Hey Linden,
Thanks so much for posting; it's admirable that you can open up like this about your struggles.
I know what you mean, having come from the same background as Doubting Thomas here. And my experience has been much like Mor indicated...a new, more complete light through which to read Scripture, fulfillment of the things I used to find lacking -- your mentioning of the cheesy sermon titles and the rest made me smile -- and yet...it has been hard. I can sense (at least, I think I do sense) the fear of loss you're experiencing. Communion with life-long friends. Common ground spiritually with them. Maybe even a sense of estrangement from a God who used to seem so close, so intimate, more like a Daddy and less like a distant Ruler.
Here is one way I think the Lord has helped me truly trust Him when I took the leap from Evangelical Protestantism to Orthodoxy...
"Like most everything else in my spiritual journey, it all came down to the Eucharist. We offer up our labor's meager fruit with trembling hands and pray that God will not only accept it, but bless it, renew it, breathe life into them, and send them back to us, full of life and powerful (yet oh-so-silent) joy. I came to Him with what I saw as a clear picture of my spiritual sacrifice in life: witnessing, constant spiritual conversations with others, even what had been, up to that point, my immediate goal in life...foreign missions. He led me to the House of His Body and Blood and asked that, as the priest inside offered up the bread and wine, so I was to offer up my picture of what was to come, not knowing what I would get in return. Eventually I had to ask myself...do I trust my Lord, or not?
"I'm still offering up, believer-priest that I am, and still receiving. Missions is on hold until I get a better grip on my new faith than these past couple of years can give me. Witnessing has happened, mostly through things like the "backwards" sign of the cross over meals, or my "funny crooked cross necklace" that people ask about. Spiritual conversations have happened in confession...my Lord, how they've helped through Fr. B's advice...none of this was what I thought it would be. But I look for the compassion of my Father -- I have to! -- in 'a loyalty that's deeper than mere sentiment / and a music higher than the songs that I can sing' that the liturgy offers."
All that to say this, Linden...my Daddy, my Abba, is here. He is, however, my King, as well, in a way I never saw before. Sometimes I can forget why I'm in liturgy (which happened as a Protestant, too!) and things can get so "automatic" that I forget about His love and His severity. But He's there. And all other things really can be and will be added unto you when or if you make that leap. It may not come back exactly as it left or as quickly as you like, but He hasn't forgotten about you or any of us.
And if you start to think He has, just check out a lily for a little while. I hear He liked those....