About My Life and My Faith

   

     I was born Brenda Maureen in Virginia in 1946 at the Baptist Hospital where my mother had trained to be a registered nurse. 

     I moved around a lot when I was growing up, but spent most of my time in Tucson, Arizona and Albuquerque, New Mexico. 

     I remember going to Sunday school at a Baptist church when I was in the first grade. Then I found out what the little room was behind the preacher with the pretty painting on the wall of trees and a river. When they told me that is was where people were baptized and that there was a room behind that window that had a place for people to be dunked under the water, I got scared and started going to the Methodist Church whereI was baptized by the sprinkling of water on my head when I was 15. 

      When I was grown, I finally was baptized by immersion at my landlords’ church, The Church of Christ. By then I understood the symbolism of being "buried (under the water) to sin and being reborn to a new Christian life when rising up out of the water. 

     Although I sang in my church choir from junior high school through my sophomore year at college, I strayed from my Christian upbringing. I tried far Eastern philosophy, and other belief systems, but God kept sending friends into my life who brought me back again and again to church, prayer, and reading the Bible. 

      was married to a Catholic and converted. I wasn’t forced to. I think the Catholic services can be beautiful, and at some churches the services are full of contemporary Christian music and you can feel the love of Christ around you. I know there are many who do not believe that Catholics are Christian, but I know that is not true. When I was instructed in the faith and I expressed concerns about praying to Mary and the saints, I was told I do not have to do that, so I still pray directly to God wherever or whenever I want. 

     Even though I did marry a Catholic, for a while we attended a Baptist church and I was so happy when my husband decided to be baptized there. Some Catholic churches now have baptism by immersion—very few. Personally, I don’t think immersion is necessary. I think it is your acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice and your desire and commitment to living a Christian life that matters. 

Recently my youngest son took lessons in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church and became a member, and now I have joined too. So, I have had many different religious experiences during my lifetime, but I am happy with my latest decision.