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My Journey with God.

I became a born again Christian in 1995 through a radio ministry called "Hope for the Heart." I was struggling with a sexual sin, that was keeping me trapped and I learned that through the blood and the cross of Jesus I could be free from that sin. I was at work, and immediately after the broadcast I memorized their number, then after, called the ministry. I learned through material they sent me that my sexual sin was something I could be free from, and I confessed that sin to God and He freed me. I learned what the bible said about my sin, and I also heard the plan of salvation for the first time. To me church was something you did on Sunday, but being a Christian was never my identity. When I learned who Jesus was for the first time it was a revelation that changed my life and my understanding about Heaven. I was apprehensive about receiving Jesus as my personal Lord and Saviour, but I did it anyway. In fact, I did it twice that night, just to be sure it took. And all these years later, I have been free from that sin.

The night I repented, I knew I had made my peace with God, but my faith was about to be challenged. Not several months after my conversion, I remember sitting in my basement after a relationship breakup, and I actually felt my belief in God leaving me. The question I was asking myself before this happened was "why did God allow this to happen?" I was a baby Christian and had no answers, so I lost my belief in God. That year, I got two tattoos and moved out to Peterborough Ontario, to attend University but left before the school year officially started, to travel to an ashram in California to learn how to meditate.

When I got back home, I was a different person, with very different beliefs, but to me it was real. Long story short, in 1999 I checked myself into the mental hospital because I felt like I was having a breakdown. It was one of the things that eventually brought me back to my Christian Faith. I met someone while I was in the hospital, and when I was released we both went to the meditation centre I used to go to in Toronto. She said something to me, I'll call her "Pat", Pat said "as you were meditating, I was talking to God for you." She asked me what God I worshiped? I told her there is only One God and she made me see that I had stopped worshipping the God of the bible. "Pat" helped me back to God. Although I couldn't let go of the informal mediation, I was back on a journey to discovering who the real God of the bible was, through the word of God. It's been almost 20 years now, and "Pat" and I are just friends. I still meditate, but it is no longer a religious experience.

I read my bible everyday and attend a Catholic Church because I grew up Catholic, and I identify as a born again Christian. I suffer from chronic depression and life is very hard at times. I suffer from anxiety too, but over the years I have attached myself to other believers in Christ. This is Mike.

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