My Story, Part 1

This past summer at Colorado LT, we spent quite a bit of time discussing our stories and how important they are to us as Christians, not only because they define who we are as one of God's people, but no matter what we did or didn't do in our lives, they show the redemptive work of Christ through us. In my down time during this break from school, I've been looking back at some of my notes and journal entries from LT, and while reviewing how much it meant to me personally to share my story with the people in Colorado, I decided to use this blog as an avenue to share with a slightly larger audience. So here it goes.

I was born into a Christian household with extremely loving parents that are to this day still my biggest supporters. But I still struggled with self-doubt and self-worth issues growing up. I had a physical condition called ptosis in my right eyelid that caused my eye to always appear shut. It's amazing how an innocent question "Can you see out of that eye?" from an unknowing child can completely and totally devastate someone's world, but I experienced that on a daily basis in elementary school. I thought all that people could see was my deformity, and I felt totally unlovable. It was an extremely lonely place to be in.

This is what I looked like back then. I was a stud.

But then I went with one of my buddies for a week at a place called Turkey Hill Ranch Bible Camp. It was there that I first heard about the real Jesus, the one who loves me and died for me. I couldn't get enough of this guy. I wanted to hear all about Him. In my somewhat undeveloped 12-year old mind, I thought the best thing was that Jesus loved me despite my physical "deformities," but I quickly learned that the true miracle of grace is that Christ loves me despite my distance from God because of sin and my spiritual "deformities." My counselor, a guy named AB, walked me through accepting Christ on the Thursday of that week, and my real life began that summer day.

But the next few years were obviously difficult, as they were and are for many young teenagers, but I finally had a place to fit in. I knew that Jesus loved me, and I loved him, so I didn't care that I was super awkward. I started going to my buddy's youth group at his church, and the two of us started playing music together. I joined the worship band shortly after joining the church, and I really felt like this was where I belonged.

I'll get into the rest of my story, including my journey at this church during my high school years and how I came to be at The Rock in subsequent posts. Like I said, we spent a lot of time on our stories this summer, and the full version I wrote out is about 8 pages single-spaced, and I add things every time I look at it, so I don't want to try to cram it all into one post.

Thanks for reading.