User:AddieW

I'm not gonna unveil my actual name, but do acknowledge I'm a 17-year-old (birthday on 30 May 2006) Male from Michigan who's name is not actually "Addie."

Theological Journey

I was raised in a secular household and grew up in a way contradictory to the faith I would eventually accept. While I considered myself a believer in God since I was young, I was never encouraged to actually pursue our loving creator. I ended up falling into religious doubt by the time I was 14 and it was crushing to me. I would almost never pray and I wasn't really going anywhere spiritually.

On 10 December 2021, I got with a self-identified pansexual girl who was my age and it took a toll on me. She was an atheist, and in that relationship, I started considering myself agnostic. I was freed from that relationship after I found out she was having an affair on me on 14 June 2022, and then I fell in love with a dual national Irish-American girl who was Catholic in August 2022. During the relationship, I would call myself 'Christian' but I wasn't even entirely sure what that truly meant anymore. It was like a candle died out.

That relationship ended on 17 October 2022 and then I took a break from pursing relationships. During that time, I spent a bunch of time hanging out with a friend I met online who was protestant although many of my real life friends were actually agnostics or atheists.

This one friend however had something special. I noticed that he was never as depressed as my God-less friends and so, I decided to look more into the matter. Before this point in time, the only books of the Bible I ever read were Genesis and Exodus. In January 2023, I read the Gospel of Matthew but it didn't actually do me much favors. All it did was educate me on who Jesus was. I then just dropped it afterwards, but I think God didn't think that was good enough.

On 23 February 2023, I was arrested and charged with a crime. On 1 March 2023, while I was in Juvie, I began reading throughout the New Testament as well as some Old Testament books. I was released on 9 June 2023 and was on House Arrest until 19 July of that year. The first Sunday after the day I got off of House arrest (23 July), was the first time I attended Church.

Due to all the Biblical knowledge I obtained while in detention, I ended up being a lot like an assistant to the Sunday School teacher. That's where I remain today, helping the younger kids find God and I've never been so happy doing anything else in years.