian. They were understanding, but basically told me to keep it to myself. So I did. I got a Bible and started looking around for a Church.
The first church that I attended was the only thing that was familiar to me. It was a beautiful Roman Catholic sanctuary. I attended Mass for a year; and even sung in their choir. But something started to feel a little off. Although I loved the people there and the services, I began to realize that their teachings were quite different to the teachings of the Bible. After a little digging I decided to find out for myself if Catholicism was compatible to biblical Christianity.
During confession one day, I decided to ask the priest a rhetorical question. Not that I was necessarily trying to trap him, but rather, I was trying to get information. So after confessing my sins, I asked the priest if I could ask him something. “Go ahead.” He said. “How can you know that you’re saved?” I asked. And there was a pause. “Well, you’re saved. You’re here, aren’t you?” He replied.
It was then that I came to the realization that Roman Catholicism wasn’t biblical. Because I knew from the Bible that salvation is not of our own doing but of God’s. And that being in a Church building wasn’t any evidence at all for one’s salvation. (As if being in a church building would make you a Christian in the same way as being in a garage would somehow turn you into a car!)
After that I left Roman Catholicism. And after doing a little soul searching, I’ve come to find that I was much closer to being a Protestant than a Catholic. (And that news didn’t sit well with my family).
I ended up attending my first Baptist church. And it was weird! Not the church, but the feeling. As a Catholic, I’ve never once stepped foot in a Protestant church before, so it was culture shock to say the least. There were no statues, no stained glass windows, no incense… just a man and a pulpit. So I sat in the front row. A little nervous, but also eagerly awaiting what I might hear.
Again. Confusion and disappointment. You see, I was fully expecting to be revived by solid preaching like I’d hear on websites such as sermon audio. But instead I felt like I was listening to Joel O’Steen. Sunday after Sunday it was all about sports, activities and a short motivational speech on how to live your best life now. I knew that this church was just as unbiblical as the last one. So I left.
But, refusing to give up because I knew that God was able to see me through this, I kept looking. This time, I decided to look at the core beliefs of the church on the website before joining. And I found a Conservative Baptist Church. It was solid!
I decided to attend. Even though the congregation was small in number it was big on theology and on being involved in one another’s lives. I even attended their University after graduating high school in hopes of being a missionary one day.
However, the excitement of my new life in the Lord wouldn’t last. Because just as Job lost everything, I began to lose everything too. First I lost my grandfather. Two years later I lost my grandmother. Then I lost my other grandfather; then my dogs. I lost my sanity and ended being diagnosed with Paranoid Schizophrenia. I would then lose my grandmother and in the end, my father died too.
Life is so brief. Not just for them, but for all of us.
I’m trying to recover through all of this with much prayer and with much seeking after God in the Scriptures. And even though losing everything hurt in unspeakable ways, I have learned to trust God all the more and have come to see Him for who He really is: a bright light in a dark place.
God is love. And it took pain to see that, ironically enough.
Anyways, thanks again so much for being here! I hope you’ll stop by again another day for another chat. Until then, may God be with you.