Realization

I'm excited! I mean really excited!! I am going to church on Sunday with a girl that I work with. I haven't been going to church lately, or more than lately, for a long time actually. I am not happy about this at all. I have been telling myself I need to go to church, but one Sunday after another goes by, and all of a sudden I realize how long it has been.
I am scared to go to church. I always feel like an outsider or that I am being judged. I truly believe this is the devil's way of keeping me out of the House of God. The devil scares me out of going to church, he makes me feel like I am not good enough, not wanted. All of this I know is false, but I somehow still get nervous. Also, since I've been in college, my lifestyle has changed some. I cuss more then I want to admit, I drink too much sometimes, and I do other things, that make me feel so bad and so discouraged, that I feel that not even God will want me. Again, I know this is false, but how can I keep wandering how I can deserve the Love from Our Father, when I have not been living the lifestyle he asks me to live. So I tell myself, I can't go to church, I am not good enough to be there, when that is exactly where I need to be, especially when I am sinning more.
I've also come to the realization that maybe in the past, when I did have a better relationship with God, it was for someone else almost. A boyfriend, my dad, a friend, anyone....I had their help and their pull, but when I had a fallout with that person, or just wasn't as close, I let my relationship with Christ fall also. I need to do this for me! I need this relationship with Christ to be sacred, I need realize, that when I am asking him in my life for just myself, all of the other relationships around me, will fall into place, instead of of place. This makes me so excited because I know that even though I am not perfect, He still wants me, loves me, enjoys everything about me, and is calling me!
Another realization I have had is about this nagging thought in the back of my head. I am dating a wonderful guy, who seems to good to be true sometimes! We mesh so well together, and my love for him grows more and more each day. But.....he's Catholic. Not a whole lot of difference between him and my Protestant beliefs, but enough. I constantly feel like I have to defend our relationship to family and friends when it comes to the religious part of our relationship. Sometimes I think: How are we going to make this work? What happens when we get married? If we have kids? What is it going to be like, how is this going to work? And I have had these thoughts that if I do start going to church, God is going to take him away from me. I know that in the Bible it says that a woman needs a strong man (in religious ways, not muscles!) to lead her. What if he isn't the one for me? I am so scared that he is going to be ripped away from me because he doesn't have the personal relationship with God, the one that God asks us to have with him. So again, I put that as another reason to not go to church, to not try to better my relationship with God. But as I was driving home from work tonight, I had this thought, that maybe instead of God, that was the devil. Telling me that if I do become a stronger woman in my Faith, God would rip Paden away. If this is the devil telling me this, then it has worked, and I am ashamed I have listened to him because he has kept me from going to church, from improving my lifestyle, from getting closer to God. I do not want to listen to him, to give in to his thoughts, but its hard, very hard. I know that I need a lot of prayer, and I need to surround myself with people strong in Faith to help me better my own Faith.
I realize that God put me on this Earth to walk with him, love him, know him. I realize, that I want my ultimate destination to be in Heaven, worshiping my Savior forever and ever. I know that if He asks me to give up my Paden, I am going to have to because I know He will be there to support me and show me the way. As for now though, I believe He still wants Paden in my life, and I hope that this is the truth.
I am writing all of this almost as a journal for me, so I can push myself to be a stronger woman of God, so I can remember how nasty the devil is and how easily he can lie, and so that I can maybe get all of my jumbled thoughts in my head a little more clear. I know that God loves me, he gave His Son to die for me, and that He wants a relationship with me, he wants me to know him and love him and to walk hand in hand with him, and I know.....that is what I want! So please, if you stumble across this, pray for me and my battle against the devil, pray for me and my relationship with Paden, family, and friends, and pray that I find my path with God once again! I know I have a long way to go, but for now, I am just looking forward to Sunday!