Found Again by Liam Ferguson

“I don’t want to be king anymore, there is only one King.”

I’m a cradle- Catholic, which means that I was born into the faith. It’s all I've ever known. But I never fully believed in the faith when I was younger, I just went through the motions, not really knowing what I was doing or why. It wasn’t important to me at that age. Then around the same time that Covid hit, I ran into some serious family problems. My life was being torn apart right in front of me. I started questioning my faith; why wasn’t God doing anything? What did I do to deserve all this pain? Did He really exist? I became a very bitter person, I was always angry and felt a victim; I was a shell of what I once was.

It wasn’t until three years later when my family moved up to Alaska that faith became something of importance in my life again. I was starting to rebuild myself, I had improved many things in my life, except I still ignored my faith. After Church one day, my mother got me into the confirmation classes that were happening. The first thing I was invited to was adoration and confession. I was extremely scared to go, I hadn’t gone to confession in over 8 years, my heart was heavy from all the sins that I had committed. I went, and after I did my confession, I had this feeling, like this enormous weight was lifted off of me I wanted to cry, nothing ever felt so beautiful in my life. I started trying to reconnect, I started reading the bible every night, listening to podcasts like the Bible in a Year, by Fr. Mike Schmitz, and praying every day and night. But it still wasn’t enough.

The first confirmation class that I went to they asked all of us “Who was Jesus to us?” I couldn’t answer, I didn’t know who He was to me. That question would remain on my mind for the next couple of weeks. Then during one of my workouts, it hit me. He is my Father, my King. I remember saying during that workout, “I don’t want to be king anymore, there is only one King.” I must have said this a hundred times that morning. Later when I got home I was listening to this song, the Ballad of Love and Hate, and it was during that song that I saw Christ. All I could say was sorry, I felt so sorry for leaving Him. He didn’t say anything to me, He only hugged me. It was glorious.

I understand why everything had happened the way it did. I understand why we moved up to Alaska. It wasn’t just because my mom got a new job, it was so I could reconnect to Christ, so I could love the way that He loved. I finally felt at peace, I felt whole again. I found a community that I feel like I belong to. There’s this verse in the Bible it’s 2 Corinthians 5:17, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” Christ recreated who I was, I thank Him everyday for that. His love is the greatest gift I could have ever received.

ABOUT LIAM FERGUSON: Liam Ferguson was born in California but lived most of his life in Oregon. He was born and raised in a Catholic household. He’s an avid outdoorsman and weightlifter. He joined the Army Reserve to be a Horizontal Construction Engineer.