After I was saved, I was still in the catholic church for another 1½  years, but then I ended up going to the Bible church where the man who brought me the gospel, went.

There were some, there, who knew that I used to be catholic, even "after" I was saved, for some time.

I had mentioned, that before I was saved, that I used to have an image of the queen of heaven on the dashboard of my car.

Also, that my grandfather buried an image of Joseph next to our house, to facilitate our being able to sell it.

They reminded me that having those images was idolatry, and a sin.

I could have simple said, yes, but I went a little further and asked them if it is wrong to have little images of Mary and Joseph - they said, yes, it is wrong.

I asked if it was wrong to put the little images of Mary and Joseph on the dashboard of the car, or in the ground to help sell the house - they said, yes, it is wrong.

I asked, then, what about having little images of Mary and Joseph, and putting them in a little wooden structure, under an evergreen tree, for the last few weeks of the year?

Apparently, that use of the little images of Mary and Joseph, is completely fine.

So, was I not supposed to fully turn from the images that I had when I was a lost catholic?

That was a major issue for me, since I used to be really into the images.

When I was young, we had a little shrine of the queen of heaven (which we thought was Mary), in our backyard.

In the month of May, I used to leave a little bit of food, as an offering, in front of the image, each day.

To me, it was like leaving cookies for Santa Claus, I really thought that she accepted the offering, and ate it.

No doubt, critters of the night came by and ate the daily offering.

When I got married, my wife was not catholic, but I pleaded with her to leave roses at the church's image of the queen of heaven.

That was while my friend sang the Ave Maria (the Hail Mary prayer in Latin).

So when I got saved, and finally realized how different the Bible was from the catholic church, that I had to leave.

I also left behind me all the unscriptural religious traditions, as well.

So, it was quite distressing when Christians thought that I should keep a few - baby baptisms? crucifixes? images of Mary and Joseph under the tree?

They never grew up catholic, so these exceptions did not seem like a big problem to them.

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