Month: September 2013

I’m sure that I went to church when I was younger, but I honestly only remember going after my mom and step-dad were married. We lived out in the country and went to a church that was on a major road, but didn’t have very many people living in a close radius. The church seemed to draw quite a few people with anything between 200-350 in attendance while I was there. We went almost every Sunday, but never really participated in any of the extra services until I was maybe in 5th or 6th grade. That’s when we started going to the Wednesday evening services where we were split up by age group. We may have started going to Sunday School around this time as well.

Why is this important? Because this is when I really started to develop friendships with people who were outside of my class at school. Most of the students that attended the church also attended the same school, but some of them were in different grades, which widened the number of people I knew by quite a bit. Being an only child in a small school doesn’t exactly make you well known. If you’ve got older brothers and sisters, you’re usually set because all of their friends know who you are as well.

As I attended church and became more involved with the people there, I along with others would invite more of our friends to come. Believe it or not, they actually came and many of them got quite involved with the youth group. Sometimes it was because they were “interested” in someone in the group, or they were just looking for something fun to do. Either way, it didn’t hurt.

One of the things that would usually be a large draw were the youth retreats. We would go away for a weekend someplace (of varying distances) and do the usual youth group stuff like play games, bible study, listen to a speaker, sing, and generally hang out. I’ll never forget one of them. I have no idea what brought the course of events to where they had come, but I ended up spending quite a bit of time with one of my friends. I didn’t know her that well in comparison to other friends in my life, but we ended up having some incredibly deep discussions that weekend about Christ. I honestly don’t even know where some of the words I may have said came from.

Anyhow, Sunday rolled around and everyone went home for a while. The group was supposed to get back together for a concert Sunday evening, but unfortunately, I was so exhausted that I slept through it even though people were pounding on my door when they came to pick me up. I was told later that it was that evening my friend became a Christian. I wish I had been there, but for whatever minor part I may have played in it, I’m glad that God used me how he did.

This opened my eyes to another purpose that God had for my life. I was supposed to care about the future of others, and not necessarily their mortal future, but their eternal one. I’ve come to realize now, that I alone can’t lead someone to Jesus, but instead I play the part God puts me in. I may not even realize that I’m playing the part at the time until hours, days, or years later, but I should always be aware that no matter where I am, I could be used by God at any moment.

Just as most of us do, I went to school. I attended a small school, with about 50 people in each class. The good thing about this is that everyone knew each other, and the bad thing was that everyone knew each other.

For the most part, I enjoyed school, mainly because I was good at it. I did well in every class and eventually graduated as high school valedictorian. The downside to doing well for so long, is that you eventually fear that you will fail, or get a B (which is the same thing as failing).

In fifth grade, I forgot to turn in a homework assignment for one of the classes. Because of this, I got a zero on the assignment. That pulled my grade down to a B. This of course was unacceptable. Because I knew how to work the system, I talked to another teacher. Most of our teachers would drop the lowest grade each semester in case we were having a “bad day”. Somehow I was able to convince the one teacher to talk to the other teacher and my zero was dropped, and I was able to keep my streak of straight A’s alive.

School always came relatively easy for me. I didn’t need to study as much as other people did. I don’t think that I was really a teachers’ pet, but doing well in school gave you certain “privileges”. I could walk the hallway without being questioned, and go to my locker during class without getting the fifth degree. Doing well established a certain level of trust, even if it wasn’t earned.

So what does any of this have to do with life purpose? Doing well in school for me fulfilled my purpose for a time. It was a worldly purpose, one I placed on myself. No one pressured me to do well in school. I completely placed that burden on myself. I do believe that God gave me the ability to learn easily, but that has also led to my restlessness at this age when I’m not being challenged in life.

See. I brought it all together eventually.

A July day 30 years ago, I came into this world. Nothing spectacular I’m sure, although my parents may see it differently. I had a pretty standard childhood for the most part and I always had what I needed, with some extras, but nothing that too many other American children would be jealous of.

My parents were divorced when I was pretty young. I don’t remember life much before then. A lot of people would likely say that having their divorced parents made their lives more difficult, and to some extent, I would agree. But I gained a second mother and father with my stepparents. Both them helped to shape me to be the person I am today. It’s hard to know exactly how I would have turned out otherwise, but I think I’m better for the entire thing.

When my mom and stepdad were married, we lived at the house that he had out in the country. It was old and in need of some serious help, but he know what he was doing and honestly, it’s hard to believe how far it has come. I think it has honestly kept me from even considering a house that requires a serious amount of rehab.

Along with my stepdad came three stepsisters. For stepsisters, I got pretty lucky. We would sometimes stay at their grandparents house (which I adopted as my grandparents as well). It was a large farm house out in the country. It kind of had that scary feeling to it only because of the sheer size. It didn’t help that one of the stepsisters told me that Jeffrey Dahmer lived in the closet of the room that we all slept in.

I would mark my first personal experience with Jesus as having happened at their house. Grandma tucked us in and asked us if we had a personal relationship with Jesus, and then she would pray with us. At that age I had no idea what that meant or how it would later impact me. I am grateful that she cared enough to take the time to pray with us though at such an early age.

This was only the start of my walk and planted the seed for future growth and opportunities.

HACKED BY GRAY BYTE