This is going to be the short version of my conversion story on my blog today. Really my conversion story started when I was a child. My first spiritual experience(that I remember) was when I was 4 years old, I looked into the sky and really felt the divine beauty of the stars and felt how perfect they were, and felt connected to God.
My mother introduced me to Jesus Christ when I was little. When we had balloons we would play with them until we were no longer interested then she would have us release them off our balcony into the sky up to heaven so Jesus could play with them. I always imagined Jesus running around in his white robes gleefully playing with my balloons. Also, on Christmas day she would always have us bake a birthday cake with her for Jesus, and remind us that Christmas was Jesus's birthday. She always had a nativity set, (which sometimes the dogs would try to eat) under our tree. I am very grateful that she introduced me to him, and I got to feel the goodness and light of him at a young age. I went to religious schools as a child and really liked them. I also liked going to church. I liked the candles, and the music, and the feeling of holiness. It made me feel safe and happy. I could feel something special when I went to church, that was different from regular life.
When I was about 7, although my mother sometimes took me to church, often she slept in, but I would ride my bike all by myself to church every Sunday morning. I didn't like to miss. I was a very spiritual child. I was on panel that would go to high schools, and the students would ask us about the Bible and I would explain passages to them. I only knew the major stories, that most children are told. I was also picked out of of hundreds of kids in grade 7 by my Sunday school teacher to go see Mother Teresa speak.
I went to two types of churches as a child, more traditional and evangelical. I did like them for awhile. But over time I started to have questions they couldn't answer. Also, I noticed that as well as the light and joy I felt there, I also felt a harsh, angry, heavy energy in church. Although they taught about God and Jesus, and taught that they were love, they often sounded so harsh when they taught about them. It didn't feel very loving, happy, or positive, it just didn't feel like God to me.
By the time I was 13 I became agnostic, I didn't know what I believed anymore. I remember I moved next to door to a family of Mormons. They took me to church and tried to influence me over at least a year. I know they were probably praying, maybe even fasting that I would become a member. Of course they knew what I could have had, how wonderful my life could become, how happy I would have been, but all I knew is that I didn't want another harsh church experience. Of course I had no idea that the Mormon church was nothing like that, completely opposite in fact. I felt interested somewhat, but then was also being very pulled by the dark side of life. I know now that God was trying to save me and bring me into the truth back then, because he knew this is what my spirit really wanted. I had wanted this before I even came to earth. I know now that a spiritual battle was happening, with God on one side and the adversary on the other. God trying to pull me into the light, and the adversary trying to pull me into the dark. Well unfortunately at that time the adversary won that battle.
When I was 14 a girl who was a born again baptist tried to convert me and I decided at that point I didn't believe in God and became an Atheist. I think at the time, I was running from God because I was feeling afraid of Him. I was also running from all that harsh negativity that I felt had been put upon Him. I had a hard time believing that truly there was Being who was God who loved me and knew me etc. It all felt like a fairy tale. At that time I felt kind of dead inside so I started to abuse substances. I was trying to feel happy, and feel some magic. Really I was trying to feel my spiritual connection which had now vanished. Interestingly even when I was trying to be an Atheist I still did have some experiences of God, but I just dismissed them.
Well when I was 18 I crashed and had to join 12 step programs. Right away they bring God into the situation. At first I clung to my Atheism. But I noticed that those who believed in God seemed way happier than me, so I opened up to the idea. I had a lot of baggage though, a lot of very negative feelings about God I had to work through. I tried to just throw away all I had learned previously and start over. This lead me to being in Earth based religions, and New Age practices. I also studied Eastern religions and paths. I still wouldn't go into a church though, unless it was for a wedding or funeral. At that time I just associated church with heaviness, emptiness, harshness and I was having no part of it.
Then in my late 20's I had made a huge change in my life from being a negative person to a positive person. I then felt more open to trying a church out. A friend of mine had been going to a New Thought church. She had been trying to get me to go for years. Finally I agreed. It was fun, positive, not harsh, not heavy and they taught that we had a Divine nature. The Divine nature part felt way truer than we were born in original sin and born evil. All I know is when I looked at any baby all I could see was innocence and purity. So the idea that everyone is born evil did not at all gel with my experience in life.
It felt really good to be there. I went there for 4 years. At first I felt just happy to be away from a harsh church experience and this was enough for a few years, but then I could feel a funny emptiness inside that I couldn't explain and did not know what to do about. Something was missing but I didn't understand what. The teaching in this church was that God was just a force, a power of creation, not a person. Also, that everything was God, no division. This never felt right to me, because clearly there were things that made people happy and healthy and things that really hurt people, and brought tremendous misery.
Then one day I had probably one the greatest spiritual experiences I ever had sitting in one of the services. The Minister was saying that everything was God, dark, light, everything. She was in the middle of saying that even sickness and health are both God. I felt in my spirit this was wrong.
All of a sudden it was like a big veil opened up in front of me and I was shown all the light in the world and all the darkness, and I could see there was a division, and I could see how all the darkness brought horrible suffering and created such unhealthiness and destruction. I could see that all the things of light brought all the good, all the happiness all the healthiness in the world. Then I heard these words boom through me "God is the light, there is no darkness in God whatsoever" I did not know at the time that these words were in the Bible. I only knew the big stories of the Bible, not all the quotes. It wasn't that I just saw all this, I also felt it to the depth of my soul. It felt like I was seeing and feeling the most obvious thing in the world, yet a profound truth that most people including myself, up until that point were blinded about. It was a foundational experience that changed me to my core, and stayed with me and never left.
I stayed a bit longer in this church only because I was use to it, but I was uncomfortable every time I heard a sermon there because it didn't gel with this direct spiritual experience of truth that I had. At that time I felt drawn to reading books on Christ consciousness found myself craving a more personal relationship with God, rather than the impersonal one I had learned about in the New Thought churches. Then I was invited to a Christian concert at the beach.
I loved the music, it was like spiritual rock music. I started attending the church. It was not easy, I still had the same repel to all the negativity I felt as a child. Christian churches to me always felt like such light and such dark all mixed up together. I loved the light, wanted the light, needed the light, but was totally repelled to the dark parts. I kept going because I really benefited from experiencing Jesus Christ in my life again.
My first adult experience of Jesus was when I had a big fight with my best friend. She had to go to work, so we couldn't even resolve it. I normally would be in a lot of pain and turmoil in this situation. I was going to have to wait hours before we could resolve it. She left angry and I was left feeling horrible. I cried out to Jesus, and just asked for help. Not a fancy prayer, just help. All of a sudden I felt a peace flood over me that I had never felt before. I knew it wasn't me, definitely not, and I knew at that moment that was Jesus. When my friend returned I was still calm and peaceful. I told her what happened, and for both of us, it was a building of our relationship, belief and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
I loved being in a community that followed Christ. I could tangibly feel his Spirit, and it was beautiful! The church was filled with goodness, light, happiness, kindness, generosity, sharing like I had never experienced before. This part felt totally right. However, there was also in the mix of all of this, anger, harshness, hardness and condemnation that felt wrong and not of God. It took me a year and a half to get baptized and all that week before my baptism I felt this horrible dark feeling inside and felt sick to my stomach every day. In fact the night before I told my friends I may not be able to go through with it. On the day there were many people getting baptized, I was the last in the water but I did it. I felt glad after wards. I stayed in this church for a few years. I did love all the good stuff but had to swallow a lot of darkness to be there. That was not comfortable. Eventually I just couldn't do it any more. Also, I missed the teachings that we have a Divine nature.
I ended up just going back into the New Age and metaphysical communities. I can't say I was super happy and fulfilled but I was glad to be away from the negativity and harshness. For awhile I felt good. But then I noticed that deep inside I still ultimately felt like a Christian. So I returned to that same church again as well as trying out other denominations. I tried to make a peace with it, I wanted so badly to just feel peace and be able to just be there and be totally happy. For one year I worked with one of the Pastors trying to understand the parts of the Bible that I didn't understand, trying to resolve the things I didn't like or feel comfortable with. Finally just before my 39th birthday I got quite clear on what I believed and what I didn't.
I left again. I tried all the different denominations of Christianity hoping that one of them would have all the good stuff of Christian communities but would be free of the negative stuff. The ones that didn't have the upbeat elaborate music felt too dry, empty, heavy. The ones that did have the upbeat elaborate music, seemed more joyous but then were harsh, heavy handed, angry. It was a very frustrating time!
A few months later I walked into a New Thought church again. What I liked about it was it felt like it was spiritual yet had a lot of structure. It was well organized. It had a very dynamic Minister and of course taught about our Divine nature, so I joined. I was in this church for maybe 3 years? A lot happened that I won't go into here, but I was part of large community. There were lots of good times and spiritual growing for sure. However, what I discovered is, that churches that understood and taught we had a divine nature seemed to then believe that whatever anyone did was fine. We are all perfect, there are not mistakes so we do no wrong, all is ok. There were no standards, no sense of right and wrong, good and bad. Everyone wanted to believe and feel that whatever they did was totally ok. That felt wrong in my spirit and I could see that it led people to do things that did seem wrong. I didn't feel comfortable with this.
I also found that although there is a lot of enthusiasm about love, because the Spirit of Christ was missing the love seemed quite limited. It was love as long as it was convenient. I had to admit I had experienced way more love, selflessness, generosity, kindness, sharing in Christian communities. Also I had been drawn to reading near death experience books for about 2 years or more. Every time I read these stories they all said that God a person came to them and usually was with Jesus Christ as well. These were not Christian books, so I was amazed that they all seem to have this consistent experience. After awhile I started to think "if there is a God that truly is a person, then I want to know this person." I started to want a relationship with this person.
Then one day I had an experience that pushed me over the edge.
A Minister from one of these churches was coming to my house to get a Tarot reading. I was at that time a Tarot reader. I was house sitting and it was snowing and I was finishing my house sitting. I asked her if she would mind driving me and my stuff to my place. She said yes, then phoned and said she got stuck in the snow at her house in West Van but would come tomorrow. That was my last day there, and I said fine. The next day she phoned and wanted to come over much earlier than what we had planned. I wasn't dressed, the place was a mess, I was still packing, I asked her if she could give me a half hour to get ready. I assumed she would just go for tea somewhere. Then she calls be back and says she went home to West Van and now couldn't leave because of the snow etc. She was the only ride I had, and she didn't care, she just said there was nothing she could do and too bad I was stranded.
I felt horrible, didn't know what I was going to do, also just felt so upset that she would do this. I had been listening to a lot of Christ centered Christmas music and was missing Jesus Christ and a Christian communities again. Things like this just didn't happen generally in Christian communities. People didn't just abandon you and not care what happened to you, if they promised to help you they did. I said a prayer and found another person, but it was kind of the straw that broke the camels back. I was tired of the self centeredness, and longed for a Christian community, but at the same time was not interested in the teachings of original sin, that we are born evil and do not have a divine nature.
I said a really big frustrated prayer to God about all this. Was I going to spend the rest of my life running back and forth between the two churches? Was there no church that was balanced where both were taught? Why did they have to be opposites? At that point literally in the middle of this prayer I got an e-mail from a woman who had run a workshop I had been in. She had never written me before and just asked me how I was doing. So I told her. She recommended me to an Anglican church down town.
I tried it out. It was more liberal, yet Christian. It was in a beautiful cathedral, with a beautiful choir. It did bother me that nothing was spontaneous all of it was liturgy, however, it felt good in many ways. I can't say I was totally satisfied but it was the best I could find at this point. They had a small service on in the evening, followed by a pizza dinner. But you had to pay for the dinner part and I noticed a homeless woman who always came to the service but not the dinner. One day I realized that of course she didn't come because she didn't have the money.
This was a very wealthy church, yet they made a big deal out no one coming for this dinner unless they could pay. It seemed wrong to me that a church should charge for a dinner that is connected to a service, thus excluding a poor person. This did not feel like Christ to me. Would Jesus Christ have turned someone away from food at a service because they didn't have the money? Not from what I could see when I read about his life. I began to realize that all churches had moved away from what Jesus had originally started here on earth. I was bothered that now Ministers, Priests, Clergy were a vocation, a job where they got paid from the congregation. This didn't seem right. I was feeling a lot of grief because after all my searching I thought Jesus's church is not on the earth anymore. I would have to wait until I died to experience it. This seemed very sad. My spirit seemed to crave it, yet it wasn't here.
I was out to dinner with a friend. I was telling her my beliefs about us having a Divine nature, yet at the same time, in our humanness obviously we sin and make mistakes etc. I was upset about the way money is handled in most churches etc. I talked about how I was grieving that the original church Jesus started was no longer here any more.
She listened then told me about The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She explained some things, I don't even remember what. I went to the library and got a book called The Idiot's Guide To Mormonism. No kidding that is what it was called. It was just a overview of the church. What was practiced what was not. What were myths what was truth. What the history was etc. I was amazed that there were things in there that I totally believed in that I didn't think anyone else believed. For instance for a few years I was disturbed by crosses being put up and people wearing them. Its a execution tool, it seemed creepy to me. I know that people associate it with the atonement but I just felt uneasy about it.
Well to my amazement they said the same thing. That Mormons didn't wear crosses or erect them for the same reason!? Also, they didn't believe in hitting children, that the rod talked about is the word of God not a tool to hit children with. I felt the same way. So I called the Missionaries and planned to attend the service. I was expecting really pushy harsh missionaries. Of course I found out that they are really sweet, sincere, humble guys. They explained to me about the apostacy that happened after the Apostles died. That Jesus's church was taken from the earth, and then people tried to emulate his church but mixed things from scripture with the things of man, and the adversary got in there and infilterated them as well. I had never heard the word apostacy before, but I had come to understand all this before they met me, they just gave me the word that explained all my confusing experiences.
I went to my first service, and honestly I was not expecting much. My frame of reference was church services either were upbeat if they had a band with upbeat music, or they were kind of dry and heavy if they didn't have this. I knew there was just hymns and piano or organ so I was expecting dry, heavy etc. I was willing to try it though because in my spirit I have always felt a draw to being in church, belonging to a church community. In my spirit I knew that there should be a church that is just happy and positive, with out the darkness, without the self centeredness and the hype, where Jesus Christ was the centre of it, so I kept looking and hoping.
Now what happened next still amazes me. This church did not fall into either category. It was not heavy, it was not dry, the Spirit was stronger, more beautiful, happier than I ever experienced before. I felt immersed in tons and tons of love and happiness everywhere I turned in this church. Also, they were incredibly kind and accepting. There was no judgmentalism like I had experienced before in our Christian churches. No self righteous anger. It was totally positive, but not just on the surface like I felt new thought churches were. It was extremely deep, where I felt impacted to my very soul. Also a weird experience was I felt I knew all the people in the church. Some of them felt they knew me too. But we had never met before.
I walked out of there literally shaking because I was so impacted by the Spirit. Over the next 4 weeks I investigated the church and every answer I had ever had was answered here. Also, every time I had a concern it was put to rest because this church truly was balanced, positive, and I can say perfect. It taught about divine nature, yet also understood sin, and the need for boundries and commandments. Jesus Christ was the foundation of the church and so goodness was practiced immensely. It also had so many events and programs it was sooo fulfilling. In fact Sunday morning is 3 hours, with 1 hour for service which we call Sacrament meeting, 1 hour for Sunday school class, and 1 hour where the men and women split up and women go to Relief Society, a woman's class. There was no ego, no bravado, no yelling, no hype, just simple, sweet, down to earth, beautiful, kind, gentle, and true. After 4 weeks, I knew I had found what I had been wanting since I was a child. To me this is what a church of God and Christ should be like.
I was amazed and still am by how organized it is. Truly it is perfect. No one is paid by the people's donations and tithes. The tithes go to run the church. There is no donation plate passed around. The leaders all have their own jobs, they do not take money from the congregation. Evey thing is done by volunteers. What is funny is all the other churches I belonged to they strain to get volunteers to even greet, and have to almost bully people to tithe. Not in this church, we all have "callings" which are extensive volunteer positions and they are mostly done with incredible love and joy. I have never found tithing as easy as I have found it in this church. So for me it was a no brainer. I got baptized after 4 weeks of investigation, and still marvel at how wonderful it is. I can say as happy as I was the day of my baptism, that was just the beginning, I am a million times happier now and it only gets better and better. At first kept thinking this was dream I was going to wake up from.
When I watch other people get baptized I feel like I am watching a birth, and I can't help but smile ear to ear because I know how much wonderful stuff is in store for them that they have no idea is coming. I wished I had joined when I was 13, how I wish I had joined and let God save me back then. I missed out on so much, and put myself through so much pain, when I could have had so much happiness, but I am here now. My faith is growing and now it's conscious.
My faith as a child was blind and naive, like believing Jesus was playing with my balloons in Heaven. But there was a point where once I hit the real world that faith did not sustain me. My faith now is conscious, I choose to have a relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I choose to belong to this church, I choose to listen to the Spirit and follow it's promptings. I choose to live a Christ centered life.
I know now that this is the happiest life possible, that this is what my spirit has wanted since birth, what I was searching for since I can remember. Getting baptized in this church is like having the Light turned on, both in joy and in spiritual clarity. I can now clearly see my spirit, what it is made of, what it needs to be happy and I am now making sure with the help of Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit that I give my spirit the very best. Getting baptized and joining this church was truly the best decision I have ever made or ever will make. I say this in the beautiful and holy name of Jesus Christ Amen!
