From Islam to Catholicism | And Everything In Between

[Georgia and NC]. I never ever once heard of peaceful islam until I was an adult and heard it through the media. My family in Pakistan certainly never spoke of a peaceful islam since we were called to fight infidels [anyone not muslim] violently, because prophet mohammad commanded it. *this might not be what you were taught as a muslim, but it is exactly what was pounded into my head day after day.

I will add that I absolutely loved living in Pakistan for a short time as a teen. Made me appreciate America all the more. I still chat with my uncles. They’re awesome!

Where did I go from there? Where else could I go? By age 11, I was an atheist. By age 14, I was dabbling in wiccan spells. How can there be a God when I was unloved, physically and sexually abused? I was very alone and very depressed. Multiple suicide attempts and many stays in long term eating disorder facilities for anorexia and then bulimia. 

In my late teens, my parents divorced. A best friend of mine, that is still a friend of mine, brought me to a Christian teen hangout. I was not excited to go and put it off for weeks. I remember at that first visit to Direct Hit in Cary NC I was scared I may have joined a cult. BUT, there was something they had that Islam and Atheism did not : kindness. They were a loving people and I had zero experience with unconditional love. They introduced me to Jesus – the very embodiment of Love.

I was baptized a few years later even though I wasn’t sure what Christianity was really all about. I rocked my WWJD bracelet and read the Bible as often as possible. I joined Bible studies, and youth groups, became a youth leader, ran youth ministries, shared my testimony, started Bible clubs, led women’s studies, went to revivals by Billy Graham, and praised Jesus! I did this authentically as I really do LOVE Jesus! 

I don’t know where to go from here in the story, because this is where the rollercoaster of faith comes in. You fall away, you backslide, and eventually make your way back to faith. If you are a protestant or former protestant, you know… 

I think the next chapter is called Church hopping. I was Methodist, Baptist, Southern Baptist [not the same as Baptist], Assemblies of God, Seventh Day Adventist, Church of God, Church of Christ, Pentecostal Holiness, Non-Denominational, Spiritual and went to “Church for people who hate church” [an actual tagline on at least TWO churches I attended]. There were coffee bars, smoke and laser show, cool music and cooler pastors. Which was awesome until it started to feel empty, fake and like a concert – not worship. My husband especially wasn’t a fan. 

It was at this point that I wrote a blog post [it no longer exists] about my journey of faith. It ended with me saying that I wish I could just have some like-minded Christians over, surf, praise God and truly worship Him. Like some type of modernistic bohemian church. I’m slowly shaking my head at the me of 2016. It was shared virally even though there was only one comment that stood out. 

There was one Catholic that kindly recommended me to read about Peter being the rock of The Church and Jesus giving Him the keys of the kingdom. I had no idea what she was talking about. Zero. I don’t think I even responded BUT I did go googling. I was only looking for the protestant response to what she said. It didn’t occur to me to look up what Catholics believed about it, but I found a protestant refutal – granted it was not a good or sound one at all, but I wasn’t about to become a Catholic and join the “whore of Babylon” 

If you’re that person that left that long comment on my old blog – you planted a seed. To label me as an anti-Catholic would be just an underscore. I was wholeheartedly against the people I believed weren’t even Christians, but more on that later. 

I had been writing a protestant Christian homeschool curriculum called Lamp + Light Homeschool for quite awhile. I didn’t realize until 2018 that it was protestant, however. I figured, hey, at least all Christians have the same beliefs, right? RIGHT?! [Spoiler Alert : they do not.] The real beginning of the unravelling of protestantism – for me – began with writing that curriculum. Oh how God has a sense of humor that I would be compelled to write about Church history first. 

This was maddening while writing a curriculum that was about protestant church history. I just assumed what I was taught was the truth : that protestants met in house churches under secret cover and fear of death. I tried HARD to find evidence that the early protestant church existed as I was taught. The only beliefs I could find in the early church (that didn’t look Catholic) were things like arianism [Jesus wasn’t God in the trinity – which no Christian ascribes to]. Well, that won’t work. Of course Jesus is God! He is Lord and Savior!

Life in the autumn of 2018, was rough. We had lost our home due to Hurricane Florence just weeks after giving birth to baby 4 and while I was still on blood thinners after a pulmonary embolism. The first shipment of Lamp + Light Homeschool curriculum was extremely late and the printer kept pushing it back. Customers were understandably upset and I couldn’t fix it. Shipping was a complete nightmare and that’s putting it lightly. We lost all our savings due to the hurricane and massive shipping errors and I dived head first into a deep depression.

I bottomed out in November. Very few people even know about what I’m about to type. Each day I was writing in a Scripture journal and at the top of it I would write the word : STAY. in capital letters. The depression was so deep, so agonizing that each moment of living was swallowing me whole. I had to fight thoughts of suicide every moment of every day. I had to write reasons to stay [obviously my husband and children], and I had to read my Bible every second that was spare. I couldn’t risk leaving myself alone without praying to God, because I believed I would actually kill myself.

One night in December 2018, right in the midst of the deepest depression battle I have ever lived through, I set out on a super weird mission : prove the Catholic church isn’t even real Christianity. Where that came from, at that time, I didn’t know but it gave me a daily occupation. At first I used only my protestant Bible and only protestant refutations to the Catholic church. I didn’t want to get lead astray! That was the last thing I needed. Then I started reading from Catholic sites to see if what the protestants taught was what Catholics actually believed.

It turns out The Catholic Church that I was taught as a protestant, did not exist. 

I was more than a little irritated by that. Why would anyone lie about another faith? Surely it couldn’t all be true? There was NO WAY I was going to become … a CATHOLIC. That was the absolute worst atrocity I could think of. But I was becoming obsessed! I woke up my husband to read from Scripture the verses I swore never were there before!!! Who added the verses about Church Traditions?! Oh, that was St. Paul.

I began messaging YouTube Catholics furiously and literally in the middle of the night and all day long : Laura from What Laura Likes, and Heather from A Catholic Mom’s Life just to name a couple. If you are a Catholic YouTuber, I binge watched your videos. ALL OF THEM. I may have even messaged you. Thank You for helping me! For months straight I was barely sleeping because I was getting blown away by Scripture!

I was so irritated that my body needed sleep. 

In order to keep this from getting away from the topic at hand, here’s a link to my blog post highlighting just some of things that made it hard for me to remain protestant.

After doing so much research for so long, I knew I needed to take the next step* : Join an RCIA class and become Catholic. My husband and our children came with us to talk to the Deacon in person. Deacon Walt at Sacred Heart Cathedral. I learned that my husband was searching for Tradition, too. I had no idea. He has his own journey and perhaps he will share that at a later date. If you run into him in person, he will immediately and joyfully tell you ALL about it! He LOVES being Catholic.

* Our first visit to a Catholic Church and our first Mass will be a different post. No way I can fit that all in this timeline. Nor the key role my friend Bethany plays in all of this.

A book that changed my course for good was, Rome Sweet Home by Scott Hahn – a former protestant pastor who converted. My sponsor into the Catholic Church had me read it from night one and I LOVE her extra for it. I make everyone read it. When Scott Hahn wrote that he thought he might be struck down by God before praying a Hail Mary and praying the rosary, I laughed out loud because I had the exact same experience. I literally prayed for God to stop me if I was doing something wrong against Him for praying it.

I’ve seen more miracles through the rosary than I could have ever imagined. 

My husband, our children and I were received into the Catholic Church on Easter Vigil 2019. Best Day of Our Lives. I understand now the “welcome home!” and the “fullness of the faith” which both did not make sense to me beforehand. We all cried tears of joy! I was confirmed Stella Maris (Our Lady Star of the Sea) by Cardinal Rigali at Sacred Heart Knoxville Cathedral.

We have anti-Catholic family members and of course I was working on protestant curriculum. I was much more frightened of the latter. People I thought were internet friends turned on me so fast. Accused me of so many things, wrote nasty things about me, messaged me and emailed me horrible things and attacked me on social media. I had to change my email twice. I had to delete so many  spiteful comments. It hurt. The curriculum business went from booming to nearly tanking. All of that hard work collapsing was awful to go through and I’m very sorry i let so many down by converting.

The answer to the question you’re thinking is YES, I would do it all again.

My faith is the absolute most important thing about who I am. If I don’t have that right, nothing else matters. I’m still mostly the same person but I’m far more conservative than I used to be. I love going to a Traditional Latin Mass, and I love praying the rosary. How could I not after all the blessings?!

When people ask me, “Why did you become Catholic?” the answer is actually simpler than one might think :

It was True.