Granddaughter of A Pentecostal Preacher Converts to Islam

From when I was a child, so many things in Christianity did not made sense to me

From when I was a child, so many things in Christianity did not made sense to me. Keep in mind, I am the granddaughter of a Pentecostal preacher, so the church and Jesus was drilled into my brain. I remember asking my bible teacher at 7-years-old, Why do we celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th? (When I asked this question, I recently learned  from watching national geographic, that It was scientifically proven that Jesus was not born on Christmas.)

I also asked like, how is the holy trinity one person and why was the trinity created long after Jesus died? why do we pray to Jesus and not God?

When I was about 14, I stopped praying to Jesus and prayed directly to God. When I was around people and family members who would say "dear Jesus, thank you for this and that." I would say under my breath, "Dear God." I would feel bad that people were not praying directly to God.

Aside from this, I was really active in the church, I didn't only go to church on holidays. I read the bible, taught at vacation bible school, sang at church. I was also in a church youth group. I went went to a church leadership camp every summer up until I graduated high school.

Still, if you would have told me when I was 16 I would be a Muslim in the future, I would never believe you. Before I went to college, I thought all of the bad and stereotypical things about Muslims, since I never met one. The only thing that I knew about Muslims is what I saw on the news.

When I went to college, I then started to meet many people different from different cultures and religions. Many of my friends were Muslim and were so nice. Since I was very close minded, when I first went to college, these people really opened my eyes. I remember saying to myself, "there is no way these people could be so nice and be Muslim." I wanted to prove that they "were the good ones" and that their religion was as bad as the media said.

The first thing that sparked me to really start looking into Islam was when one of my friends said, "we have very similar religions and the same prophets." They told me the story of prophet Noah and the ark. I said, "we have the same story in the bible."

So, I started looking into the religion by researching the similarities between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. I practiced praying and fasting, my second year in college, just to try it out. I wanted to really experience life through my friend's eyes.

Then I decided myself, to read the Quran. I was at a fellow converts house for Iftar (break fast during Ramadan) and I asked her if I could borrow her Quran, to read. Later that night, I opened the Quran after i got home, I started reading it, and my heart became full of love and I saw the light of God calling me to Islam. It is a feeling I cannot even explain.

This was during Ramadan of 2013. I didn't have interest in converting when I read that Quran. I didn't convert right away because that would be a huge step for me, with what my family and friends would say. It took me 6 months after the first time I read the Quran, for me to take shahada (my declaration of faith). I tried to get people to come with me to a mosque to say the shahadah but no one would come. So, after I converted, only a few people knew about it. I was too scared to tell my parents.
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