Her parents are both ordained ministers at Disciples of Christ Church in Atlanta and her sister recently entered seminary to become a Protestant minister. So, for Tiffany Lambert, director of religious education at All Saints Parish in Manassas, it \u201ccreates a funny situation,\u201d she said with a mischievous grin.<\/p>\n
Service to the Church, however, was not always the center of Lambert\u2019s life. As a youth she fell away from her Protestant upbringing, and playing soccer competitive soccer became the core of who she was.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I continued playing soccer, it took over my life. Soccer was my sense of security. It was my anchor,\u201d said Lambert, who studied at Clemson University on a soccer scholarship. \u201cBy high school, I really didn\u2019t believe in God.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a combination of her \u201csoccer god\u201d and seeing suffering in the world that propelled her to turn away from the faith of her parents.<\/p>\n
Growing up in downtown Atlanta, Lambert was exposed to homelessness, and she often spoke with those she encountered on the streets and brought them food. She could not grasp the world\u2019s idea that somehow she was more valuable than the people on the streets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not fair that someone\u2019s valued more because of what they can do,\u201d she said. Knowing her struggle with believing in God, her friend gave her a copy of C.S. Lewis\u2019 \u201cMere Christianity.\u201d Although Lambert found the author\u2019s arguments convincing and compelling, she \u201ccould not get over my initial atheism. I had this all straight in my head, but couldn\u2019t know in my gut.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Divine Providence would have it, Lambert attended a Catholic high school and had the opportunity to ask questions of her campus ministers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kept getting good answers, but it really became more and more painful. The more I sought to know whether God existed, the more this yearning in my heart developed to know Him, yet it went unfulfilled,\u201d Lambert said.<\/p>\n
Sitting in her office, where the walls are decorated with religious icons from Rome and Medjugorje, she said, \u201cIt was as if God was carving out this cavern in order to fill it once I knew Him.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Read the rest<\/a> to find out how she came to know Him — and where the journey led.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How does someone who believes in nothing come to believe in God? Down in Virginia, the Arlington Herald recently published the remarkable story of how a young woman who had turned her back on God found her way to the Catholic Church — and became a catechist, to boot: Her parents are both ordained ministers…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-converts","category-inspiration"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}