On March 31 I celebrated the 15th anniversary of my baptism. The turning point I would like to focus on here occurred four years later.

My father called me one morning that spring and asked me if I realized what was happening in the Church. I did, but I hadn't admitted it to my conscious self. I knew the Church, as I knew it, was falling apart.

I had grown up in the Church. I had attended Sabbath school, taught by my mother, before there were YES lessons. When YES came along, I memorized the required scriptures and I attended classes. When I entered YOU, I participated in music talent contests and cheerleading. I attended SEP in Orr, Minnesota, and also worked on the canoe program there as a high school worker.

As my senior year of high school approached, I decided that I would apply to Ambassador College in Big Sandy. I did just that and spent four wonderful years there. And now here I was, almost two years out of college with my world falling apart.

At the time I was working nights at the Minnesota Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Minnesota. I alternated evenings as a news editor and as a copy editor. As a news editor I was responsible for the final edit of the newspaper—that it looked good and was right before it went to press.

Now, as I mentioned, I knew the Church was falling apart, but I hadn't admitted it to myself. At my job as news editor I had a fair amount of down time as I waited to check others' work before it went to press. During that time the subconscious part of my brain worried over this church problem.

One day I arrived at work to a less-than-happy editor-in-chief and one of the few disciplinary actions I have ever received on the job. You see, I had allowed a misspelled word in a headline on the front page to go to press and she was not happy about it. The only thing that probably saved my job that day was the fact that the assistant editor had caught the mistake before the paper had actually gone to press. To say that I was a bit distracted at work during this time would be accurate.

As I was in my boss' office that day, she asked me if everything was all right in my personal life. My eyes welled up as I told her I was having some family trouble and as I thought, "She wouldn't understand." You see, it really was family trouble—not only my physical family, but my spiritual family as well. I had a lot invested in my church—I had all my friends from college, all the friends I had grown up with, and I had my family—Mom, Dad, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents.

After I got off the phone that day with my dad I knew the jig was up. I couldn't keep this problem in the back part of my brain anymore. It was going to have to come to the front and be dealt with.

This was a week or two before the spring Holy Days and a time of great debate in my life and many close to me. I kept my fourth Passover with a less than ideal attitude. I tried to keep the service sacred, but the pain, anguish and, mostly, uncertainty of the future pushed its way over the event's sacredness and I'm afraid my focus that evening wasn't really much on the meaning of the foot washing, the wine and the bread, just as my focus at work wasn't on the headlines.

The First Day of Unleavened Bread wasn't much better. That weekly Sabbath was the end. I couldn't do this anymore. I realized that it was time for me to leave the church I had grown up in. I realized that, no matter what had happened in the past, that God didn't want me to stay any longer. After that morning service I walked out, on my way to attend an afternoon service with a group that would eventually become part of the United Church of God.

The building Worldwide met in was a junior high school and there was a long hallway lined with lockers as one exited the building. I walked along alone, slowly, teary-eyed, as I left that day. And I prayed. I thanked God for all the things in my life that I had because of the Worldwide Church of God.

I had friends and experiences I wouldn't have had otherwise. I had camp. I had college. I had a fabulous foundation for the rest of my life. I thanked Him for all these things and I thanked Him for showing me that it was time to move on. And I did.

About six months ago I had another turning point in my life. By then my husband Mark and I had been living in Cincinnati for over a year, Mark had completed seven months of ABC and we had gotten to know several of the home office staff on a personal level. And for the first time in over 10 years I realized that once again I was wholly and undoubtedly loyal to my church. It was and is a good feeling.

I don't know what the next 20 years or so will bring. I hope that Jesus Christ will return by then. But if He doesn't, I hope my daughter, as she pledges her life to God through baptism, can look back on her life growing up in the Church—attending Sabbath school, going to camp, spending time with friends who have the same faith as she and traveling to the Feast of Tabernacles.

And I hope that as she does she will appreciate the turning points that brought her there. UN