Over the duration of my 25 years, God has always played a large role. I grew up in a home with two parents raised in “church” but dropped out once they were married. My grandparents played an enormous role in my spiritual journey. My grandfather and 4 of his brothers were deacons in the church I grew up in. He and my grandmother took me to church every Sunday. I spent more time with them in on weekends and during summers than I did at home. My grandfather was a man of few words, I wish I was more like him. At 12 I walked down an aisle and said a prayer but my life didn’t change much. From that point on I knew I needed to dress up on Sundays and try to read my bible everyday.
As I got older, I was an overachiever, always trying to do things that would make my parents give me some recognition. They were never unsupportive of the things I did, they just never cared. So I joined all the clubs I could in high school, excelled in math team and track but never gave God a second thought after Sunday. After graduating, pride is what brought me to UAH. The smart people from my high school went to UAH everyone else went to the community college. God used my pride to grab ahold of my life.
Even though I never thought about God after each Sunday, I tried to put on the frontof a good spiritual person. A friend of mine invited me to a bible study my freshman year and since I wanted to look like a “good Christian” I went. From there God began to stir up something inside me that desired more. I got involved in Campus Crusade. My roommate and I both dove in, since the ministry was student led, it allowed for almost immediate assimilation into leadership.
It wasn’t until Decemeber that I began to understand what God was doing in my life. I went to a conference in Atlanta and heard a message about Revelation 2 “I know your deeds….but you have left your first love”. I was blown away. All my life to this point had been about accomplishment, recognition, selfishness, works. God showed me that I can do as many good works as I want to, but a love relationship with him is what He desires. From that love of God, the natural outflow is good works, not the other way around.
That is where my spiritual journey took an interesting turn and has been going ever since. Now after many years of imperfect following, I have been married since July 22, 2006 to Monica, I’ve graduated from UAH, and am in the process of follow the call God has placed in my life to follow his direction in full-time state-side missions with Campus Crusade for Christ. We are currently raising supprt and will be working with the students at UAH upon completion of our support.
