Our Testimonies

From the time I was born until I was about 10 years old, my family went to a Presbyterian church. I was brought up believing in Jesus and how He saved me but my faith was weak and uninformed even for a 10 year old. Shortly after my 10th birthday, I became really sick for a few months and lost my faith. My thought process was "If God loves me, why isn't He helping me?!". I decided right then and there that while Jesus existed and He died on the cross for me, I didn't need Him if he wasn't going to help me in my sickness. I carried on like that for the next 7 years until senior year of high school. My sister invited me to her Baptist Campus Ministry (BCM) my senior year and I fell in love with it. After I had a crisis with one of my friends, my sister invited me to go to church with her. That's when I started realizing how wrong I was in those previous 7 years. When I went off to college, I became involved in that BCM and a non-denominational church that offered free rides from campus that my roommate heard about (shoutout to my roomie!). It was in both these communities that I made leaps and bounds in learning and growing my faith unlike ever before. Later my freshman year, I met my now husband, who was/is a Catholic. The first promise we made to each other was that we would not try to convert the other. We would teach the other our beliefs but do so in a way that was agreeable for both people. For the first year to year and a half, we talked about our beliefs but not very in depth. Then, one day I went to a teaching Mass held by a priest who is known for in depth teaching Masses (shoutout to Fr. Mike!). That year, Fr. Mike decided to go in detail about the Eucharist (communion for my protestant friends) and how it mirrors the Old Testament's Passover and how intimate of a relationship Catholics have with Jesus through the Eucharist. The next morning, as I was talking to my mom about the Mass, she asked me if it was something I thought I could convert to and I said that I wasn't sure- I'd have to do more research. If you know me, you know I love researching, sometimes to a fault. I shifted the main subject of my focus to this new research project of mine on religion (though I made sure to get my classwork done well). I made lists of things to check over and consulted everything I could think of- scripture, Google, and any friendly, not extremely busy protestant I could think of for their knowledge on theology. I found that the answers and reasonings on the protestant side of the critical problems weren't sufficient for me. In addition, many of the answers on websites and from a few people would end by making assumptions and attacking what they thought to be Catholic beliefs. Then, I'd go and ask my boyfriend (now husband) and look at the Catholic explanation and there would be in-depth scripture references tying everything together along with thousands of years of wisdom and history passed down from the original apostles and I was sold. The next Easter, I joined the Catholic Church. I haven't looked back since and I know I am where I need to be!