An April Fool

What happened to me on April 1st, 2012 is forever a mystery. It’s the day I became an April fool.

It was 6am on Palm Sunday and I hadn't slept all night. I was supposed to enter the Church the following week. But I'd resolved in the wee hours of the morning to go back on that decision.

All night, I wrestled with the devil. His temptations pushed me and pushed me and pushed me until I crumbled. A sin I thought I'd long conquered came back to overtake me. And, like a coward, I fell to its power.

I was ashamed. And felt no longer worthy to enter into the Catholic Church.

So, there I was at 6am after a sleepless night, full of shame, pulling up to the Church where I was supposed to get baptized the following week. I was there to go running with the priest and three young adults at the parish.

The priest had been bugging me to come join him for his 6 at 6 (six miles at six am) club. That morning, on April fools day, I showed up to run and share the news.

But then something happened. Something that I will never understand this side of heaven. Something that I've never been able to fully articulate in a way that another human being can understand.

In the simplest of terms, during the course of that run, God answered the deepest longing of my heart. Instead of punishing me for my failures, He extended to me a gift I didn't deserve.

Where there should have been shame and punishment, there was mercy and love.

That day, quite unexpectedly, I became an April fool. There, on that run, that was the hour I first believed. It was the moment I joined a long legacy of fools who believe that the maker of the universe loved me enough to die on a cross and rise again on the third day

I'm an April fool. And God willing, I always will be.

What's the hour you first believed?