My journey to Islam

I did not accept Mary as being the mother of God. If she was the mother of Jesus and Jesus was the Son of God, how could she be the mother of the Son of God when God was a supernatural being? God was not a human being, so how could He have a Son especially since they never told us He was married! You had to be married first to have children we were told. You could not have children until you married first or you were sinning, and God did not sin! I could not help but deny all this and tell them what I thought. I did not feel that this teaching was a model for me to be following, and felt it was wrong to worship God in this way.
My classmates laughed at me, and thought I was a stupid person. This really hurt me, but what hurt even more was not being able to say what I thought and that I had to suppress all of it.
My adventure in life was just beginning, and already I was opposed to what was being taught to me. I was dealing with some really tough issues that helped to trigger off my unusually difficult behaviour. This lead me towards disobedience and withdrawal among my religious upbringing and peers. I was always mentally fighting the establishment in which I was being raised, but the reality was I did not know how to change it, even though I wanted to.
The metaphors used by the Roman Catholic faith such as the statues of Jesus, Mary, and the Saints were all a myth to me and blasphemous to my God. I say my God because I felt He was different than theirs. Their God was basically Jesus and I did not agree at any time that Jesus was God. I never lit candles in front of the statues to pray to them if I wanted them to grant me special help from God on their behalf. I felt this was ridiculous and I preferred to pray to God alone and not to the statues. My young mind seemed to be forever in need of His help! He was the only one I knew I could turn too.
I needed God’s help to free me from this habitual way of life which I detested living in. I needed a miracle to happen, and God was the only One who could perform miracles, not statues of the saints nor of Jesus. It was God whom I deeply believed in without a doubt, and wanted to learn more about Him in school.
Our religious beliefs related only to Jesus and we were not allowed to read the Bible although our religious teachings were derived from the Bible and were called our Catechisms.
We were told that the Bible had been distorted and would only confuse us. The Catechisms taught us about the life of Jesus and had lessons in them which we learned, pertaining only to him and not to God.
Whenever I asked questions about God, I would get answers about Jesus. Frustrated at what was being told, I would sink deeper into myself, trying to rationalize what I was hearing. It made absolutely no sense and I did not believe what was being said – not one word of it – and I let my teachers know when they asked me questions. Every Sunday morning in church, we worshipped Jesus and never a mention or word of God.
I suppose my teachers along with my parents tried to overlook my rebelliousness by pretending it was not happening in hopes that it would go away. My father would defend my resistance by saying I was just a stubborn child. Towards him, I was always so obedient and quiet, therefore, he could not understand my behaviour with my peers and disliked being told what he heard about me. It irritated him immensely and I could tell by his moods when I got home and by the way he asked me questions.
Often in class, if I did not like what I was being told, I would not listen to the teachers and would plug my ears with my fingers and stare off into space until they finished talking. My battle was a personal one as I was fighting the establishment who to me, was the devil himself in disguise. I did not do well in school, just managing to pass.
Later in years as I grew up, I became more introverted. I was no longer willing to go along with what was being said. I rarely spoke, and thought deeply about my life.
The teachers placed me in the front row of the classroom where they would be able to keep a closer watch on my attention span. When my mind wandered, I would be shocked back into reality by their unexpected and vicious attacks on my hands. They were not gentle nuns, and they used their long wooden ruler or yardstick to smack me hard across the fingers of both hands. It hurt, but what hurt even more than the pain of the thrashings or humiliation of the other children’s laughter was the pain of being punished because I had a mind of my own which I wanted to use. Instead, I had to suppress it along with my feelings and my voice.
I was still waiting to ‘leave’, to be taken away, to go ‘home’. I hated living in this concrete world and wondered if I would ever get away. As I grew older and into my teens, I rebelled even more. I hated going to church on Sundays, hated praying only to Jesus and Mary and all the saints; not learning about God, about who God was, what He did, where He came from, and if He existed at all. I continued to argue with my own conscious because it was the devil trying to persuade me otherwise. I knew that there was a God, a Creator high up in the Heavens, and I prayed to Him alone and not to Jesus or Mary or the saints.
I did not deny Jesus, as I respected him as a human being who had once lived, but I would not worship him or put him before God. I even had the ‘audacity’ to tell my peers and friends that I believed Jesus was a messenger for and from God, but that he was not God Himself. This shocked them immensely and I was regarded as the black sheep of the fold. I did pick up the Bible occasionally to read, but I could not understand it. It made no sense to me at all. It did not seem logical or easy to construe. It only frustrated my unhappy mind and made me disbelieve in my religion all the more.
I continued to go to church every Sunday and prayed faithfully every morning and night, but I prayed only and always to God. I had this very deep love for Him alone. I was not a hypocrite, nor was I a bad person at any time – I never broke the laws of society nor the laws of God.
Once I left home and was on my own, I started my journey looking for God. I became reclusive and was seen as an eccentric person. I preferred being alone rather than listening to what I assessed as ‘garbage’ when in the presence of conversations with others.
The older I grew the more ‘odder’ I appeared to be getting to my family and peers. I did not have many friends because I chose not to. Having friends who were involved and taught the same philosophy as I was only kept me entrapped in their way of thinking.
I stopped going to the Roman Catholic Church and started venturing into the many other Christian churches, trying to listen and learn about their philosophies. Although I was still a very quiet person, I would dare to question them, realizing that this was not where I belonged either. Finally I just stopped going to any church and prayed at home to my God, whom I put first in my life and would always love first and be loyal to.
I had two very serious experiences in my life which I believe could only have been miracles from God at the time. What happened to me in each circumstance, could only have been the work of God – no human being could have done it. Each of the experiences I had renewed my firm belief in God and deepened my love for Him.