My Church History

This is my first post, so I would like to talk a little about my background.  Growing up, my mom would take me to a Baptist church.  Although I did like some of the singing there, I admit, I thought the church was too much of the "fire and brimstone" sermoning and not enough of the inspirational variety.  Also, I felt that that it was a little too conservative on social issues.  When I became a teenager, I admit, I quit going to church as I got more involved in school.  College came along and I was exposed to different people, but I wasn't a church-goer.  I was more involved with myself as I was trying to keep my grades up.  Once I left college, I was trying to start my career as a teacher and found myself working as a substitute teacher instead of being a social studies teacher.  Once I realized that I wasn't going to be hired as a social studies teacher, 
I decided to go back and become a special education teacher because I loved it so much when I substituted.

I was so involved with teaching that I didn't involve myself with church.  This was the time when all the televangelists were having their scandals and it left a bad taste in my mouth.  Not too mention, many politicians were trying to associate religion with a particular party that truly offended me.  (The practice is still going on, but I ignore it since I fully believe that God doesn't favor one political  group over another.)  I then met my future wife on the internet and we started dating on and offline.  After two years of dating, I proposed and got married a year later.  This was the time I found myself helping to plan the wedding and my wife wanted to be married in the Methodist Church she grew up in.  I didn't know anything about the Methodist Church and we met with the minister my wife wanted to officiate over the wedding.  At that time, I still wasn't a religious person, but from everything the minister was telling me, I was put at ease.  We had more or less a traditional ceremony in the Methodist Church and took Communion.  Once we moved my wife to Kentucky, we didn't go to church.  Again, it wasn't anything against church itself, we just never made time.  After we moved to our house 7 years ago, we found out that there was a Methodist church less than a half-mile away.  We had talked about going there, but for some reason or another, we never went.

Last October, we noticed that one of our cats had a growth on her head.  We took her to the vet and they said it was cancer and there was nothing that could be done about it.  My wife and I were both distraught and didn't know what to do other than to make her comfortable.  A friend of ours who goes to our local Methodist church said she knew of a person who did holistic medicene and she could possible help us out.  In December, we decided to go meet this person by attending a church service.  The service was dynamic and I felt welcomed there by members of the congregation.  We decided to go to another service, and then another and I started learn what the Methodist Church was all about.  I soon decided to join a membership class to learn more and several weeks ago, I accepted God's call and committed myself to Christ.  On June 10th, I was baptised and became a member of the church.  Our cat isn't doing well and I think it is a matter of time, but I feel that God sent our cat to us to bring us back to church and to show God's love to me.  I know that God has a plan for all of us, whether we know it or not.