A Change of Life Story

After reading Mrs. Pom's post of today, I decided to write this story. I've thought about telling it before but felt it was too personal and that perhaps a reader may label me after learning of what really changed my life. Despite that risk, here it goes:
My distant past is much of a blur. So many of the experiences I had I look back on in wonder, wonder that I am still alive. Not that I didn't put any value on life, just that I never thought about the consequences of my actions or decisions. I lived for 'today" with no care about tomorrow. Mostly due to shame and embarrasment I will not mention my foibles in detail but suffice it to say, it's a miracle I'm still here to remember them.
I quess I was 30 by the time I started to reflect on how the present would define my future. I got married, to a man with a similar crazy past and we tried to live down our mistakes together. At first we drowned most of them with mind-altering substances (another mistake) but finally we broke that chain of ups and downs and began to search. For what? I don't think we knew then but it was a spiritual influence that caught our attentions when we met a person of the Baha'i faith. We were facinated by the ideology of a "one world government." Simultaneously we got involved with several anti-establishment organizations which also advocated a new kind of alternative government. We became vegetarians, stopped tobacco use and although drugs were still a part of our life, they were much more under control, or so we told ourselves. We would have long conversations with our "mentor" (I guess that's what you'd call him,) about the theories associated with the Baha'i 's and tried to justify our drug use into our new lifestyle. Eventually we came to feel we were being hypocritical. We had to physically move states to finally erase our former habits because we had such little self-control.
We had no formal ties to the Baha'i religion but kind of stuck to it's ideals because they were more true to us than the religious ideas we'd been brought up with. In actuality we were only trading one lie for another, one destructive lifestyle for another. But, such is sometimes the nature of searching, it takes more than one try to find what your looking for.
Before long, some of our ruinous ways led to a pretty weird divorce. And that's all I have to say about that!
But, all that changed very suddenly.
I met my husband, TT, who had studied the Bible for years. He'd gotten a little disallusioned with life himself and although he felt strongly about the power of living life by Bible standards, his will was not strong to do so because of many discouraging events in his life. Once we married, we initiated a study together. Him, with the intent of strengthening his resolve and me, still searching and intrigued by much I was learning. At first it was the intellectual endeavor of the investigation that drew me in but in time the reasonableness, the love and compassion of the originator of this Bible and seeing the positive effects of it's application, convinced me I had found what I was searching for all along. Not only in myself, but in all I became associated with during this search, these affirmative effects were evident.
I don't know if I can convey with words how this discovery has changed my life. Of course, I still have discouragement at times and lose track of the hope this endeavor has led me to. I don't consider myself "religious" per se but my faith has become a way of life. The rest is just a means to an end. The end of working to overcome my imperfect nature by making a conscious effort to do so - in everything I do. I could be a custodian, a grocery store cashier (not my preference) or a mobile home/RV park manager or just a stay at home mom and be equally satisfied because my real boss is not a human, but a perfect, compassionate, loving being.
Having a husband who shares the same love of this truth I've found, and two beautiful kids (yeah I want to kill them at times) to give the same oppotunity to find a love of that truth gives my life all the meaning it needs.
A far cry from the life I described at the outset, a life that I look back on as if it was another lifetime, another person.
After this post I'm almost relieved that I don't have many readers.