Reading some of the Catholic beliefs, I thought āyes! Christianity finally makes sense!ā
This has also been my experience! For me, Christianity used to be a good code for living a moral life but regrettably made no sense and therefore couldnāt be believed. Thanks for sharing your story. Iām impressed that you were researching and pondering your religion in the six and seventh grade. I knew that some things that my Reformed-Baptist church taught were āoffā, but I didnāt really begin the necessary research until I was in my twenties. (Previously, I had just assumed that everyone was wrong, and some churches were just more wrong than others.)
OP, I have enjoyed reading Protestant-to-Catholic stories such as āBorn Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholicā by David Currie; āCrossing the Tiberā by Stephen Ray; and the āSurprised By Truthā collections compiled by Patrick Madrid. I was astonished and encouraged to see many of my own experiences and reflections echoed by so many other people. They also helped me to reflect on the mental and emotional processes that I have already been through; its easy for me to get lazy and forget.
Here is some of my story: I apologize ahead of time for the length. I tried to offer the post-length version, but the book-length one crept in a little.
A few problems that I had with my Christian background long before I ādiscoveredā Catholicism: Scripture indicates that it was written through and for the church. It didnāt start the church and it doesnāt contain everything taught by/to the church. Constantly going āback to the bookā made no sense to me; because I had no reason to trust in the authority of the church, I did not trust the authority of āthe bookā either. I had been taught that no one knew what the early church practised and believed except for what was written in scripture; therefore only scripture could be trusted to pass on those beliefs, and many churches that I was familiar with were trying to recreate the early church by modeling their congregations after their leadershipās impression of what the scriptural early church
could have been like (minus the headcoverings for women, usually
). Occasionally I heard one of the Church Fathers quoted, but in a limited context.
From scripture I realized that there ought to be ongoing apostolic authority, and I heard that this authority, along with some of the promised gifts of the Holy Spirit, died with the apostles. What a cruel joke! Christianity had barely begun, and the apostles had only dealt with a few small doctrinal snarls before they were taken away and the new religion was left an orphan to fend for itself. (I thought God had planned that very poorly.)
I donāt remember which book its in, but Charles Williams, an Anglican author, mentioned Mary in such a way that I thought, āSheās the Mother of God! She helped with the Incarnation! Why didnāt I ever think of her that way?ā I had often thought about Jesus, born of a virgin. The virgin herself never crossed my radar. I wanted a version of Christianity that thought reverently and emphatically about Jesusās mother.
I also love George MacDonald. For years he was my sun, moon and stars; I looked to him as someone who had found the door out of a cruel, unjust system of religion, and emerged on Godās side. When I read his books, I felt that I could love and trust the heart of God, that I might turn and see the Christ standing beside me. I trusted very few Christian sources at the time, and while I didnāt agree with everything he said, most of it made sense; purgatory, the loving prayers of our dead for us and vice versa, the abhorrent injustice of predestination to hell, the compatibility of religion and science, etc.
C.S. Lewis is also a favorite. The salvation of Emeth in āThe Last Battleā seemed just and right; Emeth did the good that he could by the light that he had. (I was thrilled to learn that the CCC apparently agrees with Aslan on that.) He was the real beginning of my investigation into Catholicism ā I had heard from several sources that Christians
must not read C.S. Lewis because his works hide occult Catholic teaching and many people had been deceived by his writings into joining themselves to pagan Rome.
(Iāve also been warned, by people who were ātoo afraidā to read his books, that George MacDonald was a satanist.
) Much of what I loved about C.S. Lewis, was condemned as Catholic heresy, so I figured there must be something really wonderful about Catholicism.
Then I started reading bite-size pieces of the Early Fathers, mainly because I had attended an SDA church for a while and was curious to see when Christians began to worship on Sunday instead of the Sabbath. I found Ignatius of Antioch, along with other early sources, proving that the Lordās Day was honored from the time of the apostles ā not simply in addition to, but
instead of, the Saturday Sabbath. (Maybe they were still wrong; but if so, they were wrong from the start.
) I started finding stuff Iād never, ever heard of, even though I had considered myself well-trained (relatively, for a stupid layperson!) in Christianity. It was all surprisingly Catholic. I felt that I had been lied to, by the honest, loving, wonderful Christian people who sacrificed their time and talent to instruct me in the faith. It can cause a lot confusion and guilt to owe so much to very good people, and yet feel deceived at the same time.
Iād love to here conversion stories from people to give me a little guidance. It would mean a great deal to me if you shared 
