Conversion stories?

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Safia

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I am a major, major fan of conversion (or reversion) stories.

Anyone out there willing to share, especially of those Confirmed last night? (Welcome home!)

God bless, everyone, and the most blessed Easter to you!
 
After being raised in the faith, I fell away when I was around 20.
Never really joined another group but did some “investigating”.
Decided that I could never be “protestant” once I found out about the missing books from the Bible. I mean - how can a group claim Sola Scriptura and then change the Bible?
Look casually at Eastern belief systems and found things there of value - peace - love - etc.
Mostly though I maintained a connection to Jesus, His ministry, and believed in the Resurrection, though not necessarily in the “Visible Church” or any “church” organization per se.
Then - after some 30 years or so I began to feel a strengthening tug to come home. I missed the Eucharist and the mass, I missed the community. But - unfortunately now I had impediments (divorce and remarriage) in the way.
This remained a problem for awhile until I received a letter, more or less out of the blue, from my Godfather encouraging me to seek an annulment. I did this and - beyond hope - It was granted (Praise be to God). This allowed both my wife and I to return to the sacraments - for her, just before she succumbed to the mists of Alzheimer’s.

So - now that I had returned, I had to check all of my independently arrived at “understandings” against the teachings of the Church. When I discovered CAF, I found a wonderful place to do just that. Boy did I have some weird ones too. :rolleyes: Bible based, but wrronngg…😊

Now, I try to keep learning, care for my beautiful wife, and hopefully when her journey is over I will be able to go out into the wider world and share this great faith with others.

Peace
James
 
there is a site of conversion stories www.whyimcatholic.com

I myself I dont know if im a convert. I was raised in Evangelical church cause of my grandma, I never liked it,seemed like a show to me.Then my grandpa started taking me to Episcopal church,then the Anglican church and did the Sacraments there.Then my mom starting going and took me to the Mormons and I even got baptized.Then I met my husband to be and he was a cradle catholic,I had always been drawn to the catholic church as a child but was never taken,I even wanted to be a nun.So since I had the sacraments we married by the catholic church and went to mass ocasionally,maybe once a month and sometimes months went by without going.Now 20 years later I am learning about the roman catholic faith,to be able to live it and defend it and educate those who dont understand it.I am involved in ministries at church,I read the bible online ( I recommend this site for those who dont like to read ,you can listen to it while you read it at www.evangeli.net)II) have a prayer life,Morning prayers,Angelous at 12 ,Divine Mercy at 3pm and I TRY to be an exemplary catholic

I saw your blog,very nice,God Bless and Happy Easter
 
Last night I feel as if I officially “came home” with my Confirmation! I grew up in a household where we went to the Church of Christ (not LDS) when I was younger, and were pretty active until I was about 6 and we moved. After that we really did not go to church much until we moved to my main childhood home, and began attending the Baptist Church, where I was baptised. I never really felt a very strong connection to that church, or even others I attended in the area, and just sort of fell away from church-going for several years.

In 2009 my husband and I got married in a Lutheran church, and became members there as our beliefs seemed to align with theirs. Now, he had grown up Catholic and has been confirmed years earlier, but for whatever reason, he too had fallen away from the church. We half-heartedly tried to continue to go to church after out wedding, but seemed to feel no connection at that parish (noticing a trend here? ;)) On August 6th, 2010 we welcomed out daughter, Emma, into the world, and I began to think about how I wanted to raise her in a Christian home with strong values and morals, but it wasn’t until December of 2010 that I even considered the Catholic church, as it was a topic brought up to me by my brother, who was struggling to find where he felt he belonged as well. His thoughts gave me some fuel for though, and in August of 2011 my husband and I began to talk about our daughter’s religious future, and how we wanted the best for her and for our family.

It was then that he asked if I had ever considered Catholicism, to which I replied “Not really, but I would like to learn more about it because religion fascinates me.” Lucky for me, he had found a parish that was preparing to start up Rcia classes, and so I signed up. Well, the more classes I attended, and the more I learned, the more I felt that I had a gross misunderstanding of the Church and their ways, and the more I felt that their views totally made sense 🙂 So after 7-8 months of classes, retreats, scrutinies, and numerous other things, I finally made it to the Easter Vigil, and was confirmed last night 🙂 I feel an incredible amount of support and community from this parish, and am amazed and how the Holy Spirit has worked in my life. If I had found what I thought I was looking for in the other churches, I never would have “returned” home 🙂
 
I was baptised (in my current home parish) back in 1986. My Mother had always brought me up as Catholic. At the age of 10, I had a cousin from out of town that came to visit. She was one of those “born again Christians”. There was a bible chapel just down the road from the Catholic Church that I used to go to. Now the Catholic Church that I used to go to is not my home parish.

Anyway my cousin wanted to go to the bible chapel and brought me a long. I enjoyed it and my cousin asked me to keep going there so I did.

I went to the bible chapel from 1996-2008.

A very good friend of mine from the chapel who is like a sister, got pregnant outside of wedlock and had a beautiful baby boy back in 2006. However, she was in a very loving and committed relationship with the Father for over 10 years at this point and is still with him today. After this happened, people started shunning her and wouldn’t even look at her or the baby. I remember clearly one older man in the church, a deacon, didn’t acknowledge the baby until he was almost 12 months old. The deacons/elders demanded that the Pastor not allow her to have a baby shower in the church hall, they didn’t even want it announced that she was pregnant, and didn’t want it announced when he was born.

People started shunning me as well when I would pick him up and carry him around the church and sing to him. I didn’t care though that they shunned me. What annoyed me more than anything is that the elders would nag me about my fiancee (now husband) not comming to the service with me regularly. He didn’t like to go because he found them too nosy and over bearing. I would tell them that with all do respect if they were going to nag me that they should also nag the women who were atcually married, whose husbands were at home laying on the couch watching football, seriously!

In 2007, the pastor of more than 10 years retired and moved away. This was when things got really bad because it took them almost 2 years to find a replacement.

The last straw was in the summer of 2008 during a BBQ and elder yelled at me for being on the sidewalk.Yes, it’s true. I felt that obviously I didn’t fit in here anymore. I knew it my heart that it was time to move on.

I kind of strayed away from church all together for 3 years. Then I started having dreams where Jesus was lifting his arms and pointing. So I went back to the church where I was baptised. This was October 2011. I had a rough time in those 3 years. Anxiety, depression, suicidal, eating disorder, Jesus saved my life my bringing me back to the church and getting involved with RCIA. I was baptised in this church, I got married in it in 2010, and was confirmed and did communion on saturday night. I love Jesus so much and can’t thank him enough. I’ve made wonderful friends in this church, it’s where I belonged all along and feel very blessed 😃
 
God’s grace has amazing power to sometimes turn the worst of motives into the best of outcomes. I was raised secular Reform Jewish. I stopped identifying as anything but culturally Jewish after college. Shortly before becoming Christian, believe it or not, I was even avidly reading Dawkins and Hitchens! All my life I had yearnings for God but besides some experiments with Eastern religion and a brief attempt to return to Judaism, I consistently kept my heart hardened. I never considered going to church. My family and friends were all decidedly anti-Christian and I completely agreed with them.

Then, when I was 29, I met a beautiful girl from the other coast who was a fundamentalist baptist, but obviously wanting to stray. We started a long distance relationship. She “fell in love” with me, and I with her (though it was really only lust and infatuation), and she became concerned for the fate of my soul. She didn’t want me to go to hell because I hadn’t accepted Jesus. More importantly, she wouldn’t continue seeing me if I didn’t at least give church a try. t reluctantly agreed to start attending a nondenominational church. They gave me the book “The Case for Faith,” and within a month God broke down my resistance and I was, in evangelical terminology, “saved.”

I got very involved in this church. I volunteered to be a greeter at the door, joined book study groups, started teaching Sunday school, joined the worship band, tithed. I read the bible A LOT. I also picked up The Seven Storey Mountain and loved it. I had read Merton before when I was doing a paper in high school on Zen Buddhism. I started reading all about Catholic theology, reading the Church Fathers, etc. I wanted more and more to be Catholic but this girl and her family were VERY anti-Catholic and she would have none of it. I couldn’t see myself moving to California and playing the Baptist husband, nor could I see myself giving up drinking, as would have been required by her church, because at the time I was an active alcoholic. These two things led to our breakup, and two important things followed. First, within a few months I joined AA and sobered up. Second, I felt more free to fully investigate Catholicism. I read more, started going to Mass sometimes, and began going to retreats at a Cistercian monastery. In sobriety, I gained the courage and support to make many changes I was too afraid to make before, and one of those changes was leaving the nondenom church and starting RCIA.

What made me want to be Catholic? Intellectually, it was the tradition, the history, and, although Protestants (especially Baptists and evangelicals) claim to be Bible based, I found Catholic interpretations of the Bible to be more complete and accurate. Once saved always saved? I read the whole New Testament and just couldn’t buy it. Baptism only a symbol, not a sacrament? Sure didn’t seem like it to me. Besides the intellectual, I felt a strong pull towards the liturgy, and, most importantly, the sacraments. On Easter Vigil mass in 2010, I finally came home. And that’s my conversion story.
 
Thank you! You’re all lovely. May Goud continue to pour His blessings on you!
 
I was baptized, confirmed, and received first communion last Saturday at the Easter Vigil. I was raised Mormon, even served for 2 years as a Mormon missionary. To make a long story short, a few years ago I came to realize that the Mormon church was not what it claimed to be and at the same time I discovered the ancient Christian faith. After much study, prayer, and trials I found that Christ was calling me to his Catholic Church.

And here I am, by God’s grace, enjoying my first week as a member of the Body of Christ. Maybe some day the rest of my family will enter into the Church as well.
 
Safia said:
I am a major, major fan of conversion (or reversion) stories.

Anyone out there willing to share, especially of those Confirmed last night? (Welcome home!)

God bless, everyone, and the most blessed Easter to you!
Click to expand...
Well to start off I was Baptized Catholic. I really hated going to Church as a young boy and I really never had an interest in Catholicism.I did First Communion and then Confirmation. I was going through the motions. I thought I would be immediately saved if I did these things. I was somewhat consistent after confirmation. But, 2 years after confirmation I got into drugs, alcohol, lusting, partying, clubbing, etc. I stopped going because I knew God did not approve of those things So I stopped going to church. I then became a non-practicing Catholic for so many years.

While taking a Religion class we had to do this project in which you interview someone outside your Religion. I interviewed a Baptist. I went to his Church and observed the service. I then did a lengthy interview afterwards. This Baptist told me his wonderful testimony of how God worked in his life and gave him so many blessings and gifts. This was when I started to become really curious and interested. After doing this project I started to question my own Religion even though I was not active.

So then I guess I decided to come back. Before sleeping I got on my knees and prayed to God. I told Him I was sorry of all the things I have done. I prayed that He would come into my life. I prayed the Hail Mary, Our Father, and Apostle’s Creed. After that everything just took off. I felt some kind of supernatural push or kick to get really serious about my Catholic Faith. So, in December 2011 I officially came back.

Ever since then I have been watching a lot of EWTN, praying, and attending Church regularly. I even bought a Bible.

But, here is the stickler it took me a very very long time to go to confession. On Divine Mercy Sunday I both went to confession and received Holy Communion for the very first time after 7 years.
 
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