The Beginning

There’s something quietly astonishing about beginnings. Sometimes, I imagine “Life” as a seed tucked into the soil, silent and unseen, but carrying with it the possibility of forests. I cannot fully remember my own beginning but I was told it was soft, fragile and tender, just like it should be for any infant. The first cry I gave must’ve sounded like a question:

What is this place? Where am I now? Why is it so bright?

And from that cry onward, the journey began.

To be born is to be thrust into a world we did not choose, one that will define us in countless ways. I imagine myself as a baby, my hands curling instinctively, eyes still adjusting to light, skin warmed by the closeness of my mama. I knew nothing about joy, or sorrow, or time. My life had already begun weaving its invisible thread into the fabric of existence.

As children, we live in wonder without knowing it. The mystery of life is not explained to us, it is felt. A butterfly flying past the window can hold our entire attention. Rain pouring on the roof feels like a private concert. A smile exchanged with someone we love is enough to make the world whole. Slowly, through every small experience, we begin to grow, not just in height and years, but in soul.

I slightly remember my earliest memories: the sounds of laughter and cries, the taste of food I didn’t choose, the prayers said by my parents over me when I didn’t even understand what the words meant. Everything at the start of life is chosen for us. Our names, our homes, our family, even the faith that surrounds us. I was born into a strong catholic family, the way some people are born into silence or into song. At first, it was only a rhythm in the background of my life, like the hum of a ceiling fan: always there, but not always noticed.

As I grew, life began to unfold like a story with twists I couldn’t have predicted. I learned that joy comes in sudden bursts (a shared joke, a gift, a get-together with family) and sorrow arrives uninvited, heavy, teaching lessons in silence. Both joy and sorrow felt like hands shaping me, pressing against my heart, like clay, molding me into something I could not yet recognize.

Somewhere along the way, I began to see God not as the distant figure in paintings or in the voices of priests, or in the angelic songs from the choir but as someone who moved quietly through the details of my days. When I laughed until I couldn’t breathe, when I was dwelling in loneliness, when I stumbled in my mistakes, he was there. And the shocking thing is not just that he was there, but that he loved me in all of it. Loved not just pieces of me, but entirely.

This love still amazes me. That God, who knows every one of my failings and shortcomings, does not turn away from me but leans closer instead. The more I try to understand it, the more I realize that I can’t. Perhaps that is the beauty of it, it is too great to fit into reason, yet simple enough to be felt in the quiet of prayer, in the calm evenings, or in the way hearing a beautiful song makes me stop and breathe.

Though my religion was once simply handed down to me, like a set of clothes I didn’t choose, now it is becoming something I want to wear for myself. I am learning to walk the path of faith not because it was given to me, but because I am falling in love with the ONE who gave me life.

Do I think life is a mystery? Yes, it’s a mystery wrapped not in some inexplicable “bad” but in LOVE. And maybe that is the secret I am only just beginning to discover: that to live is to search, and to search is to find myself already found.