I was a teenage revert - my story

I came from a "traditional" Irish and french canadian family where catholicism is the religion and the only religion. I ignored it for the first part of my life and spent time in new age religions and paganism because I felt a very heavy emptiness inside myself and insecurity.That wasnt fulfilling what I needed So eventually I became obsessed with Catholicism. I was completely orthodox, even was seriosuly considering becoming a friar. I spent time at religious communities where they lived and looking at the life. After 2 weeks at a friary in the mountains of New York I came home and said "wowww, this isnt for me...Not just this calling, but this religion" but I kept going through the motions anyways. I started REALLY asking questions and the answers werent sufficient. They were usually along the lines of "Have faith in the 2000 years worth of wisdom in the Church; these rulings are divinely inspired; the catechism says so; its in the bible; its a mystery; etc....They had answers, but they always went back to this element of mystery/faith which just wasnt good enough for me anymore. I had serious questions that needed hard facts "How can a trinity exist?" "why does God need a son to even be crucified for our sins?" "if God gives us intellects why would we only rely on faith and neglect what common sense tells us is otherwise?" I have NEVER been a skeptic in my life - I wasnt thinking there wasnt a God, I just knew something was quite wrong with the Christian perception of God.
...so anyhow...time passed. I heard some awful things about Muslims being said around school and needed to defend them. From the beginning I felt a connection with Muslims; I never knew I would become one of them though. I took out every book the library had and the more I found myself defending it the more I started realizing I believed in it and actually found myself falling in love with it. This wasnt part of the plan by any means. I prematurely took Shahadah and after my first 3 months chickened out because I just wasnt ready so I walked away from Islam ...But time still passed and it never left my mind. I was thinking about it constantly; on tv, in books, I even had dreams about it! so I casually continued reading about Islam forcing myself to believe I wasnt meant to be muslim, just to be educated about it...But then one nite after a very intense dream months later, I woke up and knew that i was ready..I knew that Allah was the Lord of my heart and would be forever. I still held off for a few weeks. I went through some intense prayer and alot of soul searching so the nite after my final senior exam I proclaimed proudly "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet" I felt indestructible. Second thoughts were had later on, but then I quickly came back from them because Allah reminded me of that time of searching and all the questions I asked and where it led me.
It took time for me to find my way and thats alright because I'm here now and no cause is ever lost when it comes to Allah. It takes patience, and alot of quiet searching. Desperation doesnt bear fruit. See, I was at a point where I said "I dont care anymore, Im just gonna choose something simple and non-committing like Buddhism" and then when I looked at religion my heart said "no, this isnt true, this doesnt make sense, only Islam is true" and my soul heard Allah saying "Come back to me, I love you, dont do this to yourself any more" so That graduation nite I proclaimed shahadah, there were no "I told you sos" no reminders of the mistakes I made, but Just "your forgiven - have faith in me and I will take care of you. All isnt lost, there is hope, and I am that hope. Trust in me, this much is up to you" so like maryam did, I said yes to Allah and had faith without needing to think twice because I knew it was the right time, the right thing, and the right way.
Thats my story.

Assalamu Alaikum