Ex-Pagan 4 Christ

I was born in November 1980 in London, England. I had a decent childhood really, certainly not disastrous compared to some people! My parents were married, and stayed together - in fact I very rarely even heard them argue about anything! (Except when they were driving). Mum was Irish, of a virulently Catholic family, while my dad was a very moderate Presbyterian. Their families had rowed so much about religion that when I came along (I am an only child) they decided to keep me away from it altogether and let me learn and decide for myself when I grew up.

Thats a very popular solution to stop religious arguments and in our day of forced religious tolerance and everyone being too polite to acknowledge that there is only one Saviour, a common one. It is not a good model to follow though. However good their intentions were, my parents might better have trained me as a Christian, and so given me protection for the future: Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

We had little religious instruction at school - though I do once remember being given a prize for remembering the story of Balaam's ass, but we rarely had anything to do with the New Testament. When I was thirteen I was given a New Testament by the Gideons - but my school used to take them from us and leave them in the Religious Education room so they didn't have to buy Bibles.

I had quite a good time at school, though I wasn't an outstanding student or particularly good at sports. I did manage to enjoy myself regardless. I was quite a shy child back then, liable to blush bright red or run away if a stranger approached me! I was easily led too - I remember my best friend, age eight, telling me that soft ice cream was made from nit remover, and I believed her for years!

Its strange, my school had an abundance of prayers and hymns at assembly time, and we even had one teacher who later became a priest, but we were all spiritually ignorant. We may have had school prayer, but not one ever bothered to talk about God, salvation, heaven, hell or even Jesus! All we knew of Jesus was that He was dead, and the nativity story.

Still, life went on, though I did have a brief burst of religious searching when I was fourteen - though my mother would only allow me to go to a Catholic church as she was suspicious of the others. They didn't explain the gospel either, so I came away empty-handed (and with empty pockets too).

I decided I wanted to leave school at sixteen. I was bored by it, and wanted money, adventure, excitement and freedom, which I thought I would get if only I stopped being a 'schoolgirl'. I managed to get a job in a clothes shop, rented a tiny house with five friends, and set out on my new, independent, adult life. I thought it would be great: I was wrong.