WARNING: THIS POST IS LONG AND JUMBLED AND ALL OVER THE PLACE. HOWEVER, I PROMISE YOU IT IS WORTH THE READ. I AM SO EXCITED, MY FRIENDS. PLEASE READ TO THE END. THIS IS MY TESTIMONY.
So, since I have always been nothing but completely, 100% honest on my blog here, I figured I would go ahead and confess my past religious beliefs and practices. I also feel like writing this here will be a good way for me to let everything out that I have been hiding from people. It's time for me to share my testimony. When I started to lose my faith when I was a young teenager, I didn't just stay agnostic. When I was 19 years old, I discovered Wicca.
While researching some random things, I came across Wicca. My first thought: "Oh, witchcraft? No way.. Not even going to read about that.. Too dark for me." However, I still clicked on that link.. Google, sometimes you can be a pain.
For those of you who do not know, Wicca is a branch off of Paganism. Some wiccans practice witchcraft, but not all of them. It is a majorly confusing religion TO ME. You can google it if you would like to know more information, but I do not suggest it. As it can be appealing. However, I promise you that it is a disaster.
Fast forward a bit, I'm ordering books from Amazon, creating a Wiccan Blog account, talking to Wiccans from all over the world, buying crystals, occult books and figurines, and praying to a goddess. Writing this out right now just makes me realize how lucky I was to get out of that life.
I am going to begin by saying I never truly considered myself a Wiccan. I dabbled in Wicca. I studied it like I study for my college classes. I was so consumed by this religion that it became the only thing I thought or cared about. Honestly, I thought that it would be awesome to be able to call myself a witch. It somehow made me feel powerful and important. I learned about what they call "the craft" very quickly. (I'm very good at studying. My GPA can prove that
). SO then one day I decided, "Ohh what's the big deal? I can perform a ritual." I'll tell you what the big deal is. It was not okay for me and it was most definitely a BIG deal. I did a simple ritual. I lit two candles. One representing the "god of nature" and one representing the "goddess of light". I prayed to them, asked them to give me what I wanted, and pledged my allegiance to them. Now bare with me.. because this is where it goes wrong. The second I blew out that candle I knew something was wrong. My energy was drained from me and I could feel my positivity (which I have a lot of, if you haven't noticed) was gone from my body and mind. I felt empty and felt as if I was just watching myself live my life. I was in my body, but I did not feel like I was living at all. Every day was me being negative. I was finding something wrong in every situation and I do not like who I was in that time. I walked away from Wicca after that because it scared me. However, like I said at the beginning of this post, I am an honest woman. SO I will tell you (sadly) that I came back to Wicca. AGAIN. Yes, yes, I know. You're probably reading this thinking that I am an insane person. Trust me, looking back on it now, I feel like I lost my sanity for a year and a half.
So I went back to Wicca. Thinking that I could try again and make everything okay. I bought more books, read them over and over, and believed everything they were telling me. "Wicca is a nature-based religion," "No war has ever been fought in the name of Wicca," "Wicca doesn't believe in satan." These are just a few things that these books would say. All of them that I read said something of these sorts. However, again I felt that something was wrong. As peaceful and loving as this religion seemed, I just felt like a dark cloud was following over me all of the time. Every single time I read a book on wicca I would feel a sense of peace, but as soon as a would sit that book down it was like dark smoke was filling my lungs.
And this is where we get to a few months ago when I vowed to never pick up Wicca again. I just woke up one morning and decided that Wicca was consuming too much of my life and I didn't like the way that it made me feel. That is where I believe God entered my life. That is where He began saving me. I gave Him up years ago. I turned away from Him, I denied Him in front of my friends, I even hated Him at one point in my life. However, the very moment that I decided to give up the religion that was turning me into a monster, He swooped in with no hesitation and saved me from myself.
Temptation has been everywhere for me lately. Everywhere I go, I am reminded of Wicca. My TV shows that I watch suddenly have references to witchcraft, the other day I was reading a book at Books-A-Million and under the book that I had been reading for 10 minutes, was a book about Wicca. I walked by a store in the mall the other day and saw a shirt with a Pentagram on it. Temptation is everywhere and all I can say about this is that it is the devil trying his hardest to get me to crack. However, the other night I had a dream. And throughout that entire dream, I was walking down a crowded street. Every other person I passed turned to me and said "Do not let your faith be shaken." I can only think that this was God talking to me through my dream.
I know that I just started on this website a few days ago. I don't even know if it has been a couple of weeks yet. And in my first post, I told you all that I am agnostic and that I don't know what I believe. I don't know if this is common, but I am going to spill my heart out in this post and tell you all something that has happened to me. I don't know if it is common for someone to work this fast. I don't know if it is common that someone can do this so quickly. But I am telling you all right now, that I have found God.. and He has found me. He has filled my lungs with clean air. He has lifted my spirits and filled my heart with nothing but joy. He has accepted me just as I am and He has let me know that I am loved. This is something that I have been looking for my entire life.
I am so proud of the progress I have made in such a short period of time and I can't believe this is happening. (Or should I say, I DO BELIEVE?) I do believe. I believe in God. That is something I have wanted to say (and mean) for so many years.
I have a long way to go. I have so much to learn, and so many years to make up for. I am so excited for my new life. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me.
I know that this post was seriously ALL OVER the place. (When I get excited, I write super crazy) SO please, all of you.. stay with me. I need support and I need help still.
If you have read this entire post, THANK YOU for sticking with me throughout the whole thing because I understand that it might have been hard to read. God is alive, people. He is here and He is good. He has saved me from so much and He is still saving me. Like I said above, temptation is everywhere. But He let's me know that he is not giving up on me. And He knows now that I am not giving up on Him. This is me coming out of the religious closet. This is me declaring myself a follower of Christ.
Thank you again for reading, everyone. It means the world to me.
-No-longer-Godless-Liz
<3
So, since I have always been nothing but completely, 100% honest on my blog here, I figured I would go ahead and confess my past religious beliefs and practices. I also feel like writing this here will be a good way for me to let everything out that I have been hiding from people. It's time for me to share my testimony. When I started to lose my faith when I was a young teenager, I didn't just stay agnostic. When I was 19 years old, I discovered Wicca.
While researching some random things, I came across Wicca. My first thought: "Oh, witchcraft? No way.. Not even going to read about that.. Too dark for me." However, I still clicked on that link.. Google, sometimes you can be a pain.
For those of you who do not know, Wicca is a branch off of Paganism. Some wiccans practice witchcraft, but not all of them. It is a majorly confusing religion TO ME. You can google it if you would like to know more information, but I do not suggest it. As it can be appealing. However, I promise you that it is a disaster.
Fast forward a bit, I'm ordering books from Amazon, creating a Wiccan Blog account, talking to Wiccans from all over the world, buying crystals, occult books and figurines, and praying to a goddess. Writing this out right now just makes me realize how lucky I was to get out of that life.
I am going to begin by saying I never truly considered myself a Wiccan. I dabbled in Wicca. I studied it like I study for my college classes. I was so consumed by this religion that it became the only thing I thought or cared about. Honestly, I thought that it would be awesome to be able to call myself a witch. It somehow made me feel powerful and important. I learned about what they call "the craft" very quickly. (I'm very good at studying. My GPA can prove that
). SO then one day I decided, "Ohh what's the big deal? I can perform a ritual." I'll tell you what the big deal is. It was not okay for me and it was most definitely a BIG deal. I did a simple ritual. I lit two candles. One representing the "god of nature" and one representing the "goddess of light". I prayed to them, asked them to give me what I wanted, and pledged my allegiance to them. Now bare with me.. because this is where it goes wrong. The second I blew out that candle I knew something was wrong. My energy was drained from me and I could feel my positivity (which I have a lot of, if you haven't noticed) was gone from my body and mind. I felt empty and felt as if I was just watching myself live my life. I was in my body, but I did not feel like I was living at all. Every day was me being negative. I was finding something wrong in every situation and I do not like who I was in that time. I walked away from Wicca after that because it scared me. However, like I said at the beginning of this post, I am an honest woman. SO I will tell you (sadly) that I came back to Wicca. AGAIN. Yes, yes, I know. You're probably reading this thinking that I am an insane person. Trust me, looking back on it now, I feel like I lost my sanity for a year and a half. So I went back to Wicca. Thinking that I could try again and make everything okay. I bought more books, read them over and over, and believed everything they were telling me. "Wicca is a nature-based religion," "No war has ever been fought in the name of Wicca," "Wicca doesn't believe in satan." These are just a few things that these books would say. All of them that I read said something of these sorts. However, again I felt that something was wrong. As peaceful and loving as this religion seemed, I just felt like a dark cloud was following over me all of the time. Every single time I read a book on wicca I would feel a sense of peace, but as soon as a would sit that book down it was like dark smoke was filling my lungs.
And this is where we get to a few months ago when I vowed to never pick up Wicca again. I just woke up one morning and decided that Wicca was consuming too much of my life and I didn't like the way that it made me feel. That is where I believe God entered my life. That is where He began saving me. I gave Him up years ago. I turned away from Him, I denied Him in front of my friends, I even hated Him at one point in my life. However, the very moment that I decided to give up the religion that was turning me into a monster, He swooped in with no hesitation and saved me from myself.
Temptation has been everywhere for me lately. Everywhere I go, I am reminded of Wicca. My TV shows that I watch suddenly have references to witchcraft, the other day I was reading a book at Books-A-Million and under the book that I had been reading for 10 minutes, was a book about Wicca. I walked by a store in the mall the other day and saw a shirt with a Pentagram on it. Temptation is everywhere and all I can say about this is that it is the devil trying his hardest to get me to crack. However, the other night I had a dream. And throughout that entire dream, I was walking down a crowded street. Every other person I passed turned to me and said "Do not let your faith be shaken." I can only think that this was God talking to me through my dream.
I know that I just started on this website a few days ago. I don't even know if it has been a couple of weeks yet. And in my first post, I told you all that I am agnostic and that I don't know what I believe. I don't know if this is common, but I am going to spill my heart out in this post and tell you all something that has happened to me. I don't know if it is common for someone to work this fast. I don't know if it is common that someone can do this so quickly. But I am telling you all right now, that I have found God.. and He has found me. He has filled my lungs with clean air. He has lifted my spirits and filled my heart with nothing but joy. He has accepted me just as I am and He has let me know that I am loved. This is something that I have been looking for my entire life.
I am so proud of the progress I have made in such a short period of time and I can't believe this is happening. (Or should I say, I DO BELIEVE?) I do believe. I believe in God. That is something I have wanted to say (and mean) for so many years.
I have a long way to go. I have so much to learn, and so many years to make up for. I am so excited for my new life. I can't wait to see what God has in store for me.
I know that this post was seriously ALL OVER the place. (When I get excited, I write super crazy) SO please, all of you.. stay with me. I need support and I need help still.
If you have read this entire post, THANK YOU for sticking with me throughout the whole thing because I understand that it might have been hard to read. God is alive, people. He is here and He is good. He has saved me from so much and He is still saving me. Like I said above, temptation is everywhere. But He let's me know that he is not giving up on me. And He knows now that I am not giving up on Him. This is me coming out of the religious closet. This is me declaring myself a follower of Christ.
Thank you again for reading, everyone. It means the world to me.
-No-longer-Godless-Liz
<3
