My time-line and experience is similar to yours.
Bottom line for me: God is either sovereign - or he is not.
If he is not sovereign (irresistible grace), then he can not be omnipotent, and therefore he is not God...
You are forgetting about man’s freewill. God could exercise his sovereignty and prevent all bad things from happening and calling all of those to him. However God’s love is so great that he will let his own children curse him and reject him and will not force them to love or even acknowledge him.
If God is sovereign and omnipotent, then he has the right to limit his power.
My story would be the same as the both of you as well. The Sovereignty of God is the hinge pin. Ez 36:22-32 in my search was the real eye opener. I started circling the “I will”s and underlining the “you will”s. I realized that what is this if not a description of Jn 3? I realized never once in the passage does the Lord say, “If you want...or choose...or desire...” Instead, He does...and we will. It was then I realized that if He did not take the initiative to take out my heart of stone and give me a heart that would respond to Him, I was lost for eternity due to my total depravity, for nothing in me desired Him, apart from Him.
The “5” are not independent of each other. They rest upon one another. Remove one, and you ultimately have none. It was when I understood these concepts that I saw my need to remove the last part of my posterior off His throne, and fall completely at His feet in utter dependance. Realizing the true slave that I was, became the most joyful freedom I have ever experienced, next to my heart changing salvation day.
For once when I thought I was free to will, it turned out I was only a slave to my depravity.
I thank the Lord for men like John MacArthur and his Doctrines of Grace series, Dr. Voddie Baucham and his journey through Romans, R.C. Sproul for his works on Double Imputation vs. Infusion, and John Piper as well.