My faith journey ✝️

Hey everyone! I’ve been wanting to share my faith journey for some time now. I’m not that great at articulating thoughts, so bear with me! Thanks :)

Baptist:

This is the longest stretch of my journey, time-wise. There is a bit of overlap with the oneness Pentecostal journey, which happened when I was 15-16. I’ll touch more on that in the next section. I was raised in a free will Baptist church from ages 4-18. I wasn’t happy to be made to go to church every week, usually twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday. I hated getting up early and missing out on hobbies and such, which are typical reasons for children and teens to dislike church. However, my dislike for church wasn’t just based on those silly reasons. Missing church when it was open was looked down on, as if it were sinful, even if you went other times during the week. My parents were my Sunday school teachers and youth group leaders, which is partly why I hated church so much - home life and church were very different, to say the least. They wouldn’t leave home matters at home and often brought up those things in church which was humiliating. My pastor was the fire and brimstone type, usually having something negative to say about the congregation. Missing mass was bad, not tithing was bad, reading a Bible that wasn’t a KJV was bad… bad bad bad. It was always something. I genuinely know he cares for his congregation and he cares about Jesus, but he never had a good way of approaching it. His preaching style was yelling; it was very loud and intimidating, and as someone with ADHD and autism undiagnosed at the time, I had a very hard time without being able to explain why. This is how it went on the entirety of my time at this church, though we did change pastors a couple times in the very early years. Many of the church goers were kind, though the congregation was old and few in number. As of today, most of the people who I knew at the church have passed away, but the pastor and his family remain. When I was 18, my parents gave me the choice to go to church with them or to stay home. From the day I turned 18, I completely stopped going. I never went back, even though they still occasionally reach out to invite me back. I am turning 24 next month. This church had a very negative impact on me, but I didn’t end up rejecting the Baptist faith because of the people: I just did not find truth in it. I would ask my pastor questions, like “do we have to be baptized to be saved?” And I wouldn’t get a direct answer. That was a big red flag for me.

Oneness Pentecostal:

This phase happened when I was about 15-16. My sophomore year of high school, I met a boy in my biology class who I really liked. At this time I was still being made to go to the Baptist church, though I had very little interest in it and really didn’t have any sort of “relationship” with God. The boy that I met was a pastors son, and his denomination was oneness Pentecostal. If you don’t know, they also go by “apostolic Pentecostal” (which I whole-heartedly despise, because they are not apostolic), and they reject the holy trinity. The women are usually made to wear dresses and not cut their hair. It’s also strongly discouraged to wear makeup and jewelry, but depending on who you ask, it may “depend on your convictions”. Whatever that means. Anyway, my time in this church was weird. The “speaking in tongues” scared me, it felt… off. It felt evil. Not that feelings are always reliable, but from the start, something felt wrong. But, I was determined to stick with it so I could be with this boy. For over a year I refused to wear pants or cut my hair; I was trying to satisfy the wants of church leaders and the other women who were raised in the church, often comparing my hair length and skirt length to theirs. I always felt judged when I was in this church, like my outward appearance was under scrutiny, rather than my relationship with Jesus. I once tried to speak in tongues, and the pastor leaned in close to listen, to see if it was true… that was a big red flag. Though I was determined to make this faith work, I couldn’t. Scripture didn’t agree with it. None of the church fathers agreed with it. Church history doesn’t support it. Truth is simply not found in this church, no matter how much I wanted it to be. The boy and I broke up when I was 16 for other reasons unrelated to the faith. At about 16-17, I decided to stop chasing after this faith, because I simply could not agree with it.

Non-denominational:

After the oneness Pentecostal phase, I still considered myself Christian, but I didn’t claim a denomination. I was kind of just sticking to myself, not going to church, and God was a superficial layer of my life - but now more present than before. I was interested in deepening my faith, but I didn’t know how. When I turned 18, I moved out and went to college. The university I went to was a private Nazarene university. We had to go to “chapel” a certain amount of times per semester and we were heavily encouraged to go to church. I went to a few different churches here and there, and at this point I was starting to get more serious about my faith. At this time, my sister was considering Roman Catholicism, which upset me because I had a lot of misconceptions about it. More on that in the next paragraph.

Catholic:

When I was in college, my sister was considering converting to Catholicism. I was upset for many reasons, and it turned out that none of them had merit. Catholic Church sold salvation? Nope. Not true. Catholics worshipped Mary and the pope? Also, not true. Catholics weren’t allowed to read the Bible? Also not true… the list goes on and on, and I can make another post if y’all want to address these misconceptions, but that’s not what this post is about. Anyway, I started having long conversations with my sister about her conversion. I wanted to know why. I felt sad, because I thought it was a bad path. After all, the Protestant circles I was in made it sound like Catholicism was demonic. They often talked bad about other denominations. After months, I had started to learn so much about the Catholic Church, I learned that a lot of what I had previously thought about the church was false. I started to do my own research. Long story short, I came to find that the history of Christianity aligns perfectly with Roman Catholicism and it is backed by scripture and those who wrote the scriptures. When I started attending a Catholic Church, the first thing I noticed was the presence of love. They didn’t trash other denominations, they prayed for them. It wasn’t a competition for them. They wanted their brothers and sisters to come home to the fullness of truth in the Catholic Church. The beauty, the historicity, the love, they all led me to the Catholic Church. I was officially baptized, confirmed, and received communion on April 3, 2021. I’ve been a practicing Catholic ever since, and I am so much stronger in my faith than I used to be.

What I’ve learned:

• having an open mind doesn’t mean you will change your mind, but it means you will consider the other options and make the best decision you can make

• truth is objective and does not vary from person to person

• you can love others even if you don’t agree with them

• your actions speak louder than words, and how you treat others will impact their perception on everything you claim to be

let me know if you want to hear more a out any specific things 💗

#storytime #lemon8challenge #catholic #christian #embracevulnerability #faith #jesus