Picking up protestantism -story Pt 6

I left home, started work and began to meet new people. All those I met who were on fire with their Christianity were protestant.

I met no committed Catholics and no other people of faith either in the next few years.

I moved in with some girls who were attending a local baptist church. One of them was also attending the local Catholic church because her boyfriend was Catholic and she introduced me to it.

At was at this time that I met the man I was to marry, and he too was protestant.

I went through quite a lot of pain over those few years and as I have already mentioned to Karen (Gem of the Ocean) I just could not say the Our Father for a very very long time.
A friend from school got in touch. We had a rather sporadic contact, still do. He tried to offer some help with this situation and I tried to forgive those who had so badly hurt me-but it was to be a very long process in deed.
Some years later he entered seminary and is now a priest and running a couple of parishes.

By the time I got married I thought I had my faith pretty much sorted out, thanks to finding such kind Christians who taught me their version and it seemed to work for them.
So, I stopped believing God was out to get me; but I also stopped believing in mortal sin.
I thought I would try and go back to Confession -but I was not all that bothered about it.
I thought I could get most if not all I needed to know about God and how to have a relationship with Him from Scripture.
I thought contraception was okay-but not abortion.
I thought women should be priests and had been oppressed by the patriarchal church quite long enough thank you.

I thought the Bible was holy-but that there were loads of it that were not all that true and that St Paul had a lot to answer for. And yes, this is what I learned from my protestant friends. I think we always view protestants as thinking the Bible is sacrosanct. Well some do, but many I have known over the years are quite happy to edit it to suit what they would prefer to believe-and I went along with this.

As you can see, I had lost my search for the truth and was now ready to settle for a nice comfortable Christianity. I think I was just getting tired of the quest and the people around me were nice, good people. I was getting married-life was getting better. I did not need to be rocking the boat right then.

But God was on my heels...