I joined a church when I was 5 years old, I can't quite remember if I joined because of my mother or because I was attending girls brigade (which frowned down on those who didn't attend church) but I was a good little christian girl who went to church every sunday. My mother and I even convinced my father to come too.

My parents and I then moved from the small town where I grew up (Gisborne)to a bigger city (Napier), when I was 11. Where we found another church to attend this church was bigger than our last one but relattively the same with the same service format. Except this on had servers (people who assisted the priest with the communiun etc) and I felt it would be good for me to serve god like this. I continued studying scriptures that were given to me at youth group.

I had many friends at youth group many my own age but mostly older. I was friends with one guy (who was 4 years older than me) in particular, we used to go on bike rides and play video games. He started to tell everyone I was his girlfriend (at 14 I was flattered at this but insisted we were just friends)this was fine until one day while we were alone at his house he took advantage of his strength and of my innocence.

I got home and cried I felt dirty and guilty, I showered and I prayed, I didn't eat for a week. I didn't tell anyone for ages as I'd always want to be a member of the clergy and I thought after this sin I was unworthy. During my time of solitude my father suffered a stroke and became paralized in his left side. Thinking things couldn't get worse than this. I eventually told my friend, stupidly I'd snuck out my window to see her that night, unfortunatly when I got home mum was waiting for me so I just had to tell her and all I got was why couldn't I tell her? Why couldn't I tell my sister? Why didn't I speak to someone from the church?

I was forced to report the incident, (one of the worst times of my life) he was arrested. Half way through the court hearing dates my father was then diagnosed with cancer and had 6 weeks to live. I had to put my personal hell on hold to help nurse my father. He died just after easter.

My mother turned to the church for comfort. I was too scared to go to church as that guy was there he'd always sit there and stare at me. It made my hair stand up on end. All the old ladies in the choir would look at me in digust as if I was a bit of dirt in their tidy church. I was labeled by some as the little slut who was wrecking a good boys name with my silly little lies.

He faced trail and was basically aquitted and given nine months supervision. After the trail he wrote letters to me threatening me, these were sent to the police but not much could be done about it as there 'was no proof it was him' even though the letters were in his handwriting and signed by him. On top of it all I also fail my school certifcate exams.

After all this I was so shattered and exhausted. I was sent to concillers, who months later told me I should be over all this by now. One conciller told me to pray to god and he'll look after me (I considered how well he'd 'looked after me' lately) and all these bad things were just to test my faith, she prescibed me some anti depressants and sent me on my way.

I was angry at god, at religon this was when I went though my atheist/satanist stage. I would get up during the night and sneak onto my sisters computer and research satanism etc. While I was browsing one night I came across paganism/wicca so I printed off a few sheets and went back to bed to read them.

It wasn't until I was 17 and I moved out into my own place that I really got it wicca/paganism, but it has changed my life. I think if I hadn't have found it I'd have killed my self by now. It just gave me soo much freedom, it didn't condemn me for what I'd done/hadn't done.

I later did more religous research and found more and more contradictions in christianity, more lies, more evil, if fact I seem to find more every time I look.

Thank the God and Goddess for people who aren't afraid to say they aren't a christian and that the believe in something other than eternal damnation.

I'd like to thank the owner of this page for the opportunity to tell this as I've never typed this all out, and it is good to get it out.

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