Illinois, USA
When I was 8 years old, my dad was diagnosed with Oat Cell Carcinoma, one of the deadliest forms of cancer. I was more with babysitters and friends of my parents than with my parents. I remember getting out of school one day in the third grade, and my brother-in-law was there to pick me up. I knew something was up. He walked me to his and my sister's house, located next to the Christian school I went to. He told me on the way that my dad had passed away about an hour prior to then. I didn't know what he meant. I walked in the door and all my sisters were there and so were my nieces and my mom. They all were crying. I didn't understand why they were crying, since my dad had just passed something. So, I asked my brother-in-law what 'passed away' meant. He told me that God came and took my dad home. I, for the longest time, thought that God had done an evil thing and took my dad away from me because of maybe something that I did that He didn't like.
I started to cover the pain with food and with being severely withdrawn. I didn't know how to handle life and never tried to do anything, afraid that God may take my mom too. For about a month after my dad died, I kept having dreams that God was after me and wanted to kill. That is a lot for an 8 year old to handle. For years I just kept to myself. The kids at school had started to harass me because in one year from third grade to fourth, I had gained about 80 pounds and was quite overweight. I didn't care that they picked on me as I thought it was something that happened to all kids who were like me -- hated by God. When I was in Junior High School, I started to rebel against the things of God. I started listening to the wrong kind of music and hanging around the wrong kinds of kids. I eventually got to where I didn't care about going to church and I wanted to die. I was thinking: "Why should I care about God when He hates me and took my dad away because of something I did?" Then I got to where I HATED Christians and I couldn't stand to be around them.
Well, unbeknownst to me, my mom had talked to my youth pastor and my church and asked them to pray for me. I didn't care about them and often hurled obscenities at them. I hated anything and anyone that loved God, because I was a God-hater. It came time for Senior Church Camp for 7th - 12th grades and the youth pastor had called and asked me to go. I thought that this was the most boring thing in the world. I told him that I would call him and let him know if I was going or not. Because I didn't want to talk to him, I told my mom that she had to call him and tell him that I couldn't go. Well, after her telling me about a thousand times that I had to call him, I did. I told him that I couldn't go because my mom didn't have any money, and he countered that response with: "We have the money for you to go if you want to."
Finally, the preacher gave the sermon and I just sat there thinking: "When will this be over???" Well, God started working in my heart then. He began to melt my stone cold heart and then it got really hot in there. God had spoken to my heart that this is just a taste of what hell is like and that I was heading there. He also surrounded me with His loving arms. When the invitation came, the preacher asked that all who want to ask Jesus into their hearts to stand up. I then stood up and walked to the back where my youth pastor was sitting. He asked me if I was ok and I told him that I wasn't, and that I would like to talk to him.
He took me outside and I told him what all was in my heart. About how I didn't think that God or anyone else loved me at all and that I just wanted to die and get it over with. He then told me that my mom talked to him and told him to invite me - and that the whole church was praying for me. He asked me if I was a Christian, and I said No. He then showed me the Romans Road and asked me if I thought that if I did kill myself that I would be in heaven or in hell. I said I think I would go to Hell and he asked me if I wanted to go there. I told him No and that I wanted to be saved. Right then and there he led me to the Lord. I remember God coming into my life and taking the boulder from my shoulder. I was saved!!!!!!
When we went home after that wonderful week of camp, I went before my church to share what God had done for me. Then the pastor hugged me and then all the people in church came up and hugged me -- some even cried.
I was growing in the Lord for a while until I heard that the youth pastor was leaving. I started asking questions and the pastor just said that there were some differences between them. I had come to realize that the youth pastor, whom I loved like a brother, was leaving because he wouldn't let the pastor lead his ministry. He told the pastor that he would either lead the ministry the way God has led him to, or not at all. So, the pastor fired him.
I really got mad and left the church. But, I didn't have one to go to. I started going back to my old ways and then I thought, after about 3 months or so, "it isn't God's fault that this crap happened!" I started going to church with my dad's parents, whom I had always been close to. There they had a temporary pastor who had a heart for God like I have never seen before or since. He and I became really close friends and I actually got 'discipled' in the Christian life. He introduced me to Christian music, which is something that I love to this day. He also taught me that God isn't interested in what ability you have, just your availability to be used by Him. He asked me if there was something that I would like to do sometime. I told him that I loved to sing but am not excellent, so he asked me to sing in church one Sunday. I just had to arrange it with the pianist if I wanted her to play for me. I did so. I sang the song: 'Revive Us, Oh Lord' by Carman. Everyone there just loved not only my voice, but the words to the song as well. They said that it really touched them and then I was asked to sing again. I ended up singing there about 2 or 3 Sundays a month. I was also a member of the choir and a deacon, all by the age of 18. I went on to college to do clown ministry and to be involved in a group called 'Brothers And Sisters in Christ' (or BASIC for short). This was associated with the Baptist Student Union. I changed schools from a 4-year college to a community college and went to BASIC at my new school. I eventually became a student leader.
After 4 years of college, I ran out of money and didn't graduate. I took a job at a group home here and ministered in my local Southern Baptist Church in their deaf ministry. This was exciting, and I had a chance then to learn a lot about how God works and how the body that I was a part of was hindering that in so many ways. So, I started going to the Assembly of God Church. Even though I had left the Baptist Church, I ended up being married there (as I was engaged during my time there and married my fiance at that church). After attending the Assembly Church, we relocated to Southern IL, and attended an Assembly Church there. Unfortunately, we came to realize that some of the things that the pastor was preaching were not scriptural, so we moved our membership to the Baptist Church there in town. We went for a while, but missed one Sunday, and thought that the pastor or someone would see how we were. They didn't. When I confronted the pastor about it, he got really defensive. So my wife and I dropped out of church altogether until we moved back to Jacksonville.
