My dad was nominally Catholic. I went through First Communion and then we stopped going to church.

I remember getting a Mary statue that I treasured very much, despite not being educated at all on religion. I remember taking it with me like a doll. One day the head broke off. I was very sad. I glued it back on. It stayed for a while but broke off again. I assumed that this was a sign that I was supposed to move on and grow out of it.

For years I always searched for truth, but for so long it was by reading wikipedia about Buddhism, extra-terrestrial intelligent life, "historical Jesus", those kind of things. I talked with family and friends about my theories of the Big Bang and universal consciousness.

After some very difficult crises, I wanted to become Christian. A pastor gave me a book that convinced me I could be Christian without having to give up science or facts. So I read it and loved it and kneeled down and told Jesus hi for the first time, and thank you so much for saving me.

For the first year it was difficult because none of my secular friends could understand or share in my joy, and none of my new religious friends could understand my anxiety about making sure we belonged to the right denomination.

So it was a very painful first year, filled with lots of crying and researching and reading and praying and more crying.

The second year was slightly better. My wife reluctantly agreed to stop going to the old church and start going to Mass. We didn't like so much of it at the time. She missed her new friends at the old church. She felt the kids would benefit more from the old Sunday school than from Mass.

Fast forward a few years. We've all settled in. We're all very happy. My wife is one of the most reverent people I know, she always receives on tongue kneeling. Nostalgia still bites us sometimes when we look at old pictures of that church. But we're very happy here now.

Every few years I email our old pastor and tell him how much I miss him and how much I pray for him and his family to realize the truth of Catholicism and join us. Pretty sure he just deletes those now and shakes his head in pity at them. I do miss them, we were so alike and me and him would make good friends, if he weren't so busy being a Protestant pastor.