the story of a soul

As a child of a Baptist deacon and a Baptist pastor's daughter, we were in church every time the doors were open. Wednesdays for choir and potluck, Sunday for service and Sunday school. Summer brought VBS which my mom led music for and choir year round. 

At the age of four I decided I wanted to be a Christian too and was baptized by my grandfather, a Baptist preacher, on Easter Sunday 2001. I was taught all of the stories as a child, had Bible studies at home as a family and were encouraged to go on overseas mission trips as much as finances allowed.

I chose a small Baptist college in Alabama to attend and chose to study Missionary work. 2 years later I chose to say "I do" to my sweetheart, who studied Baptist Theology at the same school. From there we moved to California to obtain his M-div which is Baptist speak for "Masters degree preachers get."

We had two kids, moved to Texas and got a job at another Baptist seminary there. I took classes at the seminary to finally finish the degrees I started and never finished which never did get finished due to the birth of our third child. 

It all started in December of 2024 when my husband was reading the earliest church manuscripts, like the nerds we are, from the available free PDFs online. These are lovingly called the Church Fathers: Iranaeus, Tertullian, Augustine, Origin. He read them out loud to me as often as the children allowed so we could discuss what he found there. He was shocked at the things they believed and how they practiced the "new" religion of Christianity. We both agreed it was weird that not much of those beliefs or practices exist in the Baptist Church and here we have poured all of our academic and married years into being Baptist. Ignatius's letter to the Smyrnians, Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition, and the Didache were consumed in quick succession.

Weeks passed and we consulted with the ex-Catholic in our family for clarity about these doctrines we assumed he would give answer to but found none. He was so poorly catechised that of the things he thought he knew, almost none of them were actually what Catholics believe. 

We quickly grew to love the site Catholic Answers.com and some interesting apologists we found on YouTube. Shameless Popery and Council of Trent were favored among others.

 So then we were totally lost and spinning out, discussing what Protestant denomination we could switch to that believes the same things the earliest Christians believed... but apparently there is none.

 We wanted to go after the truth and correct practice Jesus laid out to his closest students- and if anyone would know it's the earliest generations in our opinion. Theories about how the truth was "perverted" or "immediately lost" and then found again 1500 years later in the Reformation just don't line up to the written accounts of belief from the manuscripts we had been reading. 

Obviously doctrine hadn't been fully laid out with no wrinkles at their time (Arius) but no one- NO ONE- believed the things Protestants do now. Disheartened and dragging my feet, we tried out the idea of Orthodoxy but they have weird Heaven/Hell ideas and the leadership of the Pope argument had already won my husband over so next was Byzantine Catholicism. It's an Eastern Rite of Catholicism that has lots of " smells and bells" which turned out to be mysterious and enchanting but it was a 40 minutes drive from home. 

The only next option theologically was to try out Catholic Churches.

My only thought was "Eew who wants to be a Catholic?" Because of the terrible Catholics I've experienced in my life so far.

To come to terms with this gloomy conclusion, I then read a book called Rome Sweet Home by an ex Presbyterian, Scott Hahn, who went through a similar situation as us as he read more about Church Fathers' beliefs and how the Bible agrees more with them than with Protestant belief.

It was super moving. But I was torn- there's still many things I prefer about Baptist churches: the songs, the desire over obligation to be there, friendliness/camaraderie, Sunday school, zeal for evangelism, and ACTUALLY KNOWING WHAT THEY BELIEVE.

So then we signed the kids up for an age appropriate catechism class and they loved it and we nurtured more friendships with Catholics and had opportunities to ask them more questions about what they believe and why practice is so different from what we're used to. My husband kept reading more books to answer his questions and found new authors that argued him into being certain Catholicism was true, Ronald Knox and John Bergsma. 

Almost nightly Bible studies filled our lives, trying to come to terms with aspects of Catholic belief I had been trained to refute. Mariology, deutero-cannonical books, purgatory, Eucharist, purpose of baptism, and many others were researched in the scriptures and discussed by us. By now I knew I had to give up the pride I had in my knowledge as well as my identity in the Baptist Church. Who am I now if I can't just emulate the pillar of my faith: my mother? Utterly lost and no longer self-assured. When reading the Word I knew what the Baptist sermon on it would say but am I interpreting it as the Church Fathers would? How has my education altered the interpretation of the scriptures and how much re-learning would I need to undertake to raise my children in the right way God wants to be worshipped?

In the fall of 2025 we enrolled in OCIA, which is the adult initiation class for entering the Catholic Church that goes from fall until Easter. They take discipleship seriously at admittance because of the gravity they hold the sacraments to mean. Taking the Eucharist should mean you fully agree in the doctrine of John 6: This is Jesus' body. 

This weekend my husband and I were confirmed members of the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil with my fourth baby strapped to my chest. We took the names of St. John Henry Newman and Saint Zelie Martin. I cried when receiving the Eucharist the first time, reflecting on how blessed I was to have heard and understood the truth despite being thoroughly entrenched in an anti-Church position all my life. If it weren't for my husband's curiosity into the historical Church I would definitely not have changed my mind on my own. As when God healed me from gluten intolerance, I now wonder why he did reach down and choose me. I'm not worthy for him to come under my roof, but since he spoke the words to my heart now my soul is healed. 

-my heart is not afraid