WELCOME HOME

By Dinorah Pérez-Rementería

Lakewood Church is a welcoming place. I went there on a Sunday morning three weeks ago. I needed to recharge my spiritual battery after having come across certain picture that seemed to have been created with the intention of testing my faith. I could barely sleep that night, waiting for the sunrise, but I was able to hold on to my hopes. Hope is directly connected to faith, and faith is a gift from God. I believe that those who need hope in the same way they need water in their lives are more willing to receive this gift. So, having faith in my heart, I woke up early and drove to Lakewood that Sunday, with plenty of time to enjoy my being there.

Inspired by the stirring heart of God, Lakewood is immense and charming. Before starting his sermon each week, Pastor Joel Osteen invites people to stop by and participate in one of the services, promising that visitors will feel right at home. Nothing can be more enjoyable than home. My first visit to Lakewood was during the winter break in December of 2008. I had just finished a strenuous semester as a graduate student at the University of Miami and gone through a very tough year. My parents had bought airplane tickets for my round trip to Houston a month in advance because they wanted me to be home for Christmas. They would have done any thing so that I could feel welcome and loved.

I remember that I kneeled down and asked God to refrain me from making my parents’ Christmas holidays as gloomy as their week vacation in Miami, which I had managed to turn into a living hell. Every little thing I did such as driving them to see friends and relatives looked like an “obligation” rather than an occasion to enjoy their company. I was so caught up in my own discontent that I couldn’t appreciate the blaring love that their presence conveyed. My mom cried for me, and my dad offered strong words of encouragement when I confessed I felt somewhat like a “missing link,” with no purpose or direction to follow. I had been intensely impacted by a man with a good heart whom -for spiritual rather than moral reasons- I could not see. For months, I had questioned my life and even God because He would not answer any of my pitiful selfish prayers. (What a hypocrite! And how many times had I acted as if I had forgotten God?).

During my stay in Houston that Christmas, God gave me more than what I asked. Jesus, not my brother but the son of God, was unveiled to me while I participated in a bilingual mass at Saint Anne Catholic Church in Tomball, Texas. It took me a while to recognize that He was there and I spent a lot of mental energy, trying to figure out what Reverend Valone meant by saying “abre tu corazón a Cristo,” with his strong Southern accent. He had to repeat it three times before my heart opened up. Even still, I did not understand what had happened. One does not come into Christ by way of the mind, but by way of the heart. It was surprising and magical. I recognized His presence in my life through a great number of little, precious miracles. I received His love, profusely, abundantly. I discovered how God’s love for me had been expressed in the most ingenious ways: through my tender grandparents, through the Beatles and Bob Marley's songs, through my dad’s teaching talent of which I benefitted -particularly during my High School years when the ballistic trajectory of a projectile became my nastiest dream-, through my mom’s patience and knowledge and care. God gave me a real treasure after He unveiled Christ before me. God revealed how He had put people in my life so that He himself could better love me. Many of these people were not conscious of the ways in which God used them, but their “unawareness” did not prevent me from acknowledging that the love of God had been cleverly delivered through them.

After my personal encounter with Christ at Saint Anne’s, I visited Lakewood Church and experienced a profound joy. It was as if God were saying, “Welcome home, my beauty, my princess, my love,” words that would flow out of his heart. He whispered something similar in my ear when I went to Lakewood on a Sunday morning three weeks ago, along with the confirmation that every little thing was going to be alright. How wonderful it is to be loved well and to hear one special voice that will always welcome me…just me.