I wasn’t searching. We were doing fine spiritually, our kids were happy, and we were doctrinally settled. There was no need to rock the boat, and I certainly had no idea that I would soon be called out of the boat altogether!
Growing up Baptist
I was raised in a Christian family, within a Baptist church. My grandparents were Baptist on both sides—they taught Sunday school, served in the church constantly, loved the Lord deeply, and passed their faith onto their kids. Several of my aunts, uncles, and cousins are missionaries or pastors. My parents met at Baptist Bible College; my dad also went to seminary and was an associate pastor when I was very young. Even when he was no longer pastoring, my parents were always active in the church; they even helped plant a church when I was in high school. Most importantly, they taught the faith to my siblings and me. It wasn’t a “religion” to us; it was genuine faith that led to committed discipleship. I grew up surrounded by people who loved the Lord, shared their faith, and taught us solid Biblical truths. I am grateful that my parents raised me to know the Bible, to know Christ as my Savior, and to build my life around Him. It was their teaching and example that led me to the Lord and gave me the foundation to continue learning about Him and growing closer to Him for the rest of my life.
I prayed to receive Christ as my Savior when I was four and was baptized when I was eight. The churches we attended were always strong on Biblical teaching. We memorized tons of Scripture through Awana and Bible Quizzing; we attended Bible study, Sunday school, and youth group. We lived a life saturated in Scripture, and we took our faith very seriously. I was committed to my faith, never questioning Baptist theology. I do remember coming across some verses that seemed contrary to the “once saved, always saved” teaching, but I figured the Christian adults in my life knew better than I did.
Catholicism was never really talked about. If we did talk about Catholics, we regarded them with pity, as people who were deceived by their own Church. It was possible that some of them might be saved in spite of their Church’s teachings, but otherwise, anyone who believed what the Catholic Church taught wasn’t saved. After all, they taught that we earn salvation by our own works! They worshiped Mary and pieces of bread!
I only had one friend who I knew was Catholic. I remember that she had a St. Christopher’s medal hanging from the rear-view mirror of her car, which was supposed to protect her in case of an accident. I also remember her crying one day when she thought she might be pregnant, even though she and her boyfriend were “always careful.” That was about it for my exposure to Catholicism.
After high school, I attended Cedarville College, a Baptist liberal arts school in Ohio. There, all students receive a Bible minor in addition to their major. We studied the Old and New Testaments, Christian living, how to study the Bible, and (selective) church history. My experience at Cedarville was wonderful; my faith was strengthened, and I made wonderful friends. I also met my husband there! Heath had been raised in a church setting similar to mine, attending Bible churches, and we shared the same theological views.
We were married in 2000 in my grandparents’ Baptist church. Within a couple years, we were settled in an Evangelical Free church, which was our home for nearly two decades. My husband played guitar on the worship team, I served in children’s ministry, we were part of home groups and Bible studies, and we attended nearly every service, prayer meeting, and event. Our kids were dedicated to the Lord as infants, and when they were old enough and had made a personal profession of faith, the pastors in that church baptized them. The kids were active in Sunday school and then in youth group; we worshiped there, grew spiritually there, and had great friends. We were even sent as missionaries to Honduras for a year. We had no plans to leave our church.
Be Careful What you Read
In 2018 we got together with some good friends, Joel and Jen, with whom we had attended Cedarville College. They had become Catholic several years before this. Their conversion had been shocking news, but after they gave us a book called Born Fundamentalist; Born Again Catholic by David Currie, I realized they still believed they were saved by grace, and that’s what mattered. We lived on opposite sides of the country, so we hadn’t kept in touch all that well. But in 2018, Joel and I were discussing a book by email, as we had done from time to time. It was just a casual comment that I made about denominational differences and how we know who’s right. That comment opened the door to a two-year conversation between Joel and me. Discussing how we know theological truths soon led to discussing Catholicism, and that was the beginning of this very unexpected journey.
I started studying Catholicism in order to show Joel where the errors were. However, the more I read about Catholicism from actual Catholic sources, the more sense it started to make. Joel patiently answered all my questions. I found out that Catholics do believe that Scripture is inspired and authoritative, they do believe we are saved by grace, they don’t worship Mary, and their doctrine wasn’t invented in the Middle Ages.
The first major change in my thinking was regarding sola Scriptura, which I had always firmly believed. Through studying Church history, I realized that the earliest Christians couldn’t have had a sola Scriptura mindset. They had to rely on the Church to learn the truths of the faith, even after the Apostolic age! I learned that heretics (like those claiming Jesus wasn’t truly God) often appealed to Scripture to make their arguments. The core Christian beliefs that we take for granted had needed to be defended, not by the Bible alone, but by the authority of the successors of the Apostles. When it was pointed out to me that 1 Timothy 3:15 calls the Church “the pillar and foundation of truth,” it rocked my world. Could it be true that God gave us the Bible, not as a stand-alone self-study book, but as a tool that functions within the Church’s overall teaching? Could it be true that God indeed set up His Church to guard the Truth, and that I needed to align my own Biblical interpretation with hers? When this became apparent to me, it was not a pleasant discovery. I felt shaken, like my very foundation was crumbling. If this life-long tenet of my faith was mistaken, then everything was up for grabs! What would become of my faith?!
Meanwhile, my husband, Heath, wasn’t interested in discussing this. I can’t blame him. I was considering something very different from the version of faith we’d always known — something different from the foundation on which we’d built our marriage and raised our kids. So I continued to study on my own, reading about 50 books, including every footnote in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament, the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church, and dozens of articles. I listened to hundreds of hours of podcasts and watched many videos. I couldn’t get enough, and the more I learned, the harder I prayed. I prayed for wisdom and understanding, and I begged God not to let me be deceived by my friend or any apologist or any philosophy. I just wanted to know God’s Truth.
In December 2018, nervously, I set foot in a Catholic Church for the first time in my life. Would their “Protestant detectors” go off? Would they look at me as if I didn’t belong? Worse yet, would they make me introduce myself as a visitor?!! Fortunately, Catholics do none of those things, and I got in and out without anyone noticing me. I’d been hoping God would give me some climactic moment, where I suddenly either knew Catholicism was true or knew it was false. Nothing like that happened, and my uncertainty continued.
Several weeks later, I attended Mass again. This time, I did feel a pull toward what was happening there, but I didn’t know if it was God nudging me or just an emotional experience. I’d never consider making a huge life change based on just an emotional experience, so I continued to pray and study. I started asking the “what about” questions: What about prayers to saints? What about Mary being sinless? What about infant baptism? What about purgatory? What about those people I saw only receiving the bread and not the wine during Communion? These were some important issues that I needed to resolve before I could even consider that Catholicism might be true. As my journey continued, one after another of these issues was resolved. I wasn’t the first one to think of them, and I found answers for all of them. I was realizing that Catholicism wasn’t shallow compared to my Bible-only faith; it was astonishingly deeper.
About ten months into my journey was the Easter season. I attended the Easter Vigil and was enraptured by the beauty of it all. I was brought to tears by the Litany of the Saints. I still didn’t know if I believed that praying to the saints was okay, but I wanted it to be. I wanted to be a part of the amazing things happening that evening.
In May 2019, I attended my first non-anonymous Catholic event. While searching for information on Catholic beliefs, I had come across the website for the Coming Home Network. I had learned a lot from the website, so when I found out they were having a retreat just a half hour’s drive from my home, I was excited to attend. I was also terrified! At Mass, I could go in and out anonymously, but here I’d have to actually talk to people — Catholic people! But I did go, and it turned out to be a very good experience. I made some new friends there — a couple of friends on earth who continued to answer my many questions, and a friend in heaven — St. Elizabeth Ann Seton — who would later become my confirmation Saint.
The summer of 2019 marked a year since my journey had started, and I was exhausted. It wasn’t just the hours of study, the unending emails of doctrinal discussion, or the intense prayer times. It was the inner struggle that was with me every moment of every day, thinking it was all true, then thinking I’d been terribly deceived. Begging to know God’s will. Worrying that I was betraying my family. Trying to function in normal life while this battle constantly raged in the back of my mind. But I couldn’t go back and “un-know” what I’d learned, so I had to continue studying. As I did, I realized I was moving ever closer to believing in Catholicism.
At this point, I started to feel like the truth I was learning and experiencing was something I had to act upon. But how? My husband was still not willing to talk about it, and I certainly didn’t want to damage our relationship or confuse our kids. Also, our parents, pastors, and friends would all be so disappointed in me. But I felt God telling me to take the next step. Over the course of the summer, I spoke to my parents, Heath’s parents, and a few of my closest friends and relatives about it. No one disowned me, but I knew I was disappointing these people, and that broke my heart.
The biggest emotional struggle and moral dilemma with all this was that my husband wasn’t on board. To his credit, he never told me not to study or not to move forward on my journey, but I knew he didn’t like it, and there was a terrible wall between us. I’ve always believed that, as a wife, I should submit to my husband as unto the Lord; he is the leader of our family. And he’s always been an easy person to submit to, because he is kind and selfless and places my preferences above his own. This was the first time that I had to choose between what I thought was right and what my husband wanted (even if he never spoke it aloud). I can’t say with 100 percent certainty that I handled that dilemma correctly, but I followed God’s voice the best I knew how, and God ultimately used it for good, as He always does.
In September 2019, I joined RCIA. I’d already studied much more deeply than what the curriculum provided, but there were a couple of people in that group who spent huge amounts of time helping me with my in-depth questions. I will always be grateful for their help!
The Decision is Made
In October, I attended my 20th college reunion. Jen and Joel, who’d been helping me for over a year at this point, also came, and we had some really good discussions. Jen and I attended a Protestant worship service together. During the “altar call,” I felt God telling me that I needed to follow where He was leading. So in that moment, at my Baptist alma mater, I surrendered to His call to become Catholic. Sometimes God has an amazing sense of humor! I asked Joel to be my sponsor, since he was the one who had started me on the journey and had spent over a year teaching me. He and Jen continued to answer my questions and support me through the difficult journey.
In the next few months, my resolve and my faith went through many ups and downs. Even though I had made my decision, some days I’d suddenly panic. Had I been deceived? What in the world was I doing? But God held on to me. The prayers of my sponsor and RCIA teachers were of immeasurable value in overcoming the attacks of doubt and fear. And for the first time, I even asked my heavenly friends for prayer.
I’d always thought prayer was a form of worship, something to be directed only to God. But what I learned was that “praying to saints” did not mean worshiping them. Instead, it was asking them — the righteous ones who live in God’s presence — to pray for me, just as I ask my earthly friends to pray for me. I realized that if holy people on earth care enough about me to pray for me, it only makes sense that fully purified saints in Heaven would care even more, and their prayers would be effective (see James 5:16). So I prayed my first Hail Mary, and I also asked St. Elizabeth Ann Seton to pray for me. Of course, before and after doing so, I told God that I hoped I wasn’t offending Him with these prayers, and to please forgive me if I was!
I knew I needed to share with my pastors at some point, so I finally worked up the courage to send them an email. Then I met with two of the pastors, and both times I left the meetings feeling confident in my decision, yet heartbroken at not following the advice of these wise, godly, caring men who had loved our family and had been our teachers for so many years.
By the start of the new year, my remaining doctrinal issues were basically resolved. Perhaps more importantly, I was realizing that, as I entrusted myself to the care of Christ’s Church, I didn’t have to stress about things I didn’t understand. I didn’t have the responsibility of a bishop, but the role of a faithful follower. Yes, I should seek to understand my faith as fully as possible, but the weight of having to prove every minute doctrinal issue was lifted from my shoulders. I rested in the comfort that the Holy Spirit would continue to guide His Church.
But in February, I was having doubts again. It was almost time for the Rite of Election with the Bishop for those who would be confirmed at Easter. I’d made my decision, and yet that troublesome second-guessing wouldn’t go away. I decided to spend a full day in fasting and prayer on a mini pilgrimage. I made plans to spend time at the Seton Shrine and the Grotto near there. I wrote in my journal:
Lord, how desperately I need You. It’s been 20 months of this search. I feel Your leading, and yet I doubt and second-guess. I hope and I grieve, I trust and I despair, I move forward and I hesitate. Lord, I want this decision to be made! I want this wavering to be behind me!… Will You give me Your final answer and assure me, “This is the way; walk in it”?
My mini retreat was a beautiful day with the Lord. At the end of it, I felt at peace. And even more than that — I felt compelled that I must follow through and join the Church. Again, from my journal:
God, you have given me faith and courage. You have guided my steps. I don’t understand everything, and I don’t have 100 percent certainty. But I have enough certainty that I cannot remain outside the Catholic Church. If I have failed in any way to discern Your will, O Lord, forgive me. And now, trusting in Your goodness and Your unfailing mercy, I follow where it seems You have led me. Here I stand; I can do no other.
I felt such joy and peace about my decision! However, the rift between my husband and me only deepened, and my worry about hurting those I loved was a palpable pain. The first time I chose not to participate in communion at our home church, I cried. I knew I couldn’t participate in good conscience anymore, and yet I felt myself ripped apart from others who loved my Lord and who had helped me grow closer to Him over so many years. I pondered, “Lord, is this how You feel when You see the division within Your Body? Forgive us, Lord. Unite us and make us one.”
On March 1st, I participated in the Rite of Election with all the others in our diocese who would be confirmed at the Easter Vigil. Now there was no backing out! It was time to prepare for Lent, and then for my Confirmation at the Easter Vigil. My dear friends Joel and Jen would fly across the country to be there — Joel as my sponsor, and Jen with the kids to celebrate with me. It continued to be a very difficult journey, but I was excited to be so close and was looking forward to reaching the culmination of the past two years’ struggle. I couldn’t wait!
The Day Arrives
But this was March of 2020. A piece of advice to any potential converts out there: try not to have a global pandemic happen at the time of your Confirmation! COVID-19 arrived around the start of Lent. Joel and Jen had to cancel their travel plans. My Confirmation was postponed, and Easter celebrations were canceled. Instead of Confirmation and celebration, my family found ourselves at home alone on Easter Sunday. It was devastating! I was told that I might be confirmed at Pentecost. That didn’t happen either. As the world reeled from the physical and social effects of the virus, my soul ached over the cancellation of all I’d been looking forward to.
Finally, my Confirmation was scheduled for a private Mass on June 27th, just the RCIA candidates and their families. But that afternoon, I nearly backed out again. My husband finally told me how devastated he was and asked me not to go through with it. I didn’t know what to do! I was so sure of God’s leading that I felt it would be an act of disobedience not to go through with it. However, I have never felt like such a cruel person as I did walking into the church. I was breaking my husband’s heart and refusing pretty much the only thing he’d ever asked of me. It was a terrible feeling.
There were only about a dozen people in the church — the three of us being confirmed, plus their families and a few of our RCIA candidates. One friend I had met at the Seton retreat drove an hour to be there for me, which was so very kind of her. But my closest friends, my sponsor, my husband, my children, and all the family and friends from the first forty-two years of my life were absent. We were confirmed with everyone wearing masks and standing six feet apart. The reception of the Precious Blood had been canceled due to COVID-19, and we received Christ’s Body from behind a plexiglass window. Unlike the previous year, when I’d watched as the newly confirmed were hugged and welcomed by the entire congregation, our ceremony was subdued and sterile. Yes, there was joy, but it was a very somber joy, buried below the circumstances of the pandemic and the personal pain of following Christ even though it meant hurting my family. We couldn’t have any celebrations at the church, and there was no one in my family who thought this was something to celebrate. So I went home alone, clinging only to Christ, seeking only the comfort of His embrace.
The next several months were rough. The pain of this crisis forced Heath and me to finally talk about things, which was greatly needed. But several times, I thought, “Now that we’re actually talking maybe I should quit Catholicism to save our marriage!” There was no Mass or church activities because of the pandemic, so I didn’t have anyone to help me in person. Fortunately, my sponsor and a couple of my RCIA leaders kept encouraging me and wouldn’t let me give up.
I prayed continually for Christ to lead Heath and me to unity, but we didn’t talk about it much. The next few years are Heath’s story to tell. But skipping to the present, I can tell you the exciting news that my husband and our two daughters are now also part of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church! God is amazing, and His ways are beyond our understanding!
The Journey Continues
None of our friends or extended family have followed us into the Church, and neither have our two sons. Our prayer is that God will one day bring them, too, into full communion. Sometimes I struggle to feel at home as a Catholic and often feel like an expatriate living in a culture that isn’t my own. It’s painful to be in a different church, away from our sons! On the other hand, we have a richer and deeper faith than we’ve ever had! We have the sacraments to help us on our journey; we’re more connected with the saints from all the world and all time; and we’re being drawn ever closer to the Lord as He continues to guide us each step of the way. Even though it’s a difficult journey, it’s right where we need to be.
As I said in the beginning, I wasn’t searching. I would never have chosen this path for myself or chosen to put my family through it. But when God calls, we must obey. Where He leads, we must follow. And as He has promised, He works ALL things for our good. It’s not always easy to say yes to Jesus, but it’s always worth it.
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, to him be glory in the Church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen. (Ephesians 3:20–21)
