Someone recently asked me why/how I became a Christian, and I wrote the following response.  I've vacillated on whether or not to post this here, but I decided to go ahead and do it.  I ask that if you read this, you do so with a kind spirit and not a critical one.  If you have something negative to say, I'd appreciate a private message/email over a public comment.  Thanks!

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It's hard to remember now exactly everything that has happened.  I feel obligated, though, to tell the whole story if I'm going to tell part of it.  If I only talk about how I "got saved,"  it would be very misleading about where I am now.  

I didn't grow up in church, and still no one in my family goes.  I had a couple of friends in high school that were Christians, and they always seemed Very Happy about it.  We had a bible in our house and I would read it from time to time.  I always figured, in the back of my mind, that there was something to the whole Jesus thing.  I thought that once I was on my own, I'd investigate  (I didn't have much freedom in high school - strict parents, no car, very hard courseload, etc.)  Then i went to college and spent the first 2 years having WAY too much fun to worry about religion.  

Then, summer between sophomore and junior years, I started going to a church near where I lived (this was where one of my friends went.)  The main reasons I was hesitant about investigating and put it off for so long were 1)  I figured it would change my life a lot, and I didn't really want to have to do that and 2)  I didn't want to be a crazy fundamentalist (I thought becoming a Christian would mean I'd start voting republican and hating gay people and stuff.)  Anyway, the church was United Methodist and when I went back to college I started going to the UM church there.  I got involved there, and quickly learned that there were many liberal, free thinking people like me who believed in Jesus.  There was no pressure to change anything (like the fact that I was living with my boyfriend) and EVERYONE there was liberal-leaning (politically and otherwise) like me.  This is where I started, in what I now think of as my 'liberal' phase.  I wrestled a lot with doubts and questions (is any of this real? how do we know? etc.)  I studied apologetics like crazy, and began to understand rationally the overwhelming likelihood that God exists, and that Jesus was(is) real.   At some point I came to the realization that I didn't have to have it all figured out, that God was big enough to handle my doubts.  The funny thing was that shortly after that, I stopped all that doubting.  (it's come back recently, but that's a few paragraphs away)

So I've been a Christian for about 8 years, I think.  I've been through many phases since then.  After getting involved in a liberal church, I started reading the bible and listening to Christian radio and becoming more and more conservative.  This went on for about 3 years, in what I now think of as my 'fundamentalist' phase.  At that point, my husband ditched me.  Being a fundamentalist and all, I thought divorce was totally evil and didn't think I could ever get married again (even though he had cheated on me, and the divorce was not my decision at all.)  This was a horribly difficult time for me, and I really felt like the Lord was carrying me through it.  Some days I honestly felt like I couldn't even breathe on my own.  I had to leave my church (a whole other story) and started going to a church that fit my new conservative leanings.  I entered what I now think of as my 'charismatic' phase.  I learned to play guitar, and spent countless hours playing and singing and crying and praying.  

As often happens to people 'on fire' for God, I burned out.  I began to see a serious disconnect in myself,  and in everyone around me.  It seemed like we all have a really self-absorbed faith.  It also seemed like the faith that Jesus taught was much more focused on serving others than in seeking comfort and happiness for ourselves.  I noticed the lack of concern for social justice, for the environment, for the economic and other impacts that our wealthy american lives are having on the rest of the world.  I started reading books by NT Wright and Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis and Rob Bell, and am now in what I think of as my 'emerging' phase.  Hopefully it's more than a phase, since the concept of 'emergent' includes the process of constantly changing and growing.  

 I'm not really going to church anymore, because I don't feel like there's much Jesus-following going on there.  My church is wonderfully free of legalism and judgement, but still seems to serve primarily as a place for comfortable suburbanites to pat each other on the back and talk about how much God loves us.  Not really having a church is a pretty awkward place to be (and I have no idea what I'm going to do when we have children,) but I have some good friends that are in pretty much the same boat I am and that helps.  I go through constant cycles of doubt about nearly everything I believe, but I keep coming back to Jesus - I just find him totally captivating.