I grew up living with my mom in S.W. Michigan. My dad lived in Illinois, I saw him mostly on holidays and summer breaks. My mom always believed in God, but until recently need not feel the need for organized religion. When I was fresh out of high school, about 3 weeks, I found out I was pregnant I then decided to live with and marry my then boyfriend, although was quick to find out he was, to put it nicely, a loser. Several years, 2 more babies, and a few dozen other girlfriends for him, and 1 more baby that wasn't mine, later I filed for divorce. At the urging of my mom I decided to go and apply at the new IHOP they were building in our area. I got the job and the first week after they opened meet the Manager, who had not been there much because he lived in Iowa and was still working at an IHOP there. Well let me tell you it was LOVE at first sight. 2 months later we moved in together, 2 weeks later we got married. A short time later we back to Iowa, there was a church 2 doors down that was Luthren, and had a preschool, so we attended very irregular and my youngest went to the school. Now my husband grew up Catholic, but thought it was better that the kids go to a church, if the only other option was no church. We then moved to Wisconsin and the only church in town happened to be Catholic, so we went. I would like to break for a quick second and say growing up my step-sister was Catholic and went to a Catholic school, I was always fascinated with what she learned in religion class, nuns, priests and the sign of the cross. back to the story. My son was in 2nd grade so we signed up all the kids for ccd, which was sunday morning before mass, so we went to church almost every Sunday. I was going to sign up for rcia but the class had already started and the girl in charge said it was best to start at the beginning of the year. So I decided to to wait. Now I would like to say I was not excited about joining the church, I was doing it more to be the same as the rest of the family. I figured if we ever moved and found a differnet church we would go there. I thought all churches were interchangable. We would go to which ever was closest to our house. So my son took his first communion. I started to take a little interest in the church towards the end of that Spring. That Summer we moved back to Michigan and I enrolled the kids in Catholic school and I started to kind of like this Catholic thing. But I put off joining rcia because I just didn't feel like going. My middle child was going to take her 1st communion that year, but since the kids went to church in school we did not go alot on Sundays. In the middle of that year we moved to Illionis, we move alot. I knew we needed tofind a church soon so my daughter could make her communion, so with in a week we found a church, which happened to be the church my dad went to as a child. I will take another break to say my dad went to catholic school as a child and took his 1st communion in the Catholic Church. All of which I did not know until we moved here and were church hunting. My dads, dads family was Baptist and his moms family was Mormon and to avoid a fight my grandma decided to raise my dad and my aunt Catholic. So we started to go to that church, and we still do. And I decided to go to rcia. I will break her eso my post is not to long, as the next part is probably to long all by it's self. I will try to finish it this week
Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words. - St. Francis of Assisi
