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Hello All,
Grace be to you, and peace from God the Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ. My name, the one I wish to use here, is Ambrose. This is actually the confirmation I took when I entered the Church this last Easter. So, about me...
I come from a broken family, raised by my father. He was a non-practicing Lutheran. As a child, I came in contact with the Baptist church through my babysitter and attended there for a couple of years. I fell away and a number of years later (at the age of 12), I found myself in the wonderful cult of the Jehovah's Witnesses, led there by my mother. That only lasted a year before I was back into the Baptist church (and I do thank God for the JWs rekindling in me a desire for Him...I just decided to follow the true, Trinitarian Him).
After being Baptist for two years, I felt something was missing. These were fundamentalist cessationists (meaning they denied the gifts of the Holy Spirit for today's age), and so I moved into Pentecostalism and, specifically, the Assemblies of God. Ever since finding my way back to Christianity, I felt a call to full time ministry. So, I went to Bible college. Halfway through, I realized that my struggles with sin and faith were too great and I could not become a pastor. So, instead, I chose to continue schooling toward becoming a lawyer.
After entering law school, my sin life was so great and my faith so small that I finally called out to God and told Him that if He was real and He wanted to keep me, He had to tell me what to do...that I couldn't stay on this path seeking someone who seemed to be completely absent. Catholicism came to my mind. I laughed, but out of obedience, I studied. And in studying objectively, I found Truth. I found the missing piece to my faith.
I have been strengthened in faith since starting RCIA. I officially entered the Church at Easter this year and have not regretted it since. However, finding my faith once more has caused an internal conflict of vocation. As I said, for quite some time, while I was living a pious Christian life, I felt called to ministry. And now that I had been cleansed of quite a bit of sin, found myself moving toward holiness once more, and attending Mass, I felt that desire once more. Every time I see the priest offer the Mass, my heart is filled with joyous desire.
So, now I am at a point where I am going deep into Catholic theology (because I love theology) and deciding if my life will be a simple lawyerly life or if I am on a complicated road to the priesthood. So, I will ask your prayers, brothers and sisters, as I also pray for you all.
Thank you in advance for the welcome. I look forward to getting to know you all and to grow in our Faith together.
God bless!
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