Excerpts from an interview, “Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story with Nancy HC Ward” on Breadbox Media’s Sewing Hope. hosted by Anne DeSantis and Billy Snyder.
Thank you Anne DeSantis and Bill Snyder for a delightful with you on Sewing Hope.
“I was not shopping for another church – ever!”
“I decided that I would try out this Catholic lifestyle on my own, which at that time meant no meat on Fridays and trying to keep up with the Latin Mass.”
“I didn’t become an evangelist right away when I joined the Church. It was a renewal experience 15 years later that empowered me to share my faith.”
“Everywhere I looked, in everything I read or heard was the same Scripture:
Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence. (1 Peter 3:15-16)
“I show you how to structure a faith story, the most effective way to do it, and … I tell my conversion story using this structure and then I tell my renewal story doing the same.”
“Right now, the Holy Spirit is using me and the book to help all of us who are coping with the transition into a new lifestyle of constant restraint and change. I didn’t know that Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story would be used for this purpose, but I’m now realizing that the Holy Spirit had many uses in mind for it. People want to know how to get through this and this book has answers.”
“Think about what you have been doing in the last few months. Think about a time when you were sad and God came to you. And the people who are helping you, you didn‘t even know before that. Someone else is going through this same difficulty and needs to hear your story of what God did for you. They just need a paragraph of encouragement shared from the stories stored in your heart and written down in your journal. God puts someone right next to you that needs hope. The Holy Spirit fills in the gaps. That’s what they need, that hope! That’s what evangelizing is all about.”
“That person sitting by themselves — talk to them and find out what their story is. You’d be surprised at what the Holy Spirit has for you Listen to them, tell them what their story means to you, build them up and draw them out.”
“When we look back a month or two and see how everything has changed, we know that month or two from now all of us will be in a different place. I encourage our listeners to use the now that is in front of us to bring this hope of Jesus to whoever we can by sharing his mercy to us. When we do that, we receive blessings and healings ourselves.”
“I don’t know about you but I need to journal and share in order to process all of this stuff that’s coming at me faster than I can receive it. I find myself writing and saying things I never would have thought of and I know that’s the Holy Spirit.”
“There’s a lot of people out there unhappy and hurting and complaining. We can emerge from this “coronavirus cocoon of isolation” — how I see it — by stepping up to opportunities to share what God did for us during this lockdown. As encourages, we emerge by strengthening our relationship with Jesus Christ.”
“We don’t have all the answers; we haven’t survived better than anyone else; we are just down to earth people, sharing what God has done in our lives on the same level as everyone else. But when we open our hearts to his love, it just overflows with his love and hope to others.”
“I suggest that we use the experiences of the last few months. What has the Lord brought you through in the last couple of months? Think of one particular incident. Specifically, what story can you share of how God has given you hope when you needed it? Maybe, like me, you failed to trust him at times when you were so unhappy. Did he abandon you or reveal his merciful love to you in an unexpected way?”
“Tell them what you are most grateful for. Tell them about your hopes for the future based on God’s faithfulness. If your post-pandemic life reflects God’s goodness, many will see a change in you and they’ll ask you why you are so hopeful. Then you have to be ready to tell them ‘the reason for your hope’ (1 Peter 3:16).”
Nancy Ward
Nancy Ward, convert, journalist, author, and speaker, writes from Texas about Catholicism, conversion and Christian community at NancyHCWard.com, JOYAlive.net, and other websites and magazines. Through her Sharing Your Catholic Faith Story workshops, retreats and DVD, she shares her conversion story in Catholic parishes and at conferences, equipping others to share their stories. She contributed to the award-winning The Catholic Mom's Prayer Companion, facilitates two Catholic Writers Guild critique groups, serves on the Guild’s Board, and speaks at national writers conferences.