Well, we were raised in church, and I remember going through the motions and professing belief and all that jazz at an early age, and we always had it reinforced through the Bible story VHS tapes and going to Sunday School when we could and so on...but I still drifted. Between the ages of 10 and 13, or so, I would say one thing and honestly thought I believed it but things I did indicated something deeper was wrong.
Finally, after going through several things I regret and really don't wish to remember I realized what I actually needed to do. This got me rededicated to the kind of mindset I should have had, and when my faith bubbled back up to the surface. It was just before I entered 8th grade. The method was actually a devotional that I got which had a 90-day reading cycle or some such. I don't remember too many details of it now, except that it really did come off as extra harsh - maybe it was that I interpreted it that way, or maybe it was pseudo-legalistic in tone, but it did smack me around a little. At that point I knew what extremes were, and I knew that it was undesirable, and wanted to live in a way that didn't reflect that coldness. What resulted was that I gained my intellectual assent, but it wasn't developed, and it began to stagnate. I wouldn't characterize myself as drifting again, but I was happy to be clueless.
During High School, I ended up having problems with depression, severe paralytic panic attacks, and what we suspected (and still suspect, as it never got confirmed) was hypoglycemia*, whether reactionary or of the functional/pseudo sort, as they both run in my family (the latter being only exhibiting the symptoms while not showing the drop in glucose - medical literature tends to refer to it as idiopathic postprandial syndrome nowadays; talk about names which say practically nothing about the disorder at all). This resulted in me becoming very cynical about the world, and even about my faith - not in the sense of doubting the faith was true, but it took on a very dark, medieval, dare I say Gothic, tone. For a while I saw the misfortunes of this life as direct punishment from God for latent sin I couldn't escape from. At around this time, however, I was taking a philosophy course and also began getting more interested in angelology and the heterodox - particularly Gnosticism. I never jumped in, but my interest in those topics lead me to the realization that while those things took it way too far, that faith intrinsically has a mystical element to it. I was also intrigued by the possibilities and by the political struggle inherent in the rise and fall of the old heresies.
This actually pulled me out of that muck, as I was also convinced that the medication and therapy I was being put through was only treating the symptoms, and to get to the root of the issue I had to dissect it myself. I don't know if I've ever really found an answer to that, but the elevated focus I was putting on faith at the time did lead me to joining CF on a whim. At that point I wasn't really feeling depressed at the time (though I still dealt with the panic attacks occasionally), and CF provided a mixture of deeper discussion and light-hearted escape, which I needed. I was still trying to figure out what it was I really did believe, and struggling to make sense of the contradictions in doctrine we'd been alternately fed since childhood.
Anecdotally, that summer was when Florida was hit with four hurricanes in a row (Charley, Frances, Jeanne, and Ivan), and we were either in the strike zone or barely skirted the bullet on the first three (Charley veered inland before coming up into Tampa Bay, and Frances and Jeanne went across the state and affected the entire area; in both cases we lost power). By the end of that hurricane season, we were exhausted, and pretty apathetic, conversely. Whether this was a building block for something that happened later by tearing me down first I don't know.
Just after my birthday that year (in October), I was walking down to the public library like I'd had to start doing since my Internet privileges had been revoked (one of many failed attempts my dad has tried to 'motivate me to get a job', despite all the applications I put in anyway). On my way there, I was thinking of things and all, partially due to the stresses and the relief that I got from talking on here, but also of the more existential type. And for whatever reason, I suddenly felt relieved - like the fog had lifted, the murkiness was gone, and my eyes began to see my surroundings far more vividly. I was suddenly calm, and for quite some time afterward this combination of feelings persisted. Maybe you could call it an epiphany, enlightenment, a spiritual or existential high, or whatever, but I realized at that point that the thing that matters the most is the journey, rather than the knowledge, or the conclusion. That all the clutter and things, the confusion over what to believe, and everything else, was largely inconsequential at that moment. That those things would come gradually as I continued to grow, and that there was a beauty in that. Even more so that it was a tearing down to the basics, and it let me easily see what I needed to focus on and has given me the opportunity to scrutinize the things that have come before me since then in a much clearer and more productive fashion.
In short, that experience around my 19th birthday is something I have no other way of explaining except as an act of God. And that has provided a solid foundation to lay my belief on. I still doubt, I still become apathetic and stuck in a vicious cycle of sin, but I have a fight in me now that pushes back and won't let me completely evaporate in it. That makes the biggest difference.
