My re-version story

I thought I would tell the story of how I ended up Catholic (again) and where I was and how I got here.
It is a difficult story in places and so I ask in advance-please do not judge me too harshly.

So here goes PART ONE.

I was born and baptised into a Catholic family, but the faith I was taught was very mixed indeed.
God was offered to me as a frightening and vindictive entity who was just waiting for the slightest opportunity to send me to hell. I was often told I was going to hell.
But I was also taught quite early on that Jesus was really there in the Eucharist and although I don't remember (until I was much older) being told that He loved me-I think I sensed somehow that He did.
This meant I had a strange relationship with God; God the Father was out to hurt me and God the Son loved me. Weird.
Meanwhile new age practices had come into our home which led to some stuff best left alone I think. I mention it only because it impacted me in other ways later on.

Despite the difficulties the Faith was there in my life both at home and at school-where there was a much nicer God.
I began my life long love of Scripture quite early by reading David Kossoff's Bible Stories and then later on I read the Children's Catholic Bible, cover to cover.
The God of Scripture was much more real than the God at home or the God at school and I began to wonder who He was exactly.

I sent to secondary school and loved it there. However once again I was met with a rather mixed bag of faith. It was the height of the 'don't-believe-the-Church' and 'Spirit of Vatican II' days so you can imagine what I was exposed to among the tabbards, large ties and brown jumpers.

Confused I turned to Transcendental meditation and even Tarot to try and find answers to my life and my relationship with God-whoever He was.
I became very adept with tarot and rarely got a reading wrong. DO NOT TOUCH THIS STUFF. I know a lot of people do not take it seriously. It is truly poisonous.
I was taught by a woman who ran classes in tarot, ouija, crystals-the whole nasty shabang. She recognised that tarot was dangerous and claiming to be a Chrsitian suggested saying an Our Father over the cards before each reading.
I did this. Of course I had no idea how wicked this was.
I stopped reading the cards and burned them after doing a reading for a friend in which I saw serious back problems. He had none-but the following week ended up in hospt with a very serious kidney condition.
I could not tell whether I had simply seen it coming in the reading or whether there was 'help' in the reading and perhaps even a push to fulfil it from the 'help'.
Fortunately-by God's Grace, my friend recovered and returned to school a few weeks later.

Tarot was not the way to find answers. So I looked for another way.