Faith. My journey. Part 1.

As a small child, I did not go to church.  My family did not pray before meals or bedtime.  I watched R rated movies, before I knew what R rated meant.  I had a Bible, given to me from a family member, but I never read it.  Until, I started going to church with a friend of my mom's around the age of 4.  I would ride the church bus to and from church.  I participated in Sunday school and children's church.  I remember loving being allowed to go to big people church on Sundays that children's church was not taking place.  I started going to G.A.s or Girls in Action.  I even went to a summer camp.  
I was saved and gave my heart to Jesus when I was 5 or 6, but I did it because I thought I should.  I do not remember believing in God or Heaven, mainly because I don't think I understood any of it.  As a grew older my "belief" in Jesus Christ stayed the same.  I was a Christian because my fiends were Christians.  I was saved because I was told it was the only way by the adults at church.  I memorized Bible verses, but never understood what they meant to me.  In the 6th grade my church switched from G.A.s to AWANAs, for which I was too old for.  I was also too young for the teen service.  I stopped going to church altogether.
It wasn't until high school I started exploring church again, when I went with a friend of mine to a Wednesday night youth group.  The youth group was fun, inviting, and friendly.  I remember God moving my heart that He was there for me.  But then the preacher told me if I didn't believe in Jesus Christ, I would die a horrible death.  At 14 or 15, I was too young to understand the scare tactics.  I was also too young to understand that what a preacher says may not be true.  But in my head, I did not want to believe in a God that would have no mercy on mankind.  I stopped going to church.
My sophomore year of high school, I met a guy.  He was a Catholic.  I had never encountered a Catholic.  I had never been to a Catholic church.  And so I explored what the Catholic church offered after his family invited me to church with them.  I found myself loving the church, the priest, the environment, the homilies, and everything about the church.  But I realized, I wasn't learning.  In a Catholic church you do not take your Bible, you do not receive a bulletin or program.  I did not pick up my Bible once in the almost 2 years I went to that church.  
I just couldn't bring myself to believe in a God I didn't know about.  During my senior year of high school, I read a book called Dummies Book of World Religions.  After reading the book, I realized that I was a Christian.  But I had no faith.  And so I made a vow to learn about Jesus Christ and believe in Him with all my heart.  I even started praying.
However, this vow was short lived with too many late nights and too many college classes, because as a freshman in college, I learned about partying and alcohol.  Not about God.  After my sophomore year I got married, and while my husband and I talked about going to church, it took us a long while to actually go.  It wasn't until February 2010 that we went to church for the first time together.  It never stuck, but we went occasionally, as long as Maggie would cooperate.  And it was wonderful to grow my faith in the Lord along side my husband.  But those visits also stopped as we made excuses for our not attending.  
But then my husband deployed...