K
Keturah
Guest
I learnt about Christianity at a young age through school. My parents are atheists but I still ended up with a childrens bible. There were hymns in school assemblies, RE lessons and prayer before school lunch. I was taught about God from the start. Later I was asked along to a Christian fellowship club by a friend...I fully believed that God existed though I'm unsure whether I understood just exactly what He did for us. I don't think I fully knew and understood His gift to us.
So I ended up believing but then drifting away from God during my teens and ended up pagan for several years. Part of it was an interest in all things to do with the occult. I played around with tarot cards, runes and all kinds of methods of divination. When I moved up to a new school and could get access to the internet this turned into investigating Wicca and moving towards witchcraft. Part of it was a silly teen fascination...part of it was wanting control over my life again. I was mentally bullied and it felt like my life was being run by the bully. They were in control of whether I had a good day or a bad day, they were in control of whether I felt good about myself or not. I wanted control back. I wanted to call the shots again and not have someone else constantly trying to make me feel like crap (and most fo the time succeeding). So witchcraft...spells. They were my way of trying to influnce things at a time when I felt so powerless. I don't recall them ever working. Silly little incantations and almost burning the house down with candles...yeah, like that's going to do anything. But it made me feel a bit better for a while...eased some of the anxiety that was kicking off and which would plague me for years afterwards.
At 15 I met my husband and we became friends. At 16 we became an item and I started to put the paganism behind me fearing that my new boyfriend would think I was strange and run a mile. I don't know what I believed during that time. My beliefs weren't top of my list of interests then but I guess it was still essentially pagan as I drifted back into paganism later on once I realised my boyfriend wasn't going to think I was too weird. However, I couldn't settle on which type of paganism was right for me...I couldn't find my "path" and all the time I felt a constantly pull back towards Christianity. I constantly felt drawn to it and found myself having to fight against it in my mind.
However, in 2003 my grandad died and that was my wake up call. I took the news hard, bottled up all my grief and then turned to drowning my sorrows with bottles of wine. For months, I spent weekend after weekend drunk or recovering from a hangover as if my sole interest for the weekend was obliterating the memories from the week before. However, that wasn't really my purpose...no, every time I was drunk enough I cried. And that was the key, I'd bottled up the emotion from after my grandads death. So whilst I drank to get drunk, I got drunk to cry. After a while I started fearing what this was doing to my health and I felt I was starting to become dependant on it and craving it. I also started to look at my boyfriend...he was now my fiance and we were organising our wedding. I would look at him and feel sad as I felt he deserved so much more than this. So, I said "enough is enough" and tried to stop this on my own. I slipped up many times but all the while still had that pull towards Christianity. I decided to stop ignoring it and started reading the bible. About a month after that my husband and I married and I was saved two weeks later.
For 18 months I felt totally on fire for the Lord. I was glad I turned to Him and couldn't believe i hadn't done it sooner. I felt so happy, so at home. But things started getting rocky. Questions would come up in my mind, questioning my beliefs. The questions started leading me away from God as I asked the questions but got the wrong answers. Then more and more questions, more and more searching for answers, more and more coming to the wrong conclusions. All the time I'm actually enjoying the fact that I'm digging in my heels and pushing away from God...a process and a feeling fuelled by the bad reaction of an online friend, 18 months ago when I told him about my conversion. I questioned God severly and lost faith at the beginning of this year. Thankfully, He pulled me back pretty sharpish but I felt like I was drifting after that. Just going through the motions. Until further questioning 5 months later...questioning the existance of God altogether.
I came to the conclude that I only believed because I needed the safety and familiarity. So I rebelled against Him completely and tried to become an atheist...tried to fight against Him, push Him away and make myself not believe anymore. But much anxiety followed. I thought I was rid of the general anxiety but it came back with a vengence after that. I had no safety anymore...here I was rejecting the idea of a God and therefore I was on my own. No one to catch me should I fall. This made me push harder and just hang on until those feelings passed...I thought needing God was a bad thing. A few weeks later, I realised it wasn't. I need water, I need food, I need sleep...does needing those things make them bad, is needing those things a bad thing? No. And neither is needing God...and I do need Him, very much. I won't say how, but He woke me up to the fact that I do need Him and now He's pulling me closer than ever before. Whilst I truly repent for rebelling against God, part of me thinks that considering the situation it was needed and was part of His plan. Without that time I'd still be drifting. I'd still just be going through the motions and not actually having any kind of proper relationship with God at all.
So it's been a bit of a rocky ride...even after I accepted Christ things haven't run completely smoothly. That's life I suppose. But nevermind, like the prodigal son I've come back to the loving arms of my Father.
So I ended up believing but then drifting away from God during my teens and ended up pagan for several years. Part of it was an interest in all things to do with the occult. I played around with tarot cards, runes and all kinds of methods of divination. When I moved up to a new school and could get access to the internet this turned into investigating Wicca and moving towards witchcraft. Part of it was a silly teen fascination...part of it was wanting control over my life again. I was mentally bullied and it felt like my life was being run by the bully. They were in control of whether I had a good day or a bad day, they were in control of whether I felt good about myself or not. I wanted control back. I wanted to call the shots again and not have someone else constantly trying to make me feel like crap (and most fo the time succeeding). So witchcraft...spells. They were my way of trying to influnce things at a time when I felt so powerless. I don't recall them ever working. Silly little incantations and almost burning the house down with candles...yeah, like that's going to do anything. But it made me feel a bit better for a while...eased some of the anxiety that was kicking off and which would plague me for years afterwards.
At 15 I met my husband and we became friends. At 16 we became an item and I started to put the paganism behind me fearing that my new boyfriend would think I was strange and run a mile. I don't know what I believed during that time. My beliefs weren't top of my list of interests then but I guess it was still essentially pagan as I drifted back into paganism later on once I realised my boyfriend wasn't going to think I was too weird. However, I couldn't settle on which type of paganism was right for me...I couldn't find my "path" and all the time I felt a constantly pull back towards Christianity. I constantly felt drawn to it and found myself having to fight against it in my mind.
However, in 2003 my grandad died and that was my wake up call. I took the news hard, bottled up all my grief and then turned to drowning my sorrows with bottles of wine. For months, I spent weekend after weekend drunk or recovering from a hangover as if my sole interest for the weekend was obliterating the memories from the week before. However, that wasn't really my purpose...no, every time I was drunk enough I cried. And that was the key, I'd bottled up the emotion from after my grandads death. So whilst I drank to get drunk, I got drunk to cry. After a while I started fearing what this was doing to my health and I felt I was starting to become dependant on it and craving it. I also started to look at my boyfriend...he was now my fiance and we were organising our wedding. I would look at him and feel sad as I felt he deserved so much more than this. So, I said "enough is enough" and tried to stop this on my own. I slipped up many times but all the while still had that pull towards Christianity. I decided to stop ignoring it and started reading the bible. About a month after that my husband and I married and I was saved two weeks later.
For 18 months I felt totally on fire for the Lord. I was glad I turned to Him and couldn't believe i hadn't done it sooner. I felt so happy, so at home. But things started getting rocky. Questions would come up in my mind, questioning my beliefs. The questions started leading me away from God as I asked the questions but got the wrong answers. Then more and more questions, more and more searching for answers, more and more coming to the wrong conclusions. All the time I'm actually enjoying the fact that I'm digging in my heels and pushing away from God...a process and a feeling fuelled by the bad reaction of an online friend, 18 months ago when I told him about my conversion. I questioned God severly and lost faith at the beginning of this year. Thankfully, He pulled me back pretty sharpish but I felt like I was drifting after that. Just going through the motions. Until further questioning 5 months later...questioning the existance of God altogether.
I came to the conclude that I only believed because I needed the safety and familiarity. So I rebelled against Him completely and tried to become an atheist...tried to fight against Him, push Him away and make myself not believe anymore. But much anxiety followed. I thought I was rid of the general anxiety but it came back with a vengence after that. I had no safety anymore...here I was rejecting the idea of a God and therefore I was on my own. No one to catch me should I fall. This made me push harder and just hang on until those feelings passed...I thought needing God was a bad thing. A few weeks later, I realised it wasn't. I need water, I need food, I need sleep...does needing those things make them bad, is needing those things a bad thing? No. And neither is needing God...and I do need Him, very much. I won't say how, but He woke me up to the fact that I do need Him and now He's pulling me closer than ever before. Whilst I truly repent for rebelling against God, part of me thinks that considering the situation it was needed and was part of His plan. Without that time I'd still be drifting. I'd still just be going through the motions and not actually having any kind of proper relationship with God at all.
So it's been a bit of a rocky ride...even after I accepted Christ things haven't run completely smoothly. That's life I suppose. But nevermind, like the prodigal son I've come back to the loving arms of my Father.
