I was opposed to Christianity and to Christ. I was a staunch atheist and I would boast that there was no way I was going to become a Christian. I was set on that course as a nine year old. At that time I didn’t use the word atheist. I didn’t know what it meant. But I wanted nothing to do with God. It was all caused by my alcoholic father’s attitudes. He hated religion because on occasions my mother went to church. But then he would play the religious card when it suited him. One particular Saturday night crystallised my stand for me when I was nine. I remember standing behind my bedroom door with my baseball bat in my hand vowing to whack my father over the head as he yelled and screamed at my mother. I was summoning up the resolve and was waiting for him to come past my bedroom door. He came out of the lounge but turned the other way to the bathroom and I lost my resolve and stood shaking behind the door.
The next morning I took my rugby ball and was kicking it in the air and catch it as a sign to my friend across the road to come and play. My father burst out of the front door and yelled at me not to kick the rugby ball in the front yard as it was the Lord’s Day. That moment set me on a collision course with God. I thought I hated God and religion but in reality I hated my father’s hypocrisy. God at the right time pursued me and won me over to Himself. But along the journey on occasions I could be paranoid about religion and the Bible which would bring out my irrational responses. Like thinking that Tania was moving and placing her Bible around her house so I would see it and it bugged me. It wasn’t Tania’s conspiracy it was God pursuing me.