C
coffeeandmuffins
Guest
Well, I seem to get long winded with my stories, so I'll try to keep this short.
I was baptized and raised a devout Catholic i.e. we were not of the cafeteria variety. Prayed together as a family, participated in church activities, went to Sunday school, performed all the sacraments; it was a big part of our lives. Childhood became tough, mom struggled to keep us together because dad had other plans (drugs and infidelity). It was chaos, dysfunction (your basic nightmare) my only way of coping and finding peace was talking out loud as a little girl to Jesus, my prayers were more like "Hi Jesus" than 'Our Father'. In my innocence I really did believe in Him, that He was there listening to me, consoling me, and helping me deal with a world I wasn't ready for.
Mom divorced (it was the healthier choice for all of us) around the time I began middle school i.e. hell. Hahaha. Shortly after found someone else, couldn't marry him in the church because the first marriage wasn't annuled with the Pope (send your case to the Vatican for approval), she became bitter, and religion of any kind ceased to exist in our house. Actually she began to do more New Age type of things, holidays became secular, and I felt torn between loyalty to my mom and to my faith. I was extrememly depressed as a teen, felt my foundation had been ripped out from under me, the only stability I had was gone. Spiraled into thoughts of suicide, became a loner and just lived within myself.
Began to research other denominations, faiths, went to a Buddhist temple, an Orthodox church, Jehovah's Witness temple, Presbyterian, non-denominational. I felt like I was betraying Catholicism, then I became disillusioned and decided God didn't exist and Jesus was just the story of a nice man that someone wrote a long time ago. I dabbled in Paganism for a few years, of the Wiccan type, felt really silly praying to gods, couldn't do that much longer. I actually had a dream that a demon lured me into a cabin and when I stood in front of it I heard a woman whisper that I should burn the books I had about Paganism. Scared me to pieces, but any other way, my heart was never in any religion I ever experimented with.
I overcame my hang-ups, complexes, what have you. Therapy helped, listening to older, wiser people helped, so did a lot of reading, self-exploration, all that. People say they don't recognize me, I became a completely different person, a better person! I'm happy, I began to do a lot of volunteer work, won some awards for hobbies I excel in, made a lot of friends, met the love of my life and married him! We're expecting our first child at the end of this year and madly in love. Our lives are parallel, very similar childhoods and even spiritual journeys, all the way from talking out loud to Jesus as kids.
Since even before my pregnancy we wanted to have that relationship again with the Lord. We tried going to church together, a Catholic church (get back to our roots) and couldn't reconcile a lot of things like the power of the Vatican, the adornments made of gold and money period, the birth control issue, the lack of a close knit community (huge churches with tons of believers don't suit our needs), the heavy involvement of the church with the government in the country we live in (we're not fans of any religion influencing law and government), etc.
I really don't know where to begin in building up that relationship with Jesus again. We know we need to buy a bible. My husband dated and was engaged to a Jehovah's Witness for five years so he has all kinds of nutty ideas about the bible, he was completely misinformed and it's the only bible he ever read apart from whatever they taught him in Catholic Sunday school or whatever he heard at the Catholic mass. I've shared this information with him and he was actually surprised, though he never converted or went regularly to the JW meetings, I can hear, from his words, how much of a grip they once had.
Anyway, there's a lot to think about. I'm trying to think about how to approach my husband about finding a new church, my desire to be apart of a Christian community. I don't want him to fear running into another JW type of situation now that he sees how false it was and I don't want to be like my sister-in-law, always at odds with husbands very Catholic mother about her being a Christian.
Any advice?
I was baptized and raised a devout Catholic i.e. we were not of the cafeteria variety. Prayed together as a family, participated in church activities, went to Sunday school, performed all the sacraments; it was a big part of our lives. Childhood became tough, mom struggled to keep us together because dad had other plans (drugs and infidelity). It was chaos, dysfunction (your basic nightmare) my only way of coping and finding peace was talking out loud as a little girl to Jesus, my prayers were more like "Hi Jesus" than 'Our Father'. In my innocence I really did believe in Him, that He was there listening to me, consoling me, and helping me deal with a world I wasn't ready for.
Mom divorced (it was the healthier choice for all of us) around the time I began middle school i.e. hell. Hahaha. Shortly after found someone else, couldn't marry him in the church because the first marriage wasn't annuled with the Pope (send your case to the Vatican for approval), she became bitter, and religion of any kind ceased to exist in our house. Actually she began to do more New Age type of things, holidays became secular, and I felt torn between loyalty to my mom and to my faith. I was extrememly depressed as a teen, felt my foundation had been ripped out from under me, the only stability I had was gone. Spiraled into thoughts of suicide, became a loner and just lived within myself.
Began to research other denominations, faiths, went to a Buddhist temple, an Orthodox church, Jehovah's Witness temple, Presbyterian, non-denominational. I felt like I was betraying Catholicism, then I became disillusioned and decided God didn't exist and Jesus was just the story of a nice man that someone wrote a long time ago. I dabbled in Paganism for a few years, of the Wiccan type, felt really silly praying to gods, couldn't do that much longer. I actually had a dream that a demon lured me into a cabin and when I stood in front of it I heard a woman whisper that I should burn the books I had about Paganism. Scared me to pieces, but any other way, my heart was never in any religion I ever experimented with.
I overcame my hang-ups, complexes, what have you. Therapy helped, listening to older, wiser people helped, so did a lot of reading, self-exploration, all that. People say they don't recognize me, I became a completely different person, a better person! I'm happy, I began to do a lot of volunteer work, won some awards for hobbies I excel in, made a lot of friends, met the love of my life and married him! We're expecting our first child at the end of this year and madly in love. Our lives are parallel, very similar childhoods and even spiritual journeys, all the way from talking out loud to Jesus as kids.
Since even before my pregnancy we wanted to have that relationship again with the Lord. We tried going to church together, a Catholic church (get back to our roots) and couldn't reconcile a lot of things like the power of the Vatican, the adornments made of gold and money period, the birth control issue, the lack of a close knit community (huge churches with tons of believers don't suit our needs), the heavy involvement of the church with the government in the country we live in (we're not fans of any religion influencing law and government), etc.
I really don't know where to begin in building up that relationship with Jesus again. We know we need to buy a bible. My husband dated and was engaged to a Jehovah's Witness for five years so he has all kinds of nutty ideas about the bible, he was completely misinformed and it's the only bible he ever read apart from whatever they taught him in Catholic Sunday school or whatever he heard at the Catholic mass. I've shared this information with him and he was actually surprised, though he never converted or went regularly to the JW meetings, I can hear, from his words, how much of a grip they once had.
Anyway, there's a lot to think about. I'm trying to think about how to approach my husband about finding a new church, my desire to be apart of a Christian community. I don't want him to fear running into another JW type of situation now that he sees how false it was and I don't want to be like my sister-in-law, always at odds with husbands very Catholic mother about her being a Christian.
Any advice?
