CONVERTS, do you have a moment?

[CleverUserName]

My story is rather long, but I’ll try to condense it as best as I can.

I was raised primarily Baptist, although I have vague memories of seeing my parents being baptized at an AoG church. We went to a few other churches, but I was too young to really remember.
My mom was VERY anti-Catholic. I was told that Catholics were not even Christians, and I was to have nothing to do with them so as not to be corrupted.
Well, as I got older, I started to question a lot of things. I dabbled a little in Wicca and stuff like that, that my friends were into. I never really got how church was related to what I read in the Bible, because to me, the sermons always seemed to contradict things I read. I decided to try and find answers, so I attended an nondenominational Bible school for one year. I wound up with more doubts than when I started.
I eventually moved to a larger city to attend University, and I tried a plethora of churches and denominations. I even wound up in a cult for a while (long story there). Eventually, I got sick of it all. No one could answer my doubts and questions, and most never even tried. So I gave up.

This is the where the weird part happens- I decided I wasn’t going to be a Christian anymore, and declared myself a neo-pagan. I practiced that for a while, until one day, out of nowhere, when I was meditating, I heard this voice. It told me to stop, before it was too late, and if I didn’t, there was no going back - and I was abruptly thrown out of a trance into full consciousness. It really freaked me out. I thought about God, and the church, and I felt full of despair. How could I go back to something that was meaningless to me. I tried a few churches, but it was all the same as before. I was ready to give up again, then a thought popped into my head “you might as well try the Catholic Church. It’s not like it can get any worse than that.”
So I went to the library and signed out Catholicism for Dummies and read it cover to cover. And I found the answers I was looking for. It hit me that the Catholic Church was what I had been searching for my whole life, I just didn’t know it until that moment.

Long story short, I was received into the Church Easter 2011, and it was the best decision I ever made.

What a great story. I felt like you did, that this was what I’d been looking for all along. That moment when you were meditating…goosebumps!

 

[CleverUserName]

@Daizies…I too heard a lot of anti-Catholic rhetoric and hate that kept me from looking into the Church. And I also had one of those “Well, I’ll even go to the Catholic Church to find the truth, if that’s where God wants me” moments. Considering all the animus against the Church in Western society it’s just plain miraculous that God calls people, seemingly out of the blue, to investigate his Church. Every little seed planted along the way, induced by frustration at being told half-truths, fudged speculations and outright lies by well-meaning people often does the trick. I have to wonder what those who tried so hard to drive us away from Christ’s Church would think if they knew their tactics only made us all the more curious and hungry for the truth, don’t you?

Ooooh yes yes and YES I agree with you.

Another “moment” I had was talking to a Catholic friend of mine about some anti-Catholic bs I’d seen on TV. I said “Geez when people want to take a shot at Christians, they always aim at the Catholic Church. Even the media seems to single out the Catholic Church”. She looked at me and said:

“Why do you think that is? If the devil had a gun, where would he point it?”

 

[CleverUserName]

**After reading C.S. Lewis and “Mere Christianity”, followed by Augustine’s “Confessions”, **I began to undertake a study of the book of Revelation. I wasn’t looking to convert. Anyway, I had a theory that Revelation is the interpretation of the OT prophets, and since most of the symbols can be found in Scripture it meant reading the whole Bible. Including the Deuterocanon(called by some Apocrypha).

Now I had accepted Calvinism and its denial of free will, which I saw as the only way to reconcile sola fide to God’s justice. Reading the Bible led to many discoveries, the first that although I thought I knew Bible there were parts I ignored, like Leviticus and Chronicles. The second in the New Testament was that free will existed. This brought back doubts I had ever since hearing Sola Fide and thje Sinner’s prayer as a kid. Back then I had searched the Bible in vain to find where, anywhere, that it explicitly said we are saved by faith alone. I was taught the Bible as my final authority, but for some reason I never remember thinking sola fide might not be true. That was then.

After the very first line, I said “Whew!!!”. That’s some contrast there! From CS Lewis to St. Augustine. As I continued reading I smiled to myself thinking “who said you can’t find God intellectually”. Enjoyed very much the breadth of your studies. Great story.

Some time after coming to re-acccept free will, I read the book of James, and 2:24 to be exact. Although I had been taught a certain way to read this and seen it before, it occured that nothing in the context changed what James was saying. This torpedoed the entire Reformation in my mind. Justification/the Gospel was the central issue, and if Luther had been wrong then nothing else he or the Reformers said mattered.

This started a traumatic period in my life which did not immediately see me embrace the Catholic Church. Even though Luther was wrong I had a cultural and ingrained bias against Catholicism. I took a detour through Eastern Orthodoxy, but came to have questions about their teaching on the Pope. If there isn’t some truth to the papal claims, where did they get started? Shortly after that I contacted the local Catholic Church, and well here I am - by the grace of God

The first line was very telling. Who says you can’t find God through intellectualism?
Very much enjoyed reading about the breadth of your studies.

 

[CleverUserName]

I am not a convert but was thinking converting to protestantism sometime in college when I was studying in a protestant school. I thanked my mother for stopping me eventhough her father was a protestant. She was a Catholic.

I did not grow up ideally a Catholic but a generallly considered Catholic which means that I just branded myself as “Catholic”. Learning Catechism in elementary grades makes you forget as you grow older if your parents are not that religious.

The moment of truth came during the 9/11 incident. I was in New York working. It did not strike me as a Catholic at first but had to think for several days the acts of those who gave up their lives for their “faith”. May it be terrorism for the innocents but I don’t think those Muslims acted with malice, but faith “maybe” in their religion. Many Catholics in our Church walked out when the Franciscan Priest mentioned about how proud those men with their faith because they offered their lives for it. It was a very sensitive statement for those who lost love ones, but I understood what the Priest was trying to explain.

It woke me up from my slumber of being a “Catholic”. I gave a hard thought on “Why” and how their faith a religion to die for. Suddenly, it struck me for an answer, “it was not faith but hate”. From then on, I restudied my faith. It brought so much joy for me because for all those years I took my religon for granted, now I found peace in learning that my faith is the true faith and thanked God for not letting me go.

Not faith, but hate…indeed.
I am glad you’ve found peace in your faith now. He’ll never let you go

 

[CleverUserName]

I was far too young at my conversion to have been convinced by deep theology so it really was much more subjective for me. I wrote this for my blog a while back:

I don’t really know why I became a Catholic. My decision to join the Church was about 13 years ago now, though I wasn’t actually baptised until 4 years after that. I was never baptised as an infant and my parents were always very open as to why: my father was a Catholic but my mother was an Anglican. They couldn’t decide which church to have me baptised in so left it up to my own decision.

I was about 8 years old when I decided to become a Catholic. I attended an Anglican church every Sunday and to all intents and purposes I was considered an Anglican. I went to Sunday School and every week I’d go up to the altar with my arms crossed across my chest to receive a blessing. I did, however, attend a private Catholic school. Most of the students were Catholic, this being in an area where almost 80% of the population is Catholic. At school I went to chapel several days a week, every day when I was older.

I remember the rest of my class preparing for their First Holy Communion. As an Anglican I, along with a few other Anglicans and a Muslim classmate, was not involved. I also remember being intensely jealous of my Catholic classmates. I can’t remember exactly why and there was probably something very silly about it but also something intensely providential as well. I didn’t even understand really what it was, I knew nothing of the Real Presence. All I knew was that they had something I intensely wanted and looking back I think even then something drew me to the Eucharist. I could easily have been baptised Anglican and taken First Communion with my friends from Sunday School. But the desire in my heart was the the Catholic Eucharist, something I didn’t really understand but have come to love so intensely.

I may only have been a child but I saw something in Catholicism that Anglicanism lacked. I don’t know what that was, realistically my understanding of the differences was basically non-existent but all I knew was that I belonged in the Catholic Church. I suppose in the end what it comes down to is that I became a Catholic because I felt God calling me there.

You sound like a “biological Catholic” to me.
I found your “jealousy” very telling, and beautiful. Perfect testimony for the Eucharist.

 

[CleverUserName]

Anyway…just speculating…could this elderly lady have any resemblance to St. Bernadette…though looking old?

 

[jlhargus]

Sunday we had some time after church before a family dinner so I was flipping through the TV channels and stopped on ‘The song of Bernedette’…and watched…and I am not kidding you, it was like a switch went of in my head! I cannot explain it. In the 2 hrs or so while I watched, my heart changed…I had to know more about this Faith! And all of a sudden I did not dread the upcoming baptism!..I was looking forward to it!..when we returned home that evening, I found Catholic Answers…and was up until after 1 am reading. And have been studying and reading since then. Even though we know that it will be tough at times…my wife and I are seriously thinking of RCIA this fall. Looking back at it all, I really think that God was preparing me over the last 4 yrs or so.

The movie that got me started on the road to Rome was Our Lady of Fatima. I had seen it, the first time, just after graduating high school. I was moved to tears at the end with the miracle of the sun. I came to the conclusion it was just a movie and put it out of my mind in a couple days. Ten years latter, a few years after being baptized in a non-denominational church. I saw the movie again and again I was moved to tears. This time I started looking into the Fatima apparitions. Long story short about a year latter I was taking instructions in the Catholic faith. Looking back on my conversion and being baptized. I can see God was calling me to the Catholic Church all along. But I had those misconceptions that so many Protestants still have.

 

[GoldenSunflower]

Thanks to all who have read of my strange experience and commented. It was 15 September 2011, the day I walked into the library - the book sale was on 17 Sept. I’ve lived in this community on and off since 1988, and for the 10 past years, right here with the library very near.

Anyway…just speculating…could this elderly lady have any resemblance to St. Bernadette…though looking old?

You know, I had not been in that library for almost 2 years before Sept 15th - but I’ve been many times since, hoping to see the woman so I could tell her. Most of our librarians are volunteers, but apparently none of them even remember such a volunteer when I ask them about her!

After I read the book and looked on the Internet and saw Bernadette, I was looking for things regarding shepherds and stuff in that part of France, just to see what the lifestyle of the area was… and all the time I kept coming up with Google trying to send me to ‘Good Shepherd’ sites of one kind or another… including the website of the Catholic Church that is only a mile away from my house… Good Shepherd Catholic Church.

So I went to their website, found a link for if you were curious about the Catholic Church and sent them an email asking if they had classes and how much they cost. I figured I’d never hear back from them to be honest about it… but they DID reply - and they said the class would be at no cost even!

Then I got kind of scared. Dead people who don’t decay, springs that heal people by no understandable method or reason… and me - the buddhist, indian, wiccan? So I figured, well, its not like I have to go…

And so for a week I drove around my little community, and it really got to be wierd! Every stop light I’d come to, there would be cars with Good Shepherd bumper stickers in front of me, or another time, one in front of me to the right side, or another time one in the lane to the other side. I’ve lived here for years, and I’ve seen bumper stickers for the Church maybe, oh - once every few months, and now it was like they were everywhere, anytime I left the house!

When I was taking my mother to the store during the week, and we were sitting at a stoplight no where near the Church, and I realized 5 cars around me ALL had Good Shepherd stickers with only 2 that had none… and then where we went cars had the stickers, and on the way home more cars had them… and that was when I finally said 'Okay God- I get the message - I will go see what they are doing at Good Shepherd".

Since then, I have seen exactly 4 of these stickers in my driving around town, not counting the one that is now on the back of my own car. I’ve even counted the stickers I see at church… and I think there were more on the streets in late Sept last year than I can account for ever seeing in the church parking lot.

My first day of RCIA class was 2 October 2011… the classes had started a few weeks before, but they let me join anyway. Within weeks I was ‘haunted’ with this image of a little minature replica grotto of Lourdes that just wouldn’t leave me alone… and this empty wooden box I had bought 2 years before and never done anything with… but that is another strange story.

I don’t know if the woman was an angel, or St. Bernadette, or Our Lady herself who ‘came to collect me’ that day at the library, but I have been praising God and giving thanks ever since.

(sorry for not knowing how the quotes thing works here - I’m VERY new here as you can see)

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

And so for a week I drove around my little community, and it really got to be wierd! Every stop light I’d come to, there would be cars with Good Shepherd bumper stickers in front of me, or another time, one in front of me to the right side, or another time one in the lane to the other side. (…)
When I was taking my mother to the store during the week, and we were sitting at a stoplight no where near the Church, and I realized 5 cars around me ALL had Good Shepherd stickers with only 2 that had none… and then where we went cars had the stickers, and on the way home more cars had them… and that was when I finally said 'Okay God- I get the message - I will go see what they are doing at Good Shepherd".

That is so funny! LOL Wow, God really wanted you to go there and come home. He is the Best Shepherd

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Contra, I just have to say how much I love your posts. Thanks so much for everything you’ve contributed to this little thread of mine. I think I could read you forever.

Ooooh, thank you, that is very kind.

I’ve really enjoyed following this thread. I find conversion stories amazing, I’m never bored of them. Everybody has a different story, and we come from such different backgrounds. But there is something that unites all our conversions and in the end we just have one story of seeking and variations on the theme.

There often are conversion threads on CAF but I like how you asked about a moment where we knew we had to do it. I think most converts will agree that there was indeed a moment when they knew, when it all made sense. That is the beginning of the real journey, although it might feel like the end of the race for those who seeked the Truth for a long time.

I hope we have many more testimonies coming.

 

[maltmom]

… and this empty wooden box I had bought 2 years before and never done anything with… but that is another strange story.

I’m ready for the rest of the story.

 

[pablope]

Originally Posted by GoldenSunflower View Post
… and this empty wooden box I had bought 2 years before and never done anything with… but that is another strange story.

I’m ready for the rest of the story.

Me two…

Don’t hold us in suspense…

 

[Della]

Me two…

Don’t hold us in suspense…

Ditto.

 

[Deconi]

Thanks to all who have read of my strange experience and commented. It was 15 September 2011, the day I walked into the library - the book sale was on 17 Sept. I’ve lived in this community on and off since 1988, and for the 10 past years, right here with the library very near.

Anyway…just speculating…could this elderly lady have any resemblance to St. Bernadette…though looking old?

You know, I had not been in that library for almost 2 years before Sept 15th - but I’ve been many times since, hoping to see the woman so I could tell her. Most of our librarians are volunteers, but apparently none of them even remember such a volunteer when I ask them about her!

After I read the book and looked on the Internet and saw Bernadette, I was looking for things regarding shepherds and stuff in that part of France, just to see what the lifestyle of the area was… and all the time I kept coming up with Google trying to send me to ‘Good Shepherd’ sites of one kind or another… including the website of the Catholic Church that is only a mile away from my house… Good Shepherd Catholic Church.

So I went to their website, found a link for if you were curious about the Catholic Church and sent them an email asking if they had classes and how much they cost. I figured I’d never hear back from them to be honest about it… but they DID reply - and they said the class would be at no cost even!

Then I got kind of scared. Dead people who don’t decay, springs that heal people by no understandable method or reason… and me - the buddhist, indian, wiccan? So I figured, well, its not like I have to go…

And so for a week I drove around my little community, and it really got to be wierd! Every stop light I’d come to, there would be cars with Good Shepherd bumper stickers in front of me, or another time, one in front of me to the right side, or another time one in the lane to the other side. I’ve lived here for years, and I’ve seen bumper stickers for the Church maybe, oh - once every few months, and now it was like they were everywhere, anytime I left the house!

When I was taking my mother to the store during the week, and we were sitting at a stoplight no where near the Church, and I realized 5 cars around me ALL had Good Shepherd stickers with only 2 that had none… and then where we went cars had the stickers, and on the way home more cars had them… and that was when I finally said 'Okay God- I get the message - I will go see what they are doing at Good Shepherd".

Since then, I have seen exactly 4 of these stickers in my driving around town, not counting the one that is now on the back of my own car. I’ve even counted the stickers I see at church… and I think there were more on the streets in late Sept last year than I can account for ever seeing in the church parking lot.

My first day of RCIA class was 2 October 2011… the classes had started a few weeks before, but they let me join anyway. Within weeks I was ‘haunted’ with this image of a little minature replica grotto of Lourdes that just wouldn’t leave me alone… and this empty wooden box I had bought 2 years before and never done anything with… but that is another strange story.

I don’t know if the woman was an angel, or St. Bernadette, or Our Lady herself who ‘came to collect me’ that day at the library, but I have been praising God and giving thanks ever since.

(sorry for not knowing how the quotes thing works here - I’m VERY new here as you can see)

You SERIOUSLY need to be an author!

Give it some thought, at least. No other poster I have read here or elsewhere has ever displayed the natural talent you have for ‘visualised’ writing. Hitchcock needed moving pictures, lighting and sound to create his ‘suspense.’
You make sitting at a bus-stop sound like a visual experience…without trying!

A tweak here and there and even your conversion story can be a telemovie! I am available as a long distance manager!

You should one day endeavour to go over to visit St Benardette and you might tell her thanks for ‘freaking you into the Church!’ If the old lady shows up there, then you’ll at least know what your Guardian Angel and patron Saint looks like.

 

[PerfectTiming]

You sound like a “biological Catholic” to me.
I found your “jealousy” very telling, and beautiful. Perfect testimony for the Eucharist.

I think you’re very right. I’ve always said I don’t believe what I do because I am a Catholic, I am a Catholic because of what I believe.

 

[CleverUserName]

The movie that got me started on the road to Rome was Our Lady of Fatima. I had seen it, the first time, just after graduating high school. I was moved to tears at the end with the miracle of the sun. I came to the conclusion it was just a movie and put it out of my mind in a couple days. Ten years latter, a few years after being baptized in a non-denominational church. I saw the movie again and again I was moved to tears. This time I started looking into the Fatima apparitions. Long story short about a year latter I was taking instructions in the Catholic faith. Looking back on my conversion and being baptized. I can see God was calling me to the Catholic Church all along. But I had those misconceptions that so many Protestants still have.

I think you were being called all along, just like you said. I really want to see that movie now. HOpe I can find it online.

 

[CleverUserName]

Thanks to all who have read of my strange experience and commented. It was 15 September 2011, the day I walked into the library - the book sale was on 17 Sept. I’ve lived in this community on and off since 1988, and for the 10 past years, right here with the library very near.

Anyway…just speculating…could this elderly lady have any resemblance to St. Bernadette…though looking old?

You know, I had not been in that library for almost 2 years before Sept 15th - but I’ve been many times since, hoping to see the woman so I could tell her. Most of our librarians are volunteers, but apparently none of them even remember such a volunteer when I ask them about her!

After I read the book and looked on the Internet and saw Bernadette, I was looking for things regarding shepherds and stuff in that part of France, just to see what the lifestyle of the area was… and all the time I kept coming up with Google trying to send me to ‘Good Shepherd’ sites of one kind or another… including the website of the Catholic Church that is only a mile away from my house… Good Shepherd Catholic Church.

So I went to their website, found a link for if you were curious about the Catholic Church and sent them an email asking if they had classes and how much they cost. I figured I’d never hear back from them to be honest about it… but they DID reply - and they said the class would be at no cost even!

Then I got kind of scared. Dead people who don’t decay, springs that heal people by no understandable method or reason… and me - the buddhist, indian, wiccan? So I figured, well, its not like I have to go…

And so for a week I drove around my little community, and it really got to be wierd! Every stop light I’d come to, there would be cars with Good Shepherd bumper stickers in front of me, or another time, one in front of me to the right side, or another time one in the lane to the other side. I’ve lived here for years, and I’ve seen bumper stickers for the Church maybe, oh - once every few months, and now it was like they were everywhere, anytime I left the house!

When I was taking my mother to the store during the week, and we were sitting at a stoplight no where near the Church, and I realized 5 cars around me ALL had Good Shepherd stickers with only 2 that had none… and then where we went cars had the stickers, and on the way home more cars had them… and that was when I finally said 'Okay God- I get the message - I will go see what they are doing at Good Shepherd".

Since then, I have seen exactly 4 of these stickers in my driving around town, not counting the one that is now on the back of my own car. I’ve even counted the stickers I see at church… and I think there were more on the streets in late Sept last year than I can account for ever seeing in the church parking lot.

My first day of RCIA class was 2 October 2011… the classes had started a few weeks before, but they let me join anyway. Within weeks I was ‘haunted’ with this image of a little minature replica grotto of Lourdes that just wouldn’t leave me alone… and this empty wooden box I had bought 2 years before and never done anything with… but that is another strange story.

I don’t know if the woman was an angel, or St. Bernadette, or Our Lady herself who ‘came to collect me’ that day at the library, but I have been praising God and giving thanks ever since.

(sorry for not knowing how the quotes thing works here - I’m VERY new here as you can see)

LOL so funny all the messages from God…just in case it wasn’t clear…

You’re doing great, and we’re so glad to have you here. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you some through your posts on this thread.

 

[maltmom]

You SERIOUSLY need to be an author!

Give it some thought, at least. No other poster I have read here or elsewhere has ever displayed the natural talent you have for ‘visualised’ writing. Hitchcock needed moving pictures, lighting and sound to create his ‘suspense.’
You make sitting at a bus-stop sound like a visual experience…without trying!

A tweak here and there and even your conversion story can be a telemovie! I am available as a long distance manager!

You should one day endeavour to go over to visit St Benardette and you might tell her thanks for ‘freaking you into the Church!’ If the old lady shows up there, then you’ll at least know what your Guardian Angel and patron Saint looks like.

^^^^^^^ :clapping::clapping::clapping:

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

Within weeks I was ‘haunted’ with this image of a little minature replica grotto of Lourdes that just wouldn’t leave me alone… and this empty wooden box I had bought 2 years before and never done anything with… but that is another strange story.

C’mon now, you can’t leave us teasing like this

 

[Nabooru]

I have not converted…yet. I’m still thinking that I might very well do so, feeling the strongest pull that at times is almost painful, but there are still some issues I need to work out.

Anyway, I live in St Louis, which is a beautiful city (provided you don’t go north of Delmar Blvd), and very, very Catholic. I was raised, however, a die-hard LCMS Lutheran. My grandmother hated Catholics with a passion. My aunt merely considered converting to the Catholic faith because she was marrying one, and my grandmother did not speak to her for two years. She eventually bullied both my aunt and her husband into being Protestants. My mother wasn’t quite so forceful but certainly was not a fan. My father played at religion when I was a child, but had to hide his contempt at faith, which was very difficult for him. Now he’s not so shy these days… He’s living proof that life without God is misery.

Anyway, I went to a Lutheran school and honestly didn’t even know other religions existed. We lived in a Lutheran bubble. One project I had to do for school was to visit the Old Cathedral on the riverfront as a historic St Louis building. I was intrigued by the inside, with its altars and a deep feeling of sanctity.

There was always something drifting in my head making me admire Catholicism. It made no sense since I was raised to hate it. The Pope came to visit our city in 1999 and seeing people line up to offer devotion to him was really over my head. Then in an audience he mentioned the recent St Louis baseball season and the crowd LOST IT. That is a fond memory. The Pope seemed approachable then.

Although for a while I was a devout Lutheran, I couldn’t deny that next to a Catholic church, it was empty. I remember in confirmation class our pastor asking us how we knew we were saved. We stared at each other. He told us it was because we were so awfully repentant for every sin we ever committed. I couldn’t even keep track of all the sins I committed! And he knew it, so he said that we were sorry for all our sins because of our faith. Gulp. I didn’t know how that worked out. It all seemed very vague and hard to define.

I decided at about 18 that I was just too good and smart for Christianity. I grew to hate it intensely, and campaigned and railed against it, but somehow I never felt sincere when hating on Catholicism. I would go through periods of admitting and denying my love for it.

During an admitting period I talked my mother into taking me to the New Cathedral, the seat of the Archbishop. I am telling you now, if you have never seen the cathedral in St Louis, you have not lived. When I entered it I felt like the builders had done their best to approximate Heaven. It was silent. There were chapels on all sides, for different purposes of prayer. For some reason that made infinite sense to me. But I fell away. I gave in to the Devil.

I got involved in New Age, Buddhism and Hinduism. Like I said, I was too smart for Christianity, and I think that insufferable pride is what kept me from being a Christian. I was enlightened, I was literally God, master of my own destiny and as a future Ascended Master/bodhisattva/Sri Guruni, I was also influential in the running of the universe. Christians were to be pitied and reviled, but everyone else was okay. They were all on wonderful spiritual paths. They weren’t as good as me, of course - I was wise beyond my years due to all of my previous lives, which I was getting close to wrapping up. But as long as they were faithful and did what was right, they were good to go. It was all relative.

So try seeing 9/11 and telling yourself that it was okay because those terrorists were just doing what they truly believed was right in God’s eyes. The massacres of Christians in the middle east because of their faith, I tried to tell myself, was just cultural differences. But if, as I believed, there was no such thing as “wrong” or “right”, just forward or backward (and I couldn’t know what was so for other people), then why did it feel so wrong?

One night I had a nightmare. I’d been confused and fumbling towards my goal of enlightenment for a while. Basically, my dream was God saying to me, “You want to be Me? You think you’re Me? You want to run the universe? Go ahead, give it a shot.” The best way I can describe it is to say that it was like that scene in the last Indiana Jones movie, in which the Soviet psychic was destroyed by being overwhelmed with things beyond her comprehension when she begged the aliens to grant her the knowledge of everything. It was incredibly humbling. I had never been “one with God” because I was His creation. This nightmare had such an impact on me that I had a panic attack that lasted for two days. My world and the way I had constructed it was destroyed.

I’m waaaaaaaay rambling here. But to put it simply I discovered I could not through my own merits save myself or make myself godlike. I needed a savior. I started attending an Anglican church shortly after. Whether or not my pilgrimage will take me to Rome remains to be seen.

I would like to add as a footnote that we do have a need to bring people to Christ, because like them, I was in that darkness and in a single night descended into the horror and despair that life apart from the true God is.