If you want some convert stories to read, check out this TAW thread begun in 2004:
http://www.christianforums.com/t3005537/
This is what I posted there. Ten years on, it's still pretty accurate.
Hi, all.
I guess this will be my introduction to TAW. I just joined yesterday. I am also a convert to Orthodoxy. I was chrismated into an OCA mission on Holy Saturday, 2001, taking the name of Mary (sister of Martha & Lazarus), which is my given name also. I live in a Dallas suburb, and work in Dallas, near St. Seraphim Cathedral.
I grew up in a Christian family, very active in the Southern Baptist churches, youth group, choir, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, the whole shebang. After my marriage to a non-church goer, I got away from church for awhile, but after our two sons were born, I joined a SB church in Dallas and started going with them. Later, my husband started attending with us, and he and both sons were eventually baptised in Baptist churches also. By that time, though, I was already feeling the need for true worship which I felt was missing, and had been reading about different denominations and how they worshiped. By 1990, I had become convinced that the Sacraments were real, and I needed them, so I left the Baptist church and began attending an Anglican Catholic church (I didn't know at first that it was separated from ECUSA, I just knew it was "high church"). It was no accident, because it wasn't beset with the cockeyed theology of ECUSA, and was a "safe" place to learn about catholic belief and sacramental Christianity. My whole family was confirmed into that church in 1991. We were in a wonderful parish with a wonderful Priest whom I still consider my friend, but as I continued to read about the ancient Church, other questions began to arise. The "usual questions" - what is the Church, where is it, does it still exist, am I a part of it? This, plus some friends who began a home church patterned after Orthodoxy (though not canonical in any way!) started my interest in Orthodoxy. I knew there were Greek Orthodox and Russian Orthodox, etc., but that's about the extent of my knowledge.
So once again, I started reading everything I could, and around 1997 started attending some services and classes around the area. I was in a serious auto accident just before Thanksgiving that year which put things on hold for almost a year, but then hubby & I started attending "Orthodoxy 101" classes being held at Holy Trinity GO, which included a Vespers service, so it was very helpful. However, we didn't like that quite a bit of the Liturgy was in Greek, and as incredibly beautiful as their temple is and as much as we liked the young Priest, it just didn't seem quite right for us.
Then I found an OCA mission about 20 minutes away from home, and met the Priest there, who started coming to our home to instruct hubby and I. After several months, he was ready to make us Catechumens, but at that point my husband decided he couldn't leave our Anglican parish - he was too happy there to actually make the move. But we decided (together with both Priests) that it would be best for me to go ahead and convert on my own, so I was made a Catechumen in February, then brought into the Church on Holy Saturday.
It has been a struggle for me, because I'm totally alone as far as family & friends go, and my shyness keeps me from joining into the parish as much as I should. We have a new Priest who has already been very helpful in making me focus on the important things, and quit expecting perfection from myself. So I'm just trying to keep my focus on daily prayers, fasting, confessing, and receiving the Holy Mysteries, and on getting right back up when I fall down.
I love Orthodoxy. I could never worship any other way now, and I'm amazed at the almost completely different understanding of Christianity and my relationship to Christ that the Church teaches, compared to my protestant understanding. I just wish that every Christian would accept Orthodoxy!
Please pray for my husband and two sons that they will find the True Church one day, too.
Mary
