My search for God and contentment had been a constant battle; I needed to connect with Him but I couldn’t find Him in the places I had been looking.

Coming from Northern Ireland, religion is big thing, everyone is connected to a church. I’d been to Sunday School and other church activities my whole life, and I had a good foundation in Bible Studies.

My family was Methodist, but during my early teens, I started attending Pentecostal churches.

Belief in God was never a question. Religion, however, was a different matter. Following a difficult experience in a charismatic church, I became interested in Catholicism.

I liked how well it was organized, how it was regulated and overseen by church authorities.

Unity really appealed to me. I’d seen so many other Christian teachers preach their own interpretation of the Bible and I found it unsettling, so the Catholic Church seemed to be the answer. It wasn’t.

I moved away to university and got carried away with the student lifestyle. Religion took a back seat...

http://aboutislam.net/reading-islam/my-journey-to-islam/irish-shahadah-on-st-patricks-day/