Within months of being received into the Catholic Church in 2001, a Catholic friend who knew that I liked to “process” life by writing said to me, “Here’s a suggestion: don’t publicize or publish anything about your becoming Catholic for at least 10 years. Stay under the radar. Soak it all in. Don’t try to package it.”
I guess I took her (wise) points. The decades flew by.
But last fall, 21 years after becoming Catholic, I was invited to share my story on the Coming Home Network International’s “Journey Home” show. They flew me to Columbus, Ohio, where I had a fitful night’s sleep. Bleary-eyed the next morning, I drove off through the cornfields, arriving at a nondescript studio outside of Nashport, population 367.
“Take us back. Begin at the beginning,” host JonMarc Grodi said as he kicked off the interview (which ran in April on EWTN and is now online at trinityhousecommunity.org/coming-home). In our 8.25-second attention span age, a jaw-dropping span of 60 unrushed minutes lay before me.
I had asked JonMarc if it was OK to place my great-grandmother Jenny’s Bible on the desk in front of me. She left the famines of Sweden at age 12, in 1892, and worked for decades as a maid. In photos, she always hid her hands. I reached forward and touched the leather cover, nearly worn through by those hands.
In the weeks before the interview, I was flooded by memories of the 27-year pilgrimage that culminated in my Confirmation at the University of Notre Dame’s Basilica of the Sacred Heart. So many signposts. Melodies of specific hymns. Times of confusion, doubt, silence. Consolations. Retreats. Books and articles, conversations and sermons. Calls or letters that arrived just at the right moment. Little ebenezers I had erected to mark my encounters with the Lord. To fit them into one interview seemed impossible.
How could I ever do justice to my loving parents, who gave me an immersive experience of the faith in their nondenominational Protestant tradition? What would my Baptist great-grandmother say if she could join me for this hour? How could I convey my gratitude to the teachers at the Wheaton Christian Grammar School, where I had a daily Bible class? These and many other questions pressed in, but after touching Jenny’s Bible, the tension left and the words flowed.
I remembered the chorus of a song by Gospel great Alex Bradford that goes like this: “I said I wasn’t gonna tell nobody, but I / Couldn’t keep it to myself! … What the Lord has done for me!” In several visits over the years to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, where Bradford recorded it, I joined my voice to that chorus and met God in ever-new ways.
In that Ohio studio, it was time for the “What the Lord has done for me!” reality of my life to replace the “said I wasn’t gonna tell nobody” years. It was time to place my hand confidently on my great-grandmother’s Bible and tell the same story of Jesus that lifted her heart, her weary hands and my own life.
Within minutes of the interview airing, emails and texts began arriving from all over the world. Strangers, friends, neighbors, former classmates and colleagues shared what touched them. Protestant friends who I thought would be defensive expressed the exact opposite — that they loved the story. A formerly Catholic neighbor watched it and suddenly broke what I thought was a taboo — we were talking about faith.
I gave my Dad — an Evangelical Free Church pastor’s kid who passed away in 2018 — the last word in the interview. A day after it aired, his brother reached out to say how much he appreciated it. “I celebrate Our Lord’s leading in your life,” my uncle said. In the cadence of his voice, I could almost hear my own father’s blessing.
Every one of us called by Christ has a testimony, a story. Until recently, mine was too hidden. Now I am thrilled to hear my kids asking pointed questions about particular moments of my journey.
Even if you’re never invited to scenic Nashport, get out there and share your story. Start walking, talking, singing, shouting. Don’t keep it to yourself, what the Lord has done for you. Take us back. Begin at the beginning.
Johnson and his wife, Ever, are cofounders of trinityhousecommunity.org.
