I grew up in an upper middle class home, although I did not realize it until much later.  I remember when I was in 2^nd grade my parents told us, that is me and my older sister, that we were going to move to another state.  I was worried that I would have to learn another language, my parents told me not to worry they just talk a little different that’s all, they say thing like hay and ya’ll.  My dad was taking a job as vice president of a defense contractor in North Carolina.  My dad was always busy with work and never had much time for me.  Dad never went to church, I guess he didn’t like it.  I can’t say I blame him, after all I wanted to stay at home Sunday morning watching Hanna-Barbara cartoons.  My mom would take me to church with her sometimes.  I remember learning how to make crafts and thing like that but certainly not hearing anything about God.  When I was starting 4^th grade we moved back to Indiana.  My dad was going back to his old job at crane because the president of his new job was crooked.  After we moved back to Indiana my dad said I didn’t have to go to church anymore.  And so I never went to church again, well at least for another 16 years or so.  You could say I got a pretty one-sided view of religion.  I never saw my mother read the bible and you know what?  I don’t think I even saw a bible until I was in high school.  Once in Indiana my family decided to build a house.  If you ever saw the TV show home improvements then you know a little about how my dad liked to build things: BIG.  Our shed had a garage door on it and it was bigger than many garages.  I had to help a lot with building the house.  I did not like working on the house, I guess it is because my dad was so hard on me.  I never could do anything to suit him.  I can remember many instances when I was tired from working outside for about 10 hours and then when my dad saw me saying something about being tired he would hit me on the back on the head and call me a pansy.  I vividly remember one day coming home from school one day a saying something about some girl I liked at school, my dad and sister teased me so bad that I went to run off to my room crying.  My dad said, “Hey, I’m not done talking to you, you come back here.”  Then they proceeded to force more of it down my throat.  After that I never said anything about a girl again until I was about 17 ½, I completely repressed my feeling and did no telling how much harm to my social development.  That generally sets the tone from my childhood.  I have heard that my dad never wanted a second child and I can believe it.  Dad never did anything with me unless it was for us to work. I can count on one had how many times he took us out to a restaurant, and vacations, forget about it!  We went on three vacations and two of them were because dad was on a business trip at the time.  Money was not the issue; our house was 4000 square feet not including a full basement and a family room with an oak ceiling.  Well, finally, high school came and I had a car, a 1982 Monte Carlo. While in High School, I learned of the many religions of the world.  It seemed to me that no one could agree on which one was the “correct” religion.  I knew a little about the bible from what people had told me.  I knew that someone named Jesus somehow died for me.  That made no sense to me, I was told that if he had not died for me that I wouldn’t be alive today.  With that I wrote them off as nuts.  After all, evolution was a fact: didn’t that disprove the bible?  It seemed evident that people needed something to believe in, they needed something because the thought of death was too scary to accept without the concept of God.  I just thought they were weak.  It was not long after that I identified myself as an atheist.

Then one day I came home from my summer job to have what I thought would be a typical family dinner.  Well, it wasn’t so typical; my father told us he was gay and that a divorce was going to take place.  I was devastated.  I thought to myself, now I know there isn’t a God because how could a loving God do something like this to me.   I lived in a very racist southern Indiana town and feared for my life if anybody found out.  I finished out my senior year of high school in fear that some one would find my families deep dark secret.  I had already been accepted to my first college of choice, Purdue. At least that was behind me.  My dad had moved out and my sister was at college so it was just mom and I now.  My mother wasn’t really there for me during all of this as you can imagine she was having her own problems now.  I was all alone.  I lost all respect for my father and his rules.  I obeyed my father out of fear as he was a harsh man, but now he was gone.  My father could not tell me what to do.  Do you know how you get thru something like that without God?  Drugs, that’s how.  During my senior year, I went to my first party with some friends I had lost contact with.  There was a lot of alcohol at the party and I thought why not.  I got drunk for the first time.  It was incredible.  All my problems went away and I could actually talk to women.  I felt incredible; it was as if my brain just had an orgasm.  I was hooked.  When I went to college I started to drink heavily, I could not stand all the pain my family was going through due to my father.  It was not to long before I realized that I was an alcoholic but I didn’t care because it made me feel so good.

Drinking brought me to one of the lowest point’s of my life.  I would drink to the point where I was sick and throwing up.  I frequently blacked out.  My father died while I was in Graduate school and I became very upset because I lost any chance to restore a normal relationship him.  I moved in a new apartment with a Christian roommate.  My life was at such a low point that I was finally willing to hear what my Christian friends were trying to tell me about.  I thought, well I guess it won’t hurt to read the bible.  After about 9 months or so they convinced me that there was a God.  One conversation sticks out in my mind.  Our bodies use E-coli in our large intestines to process one of vitamins E or K I think.  Without it we would die a slow and miserable death, yet if that bacteria were to be ingested or be located anywhere else in our bodies we would die.  I thought that can’t be a coincidence, evolution can’t explain that.   

You see, we whisper to God our praises but we shout to the Lord in our pain.  God loved me so much that he allowed me to go through everything I had been through so that I might know him.  God never wastes a hurt.  I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior and my life has never been the same since.  I remember driving home from church the day I was saved, October 29th, 2000.  I saw a billboard on the way home, the one I used to yell it’s a choice at.  It was pro-life billboard of an unborn child.  Some how my position had changed.  Nobody had told me abortion was wrong.  How did this happen?  I’d be hard pressed to show you a biblical verse about it.  I knew because I had received the Holy Spirit that day.  I wish I could say that I quit drinking instantly but I didn’t.  The first 2 years as Christian were hard and I made many mistakes.  I got a DUI after drinking one night.  I knew what I had to do, repent and tell someone what I had done.  I had to tell my Sunday school teacher what I had done, man was that hard.  I asked my Sunday school teacher for advice because he was a law professor.  To make a long story short I humbled myself before the Lord and I was found innocent, only God can do that.  God had a plan for my life and he was not going to let anything interfere with that.  Eventually I was able to quit drinking.  I got a good job.  I met my wife at Sunday school.  Now I will be able minister to people who have gone through similar experiences in a way I never would have been able to had I not gone through all the pain I went through.  All areas of my life have changed.  Politics are much easier now that I have an absolute moral code to go by.  I know what to believe in and how I should live my life.  I now have God to turn to when life gets tough.  I know that one day I will be in heaven with Jesus.  Since coming to Spotswood, there have been many changes in my life.  I have read many Christian books and continue to do so.  That’s a miracle in and of itself.  I used to tell people I became a mathematician so I would not have to read.  I realized as a Christian reading the bible was an important part of my relationship with Christ, so I decided to change my reading habits.  I’ve come to an important realization recently that has changed my walk with God.  I used to think that after I fell and committed a particular sin I struggle with that I was not as righteous as I was as when I was without that particular sin for say 60 days.  I thought I was not as righteous as so and so.  When I have had more success in this area then I will go out and do things for God.  Until then I am not able to do things for God.  How wrong I was.  Romans 3:10 says “There is no one righteous, not even one”.  I remembered Romans 3:23, but I forgot Romans 3:10.  Our righteous comes from Christ.  When we pray for forgiveness of our sins and repent, it is as if we never sinned in the first place.  That opened up the floodgates for me to do great things in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  I decided to become a co-leader in Got-Life.  It is here that I found out what I was on earth for and my spiritual gifts were confirmed.  I struggled beforehand about weather to attend Got-Life or not.  Since then God has taught me a lot about the importance of what I am doing.  Matthew 22:37 says the greatest commandment is: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”.  It doesn’t say with some of your heart, how do we know if we are truly doing this.  Well, it says love who, love God.  We know Jesus is God.  So, what do we know about loving Jesus.  We know something about loving Jesus don’t we.  Jesus said: “Do you love me … feed my sheep”.  That is the measuring stick.  Pastor Bob once said something that stands out in my mind.  He said: “There are two things you can’t do when you get to heaven, you can’t sin and you can’t tell anybody about Jesus because they already know”.  It has been an awesome and amazing experience to lead someone to the Lord.  I think I now know why it seems I’ve had such a hard time in life and even hard times after my conversion.  I’ve needed these trials to mold me and make me stronger.  Without these experiences, I could never be as bold as I am.  I understand what it means when the bible says: “He who is given much, much is required”.  I’ve been given an amazing spiritual gift and I can’t just sit idly by as I see so many people on the path to Hell.  I’ve been given experiences that when most people go through them, never come to Christ.  I have a responsibility to use to the fullest what God has given me.  I’d like to close by quoting a verse from a popular Christian song:  “Jesus paid way too high a price for us to pick and choose who should come”.  How often do we do that in the name of ‘I couldn’t possibility lead him to Christ he is hopeless’ or how about this one:  ‘I’m not equipped to witness to someone like him’.