What's Your Past And Present?

[Justin Kissel]

Nicholas, Thank you, that would seem to be consistent with their position (which I don't altogether admit to understand ).

Justin, Thank you for posting!

[Justin2]

You know, that's the second or third time I've posted and had the post go to the wrong place. So it naturally seems odd to someone who's looking at something else. I don't know if anyone else is having this problem. Who knows. This might not even show up in the right spot!

[尼古拉前执事]

bumped up because it was requested

[rat]

Here is my story

Code: Select all

      I was born into a home without any faith. My father was a proto-bohemian/hippie. He was in World War two.

       My mother was from a small town in central California. She went to the University of California, Berkeley where she met my father. They were married. 
      
      I was born in 1958. My father had been married previously, and had a daughter, my step sister. My younger brother was born in 1960.

      My parents were both materialists, and being the 60's, were involved in the drug/art/culture scene. My father had incest with his daughter and was divorced from my mother. My step sister later became a whore and ran a house of prostitution. 

       My mother became a raging alcoholic, because of the dissolution of the marriage. She died when I was sixteen. My brother and I were transferred from place to place, and when we were of age , hit the streets. 

       We were on our own. We started doing every possible combination of drugs, and every vice you could imagine. My brother became a communist, and still is one.

        I was interested in spirituality, mainly through my use of LSD/Psilocybin/Marijuana and reading Ram Dass. I joined various cults and communes that were still prevalent in the 70's and 80's. I finally gave up on them as they were taking me nowhere.

       I became homeless, and was basically on my own again. I spent a year living in a cave, before I came to myself. By the grace of God, after a very  long period of alienation and near insanity, God showed me a way out. 

         I  now have a very good job, and  am making lots of money. But it isn't enough. My soul is still hurting. 

        I wasn't the same man I had been before. I had become mean and self-absorbed. It was the only way I could survive on the streets.

         I realized that this was not a life worth living. I went to a few protestant churches, and tried to follow the bible. I felt there was something lacking. The bible tells you what to do, but not how to do it.

      I found a copy of ' The way of a pilgrim' and it left a very deep impression on me. Here was the ' how to do it' I've  been looking for!

   I have read it off and on over the years, and now I have finally decided to try to practice the Orthodox way. 

     Due to my way of life, I call  myself here  'wretched sinner'. It is a true description of my life up to this point. 

    This is a sort of confession I guess, and the only reason I can tell you this about myself is that I'm reasonably sure I'll never meet you. 

   Please pray for me and my brother.

'

[Liudmilla]

Dear W.S.
A truly Orthodox person will not hold you to your past. We should not judge you for who knows wht trials God will send us? Who knows if they would have your strength to survive. When you become Orthodox the waters of your baptism wash away what you were and you stand before God clean and new. What was will be gone and what will be is up to you. God be with you in your journey!

Milla

[Sean]

I was born a Mormon, raised by my Southern Baptist grandparents and went to a Baptist school through the seventh grade. Got back into Mormonism at age 14 through my paternal grandparents (who are Mormon). In less than a year I had studied enough to realize that this body was not Christian or even monotheist and believed blasphemous things. Studied the Byzantine Era in high school history, which piqued my interest in Orthodoxy. I went to a Greek Old Calendarist church at age fifteen and attended there for a year and a half before I made the decision to become Orthodox and was made a catechumen. I was baptized at age seventeen, with my mother's permission. I attended college in Minnesota the folowing year, and attended Liturgy at a ROCOR parish in Minneapolis. My priest back home in St. Louis left the Greek Old Calendarists and was recieved into ROCOR that same year. At age 18 I attended the seminary at Jordanville, but encountered the great ethnic barrier there and did not attend the following year. Went back to Minnesota and got engaged. My fiance converted to Orthodoxy and we were married in the church that same year. Subsequently, our daughter was born and she too was baptized Orthodox.
I am now divorced and have been Orthodox for thirteen years. I am currently still affiliated with ROCOR, but am extremely leery about it's current direction. I pray that God leads me to make the right decision about my future course of action if my bishops enter communion with the Sergian Schism.

--Sean

[user_422]

I grew up in a Baptist church; walked the aisle at age nine. My family was somewhat lukewarm in practicing the baptist faith. I did the prodigal son routine from age seventeen to twenty-seven. I experienced a renewal of my faith and reentered the baptist church.

At age thirty, my wife to be and I moved into an independent Bible church because the baptists weren't scriptural enough. After several years our bible church got caught up in the charismatic renewal and we were charimatics for five or so years until I began to read church history, trying to find some depth to my faith experience. I was trying to find some solid anchor, theologically, to cling to. I had grown weary of the evangelical fad of the month.

Discovered the liturgical church through a Reformed Episcopal friend. The wife and I within a year became Episcopalians. Our parish was solidly traditional Anglo-Catholic. I thought we could hunker down and ignore all the lunacy that was going on in the rest of ECUSA.

All the while, I had a developing interest in the Orthodox Church. The more I read the more I wanted to be Orthodox. The more I read about Orthodoxy, the more troubled I became with trying to remain Episcopalian. Ultimately, we did not leave ECUSA because of the heresies and heretics, we became Orthodox because we believe that the Orthodox Church is the fullness of the Truth and Faith.