From senselessness to security
My name is Elmir. I am 36 years old, I work in Business Intelligence, I am engaged and in a few days I am getting baptized and I would like to tell you my story of why I am getting baptized. Since I grew up with two religions as a child, I never really managed to find my bearings and identify with a religious community. In other words, from the age of 14 until I was 30 or 31, I was without a denomination and had no problems with it at all. Faith, religion and God were absolutely irrelevant to me.
„I had this feeling of meaninglessness and emptiness“
In my thirties, however, things started to change. I have this feeling. A feeling opened up, a kind of meaninglessness in my life, a kind of emptiness. I didn’t know exactly where this emptiness came from. Or how I could deal with it. The older I got, the worse it got and the more successful I became, the more unhappy I was. So, it was a really deep emptiness and meaninglessness that I just didn’t understand. One day, a colleague at work offered to take me to a holy mass at church. And I accepted this offer. I didn’t really know why I accepted it at the time, because I didn’t really have anything to do with the church, I wasn’t in any religious community, but I had a feeling that it would be good. And that’s what I did. And I did it more regularly. And so, the second or third time I came into contact with the John Paul II Center, where I was not only allowed to celebrate Mass, but also experienced the worship.
„I felt that I too could build a relationship with God“
I then had a kind of feeling that I too could build a relationship with God. When I started going to church and started praying and began to understand that you can build a relationship with God, I realized that this feeling of emptiness and meaninglessness disappeared. Since then, I have been constantly trying to work on my relationship with God and to grow in my relationship with God and to live my faith even more deeply. And that’s why I’m looking forward to baptism. Because I see it as the next important step in simply working on this relationship with God in order to be able to live my faith even more strongly. I am particularly looking forward to receiving Holy Communion so that I can simply encounter God in a tangible way.
Dear Elmir, thank you for finding your way to us and sharing your testimony with us. We are very happy that we were able to accompany you at the Easter Vigil and look forward to welcoming you into our community!
On behalf of the whole community,
Father George
