I was born into a Catholic family, was baptized at 3 months, and attended 6 years of Catholic school. Even though we lived across the street from our church, we only attended sporadically. At 12, I attended public school for the remainder of my education, and we rarely attended church.
Then, in my mid-20s I started to seek the Lord. The only place familiar to me was the Catholic church. At 25, I made my confirmation, and I was going to church most Sundays. I tried to read God's Word, to no avail. It was ancient to me.
Nonetheless, I did everything I could to please God. I tried fasting on Fridays, I participated in the blood drive, and I talked my husband into contributing to the new building campaign, which we couldn't even meet because we were not financially able to. I also volunteered for the Pregnancy Help Center, managed by Catholics. I thought I could earn points with God for working toward His favor. The thought of paying off my sins in Purgatory was terrifying.
For the next 5 or 6 years, I experienced some situations that started to frustrate me about the Church, besides that I could not comprehend God's Word by reading it. I couldn't understand why my church was afraid to use the bully pulpit to influence its parishioners socially or politically, like about abortion. I heard from a close source that my diocese gave money to a pro-abortion senator for a speaking engagement. And another time they wouldn't let me do non-partisan voter registration at the church because they feared losing their tax-exempt status; meanwhile, other local churches did it. Yet, worse still, our sitting president, Bill Clinton, was campaigning, with then Democrat candidate Al Gore, at the Los Angeles AME Church. Frustration festered within my heart over what I perceived was the weakness of the Catholic church.
Then the Sunday following September 11th, my husband and I were in church, eager to hear what our priest had to say, and he actually said that we needed "to forgive what these folks did to us." Folks? My husband and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. After church ended, my husband said aloud to me as we headed to the parking lot, "I'm never coming back here again." And I heard myself say, "Me neither."
And that was it. We never returned to the Catholic church again.
But, I was still seeking the Lord and trying to understand the Bible. Then one day, Jehovah Witnesses came to my door and enticed me to do a Bible study with them. For nine months I met with a woman once a week to read my Bible and learn about God. Nine months was a long time, and one day her husband came with her to lead our study, and he told me that it was time for me to decide to go to the Kingdom Hall.
Something in me said no, and I called her up and told her that I did not want to meet anymore. That was the end of that. Over a year had passed since we left our church, and I still had no church home. A Seventh Day Adventist friend gave me literature and videos and invited me to her church, but they met on Saturdays and that seemed to be their only argument for SDA. I couldn't accept this.
The next year I began homeschooling and being very interested in teaching creationism to my kids, I did a lot of research. I knew a knowledgeable source, Dr. Hovind, (yeah, the guy who got into legal trouble with the government). I watched all of his videos and even saw him speak at a local church. He said if Catholics read their Bibles, they'd leave the Catholic church. LOL! (I was trying to read it.) He shared the gospel on his website. Reading it, I recognized that I was a sinner, and if I died that day, I would go to hell. I immediately got onto my knees, repented of all my sin, and prayed right there for God to save me. That was in 2003. I was 33.
A year later, I found a Bible teaching church in my community and as soon as I attended, I knew it was going to be our home church. We remained there for almost 18 years, until we moved out of state. There, my husband, our kids, and I learned how to read our Bibles. One year at this church, my husband and I were baptized as new believers.
Fast forward to today, I have been reading and understanding Scripture with new eyes for 20 years, and each time they are opened more and more. I study from a John MacArthur study Bible, but a friend of mine recently gave to me a set of J. Vernon McGee's Through the Bible commentary. This is the commentary I use on this blog.
The reason I started the blog was twofold: 1. I like to write out what I read because it helps me to think deeper about what I just read; and 2., people need to know and comprehend God's truth. It will save their lives. The world is becoming more dangerous because it is getting closer to the time when Jesus will return to earth. People are going to need to know what God's Word says because eventually the Church is going to be removed from the world. Maybe, just maybe, God will direct someone here to get the good news, the gospel, and get saved before it is too late.