Kimberly’s Story – From Wicca to Christ

When I read Candace’s story I couldn’t help but feel an eerie sense of familiarity.  Much of what had happened to her happened to me, just not to the same harsh extent. 

Growing up I had never been to church (beyond the occasional wedding) and my family never really spoke much of God or religion.  We were a happy family and maybe that’s why we never talked about God or questioned his existence.  We never had anything bad happen to make us ask “why?”.  Then I became a teenager. 

I don’t know why I was attracted to the rebellious side of being a teen.  I wasn’t doing it on purpose, it’s just what I really wanted to be like.  My “crowd” wasn’t a bad one, at least we didn’t think so, but we got into trouble now and then.  I started smoking cigarettes and marijuana, drinking and staying out all night and lying to my Mother.  I was having sex at 13 and pregnancy scares at 14. I didn’t care, I was having fun.  Then it all went downhill. 

I had broken up with my boyfriend of 5 years, and I was only 16.  I started to do anything for any guy who would give me the time of day.  Then I did get pregnant, and I thought maybe I had found love again, but it wasn’t so.  He never beat me but the verbal abuse I put up with threw me into a deep depresion.  I tried so hard to be a good mother and house wife (even though we were not married) and nothing was ever good enough.  He called me a slut and a whore.  He refused to claim his daughter when he knew I was with no one else.  He called me fat and lazy while I was pregnant.  Sometimes I wished he would have beaten me.  It probably would have hurt less.  When I thought I could not take it anymore and was on the verge of suicide I happened upon something that would change my life. 

I was watching an afternoon talk show one day.  The subject was a new religion called Wicca.  I heard them talk of their love and worship of nature and all living creatures and the spiritual force of the earth and I was hooked.  I went out and found everything I could on wicca.  I trained and practiced and finally I proclaimed myself a bonafide witch.  Wicca had opened up a whole new world for me.  It gave me hope, it helped me with struggles, and it made me friends.  It was a community where I belonged.  For once I was happy.  I found the courage to take my 3 year old daughter and leave her father, and it was the best choice I had ever made.  I moved into my own apartment and I was in total bliss.  No more complaining if something wasn’t cleaned right or put away in the right place.  I was finally on my own.  But on your own can be a very lonely place. 

I started to pray to my God and Goddess for someone to love me the way I needed to be loved.  Someone that understood me.  And it happened.  He was perfect in every way and we really got along great.  We saw each other for a couple of weeks and then we slept together and I never heard from him again.  I found out a while later that he was a virgin and that he had only used me to “get it over with” so to speak.  I was crushed.  What self-esteem I had rebuilt was gone and I went wild.  I started sneaking into bars and taking guys home I didn’t even know for meaningless sex.  Sometimes these guys were 30 or 40 years old and I was only 19 going on 20.  I had gone from having had slept with nine people to twenty seven people in two months.  I had given up all hope of ever finding someone to love.  Then I met Jeff. 

I met him while I was working at one of my twelve jobs that I had had in that year.  I had never seen him before but I just couldn’t get him out of my head.  Well he kept coming back and it turned out that his ex-girlfriend was my co-worker and he had her ask me out.  I said yes and we went to the only place I knew how to talk to guys at, the bar.  We hit it off instantly and I could tell that he wasn’t like other guys.  At the end of the night he asked for my phone number but I knew as I handed it to him that he would never call.  Much to my surprise the phone rang the next day and it was him asking me out on a second date.  I twas the start of a long and beautiful relationship.  But there was one problem.  My beliefs were a conflict to his.  

He was a strict christian and I was a witch.  He never said anything but I could tell it bothered him.  So finally one night we sat down and talked about it.  I explained to him that it was what I had chosen because I knew of no other choice.  He would talk to me about God and the Bible and I had no idea of anything that he said.  So he taught me.  I resented it at first but then I started to see so many things falling in to place that I had given dumb luck and Wicca credit for.  He explained to me that Christianity was not a religion, it was a relationship.  He never got frustrated, even when I did and was patient. 

Almost a year into our relationship I accepted Jesus Christ and became a Christian.  I have never been happier.  I realize now that my ultimate unhappiness came from not knowing where I was going.  I know now. 

Kimberly S.  
Pa 

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