Looking back over quite a few different blogs on my old blog, I came across this post of my testimony. I have decided to take some time and update it a little to make it even more accurate to the current Month, Day and Year!
Growing up in Wilmington, I was always in the church, I always had a heart for praising and worshiping God, I home schooled for several years, and which I am so thankful for now because it gave me several good years of spending quality time with both my Father and my Mother. My mom would let me work very hard the first couple days of the week so that I could get all of my weekly work done then so that I could get to go to the gym with my Dad or go see my Grandmother, or Great Grandmother, and some times we would even go do a little bit of shopping for one of my Dad's friends (Rollie
Zink) who owned a Meat Market, my Dad had a wholesale card before it was the cool thing to do.
Moving on to High School, like most Christian kids in High School I was the minority, and even though I believed in God, and worshiped Him daily, I didn't ever really let it shine through. I was for a lack of better terms, "hiding my light under a bushel!" I had a couple of Christian buddies (one of them is a pastor in northern Michigan now), but even then neither of us really did much with our faith and rarely even discussed it. I really was just going through the motions, and then it got worse for me. My Father had a massive heart attack December 7
th, 1991, right smack in the middle of my Senior year. I was devastated to say the least. I closed up tighter than Fort Knox. To make matters worse than that, the people that I relied on to be there for me, just weren't. I had a female friend from my old youth group who I had a falling out with who tried to reach out to me, but I felt her and my relationship with her (as friends) was beyond repair, and quite honestly Satan was working on me in several ways making me feel as though nobody was there for me. I must say some of the relationships I had with some people from my old church may never be the same, and up until about 4 years ago, I was still attending the same church even though these feelings and their actions had not changed much.
A little over a year after my Dad's death, I took a job offered to me by one of the elders in our church who had been very, very good friends with my Dad. I was working at a feed mill lifting very heavy bags of feed all day long. To say the least it was a very physically demanding job. Now I had been having some serious allergy issues which I guess according to my allergist (I am not sure how true this really is) can be dramatically affected by emotional distress. Well I got a little too much dust down into my lungs in the middle of summer, I ended up getting pneumonia from it and missed some work because of it. This gentleman was genuinely concerned for me and he had a business to run, but I was really at a stage where
no one could replace my Father and I felt like he was trying when he and I "had a talk". So me being me I let him know it! Many years later I apologized to him for my action, but things have never been the same since then and to say the least he acted as though it was no big deal when I know for a fact it was and is because he still treats me different to this day because of that. At this point I had totally turned my back to God, and wanted no part of Him in my life! Because of that my Mom and I had not been getting along as well. She saw too much of my Dad in me and the more I
rebelled from God, the more it reminded her of him from before they were Christians or even when they were "baby Christians".
Moving forward. Over the next 10 years I spent my life looking for love not through God, but through lust! I was sleeping around more than my fair share, met Austin's Bio-Mother, and she got pregnant less than 2 weeks after we started seeing each other, and I was by no means mentally ready to be a Father. Her and I were married less than 2 years. God tried to restore our marriage several times, but I was still not ready to listen to Him. Michele and I had gone to church a little while we were together but then more than ever I was just there!
After her and I had split apart, within 2 months I was with someone else. it was typical of me to have a woman by my side at this point to cure the
loneliness and even though I say that I now realize that I was more alone then than ever! A few months after that I met another young lady who would watch Austin for me from time to time, and we ended up sleeping together only a couple of times, and she ended up pregnant. Although I never really did find out for sure that he was my son until the first time I saw him at age 3. This is my son Jarred, I hope that soon there will be some restoration to our relationship. I have not seen him in quite a few years. Mostly because of some issues with his Mother getting him taken from her and they put him with his dying Great Grandmother instead of his Father. Right after this young lady got pregnant (and I did not know until months later) I met another lady with whom I was very physically attracted to. Her and I had an on again off again relationship for several years and in 1998 she got pregnant. We actually planned this pregnancy. I wanted to make things work with her no matter what and I really thought (kind of like how women sometimes do) that us having a child together would create an unbreakable bond. During the pregnancy her and I had some disagreements regarding finances, and some other things and we ended up splitting up yet again. After my 3rd son Jacob was born, a few months went by and we thought we would give it another shot. I wanted to more for Jacob than anything and her and I got a new place together and things had been going pretty well until we found out that I had fathered Jarred, even though it was before her and I had met she had some issues with it, and gave an ultimatum that was just unacceptable and I was forced with a very difficult decision and yet again for the last time, her and I were finished.
I then spent the majority of the next year just focusing on work and achieving things that I wanted to. I stayed single and better yet spent a whole year without the urge to have sex. That was a long year! Almost exactly one year later, I ran into an old flame from High School. Her and I had went to prom together and dated a couple of more months over the summer between my Junior and Senior years, and we had always wondered.....what if? So we wasted no time finding out.... One problem ....she was married! Well to say the least that didn't last long, and now I thank God that it did not destroy her marriage, but it lead me into one of the worst relationships I have ever had. One of her friends and I had gotten very close, and out of convenience we moved in together and this lasted about 20 months......I will cut this story short for the most part. Her and I were together for all the wrong reasons, and neither of us really wanted a future together. Her mother intervened into our relationship one too many times and it became a final straw type of thing, but....
At this time I was driving a Semi to and from California 3 times a month. On my way to Vegas I had taken a route that I was very unfamiliar with and I ended up have to go down this mountain that was literally 12 miles long with a 6% grade, which if you do not know much about mountains, this is one of the 5 worst mountains in the country. Needless to say, I was about half way down this mountain and MY BRAKES WERE GONE. I had nowhere to go but into one of those runaway truck ramps! I hit the 200 yard gravel pit at over 75 MPH and I have never been more terrified in my life! After the smoke from the brakes cleared and the dust from the gravel settled, I got out of the truck grabbed my phone on the way out, and called my cousin Brent who also drove for the same guy I did. He called Joe (the guy I worked for) for me and explained what was going on and I called 911 and went and found me a place to sit down and try to gather myself. I remember saying to God, that if He gave me some peace and helped me through this that I would no longer doubt Him or turn from Him and I literally heard Him tell me that He had His angels with me, and that He still believed in me (and I believed Him). The State Trooper that came out told me that at the speed I was going I should have flown clear out the other side of that truck ramp and died. Little did he know my God had other plans!
So less than 3 months later my relationship with that girl I was staying with came to an abrupt end!
I went to stay with a friend of mine and would occasionally go stay with my cousin Brent and his wife. One evening when I was staying there a young lady came in to drop her daughter off for my cousin Wanda to watch her daughter Julie while she went to school and she was absolutely stunning. I was
immediately attracted to her physically, but didn't say anything or even act upon anything. Oh the most important thing...her name was Diana! A few weeks went by, and her and I started talking a little bit and after about 2 months her and I had started hanging out, then dating. We started off very good, by going to church together. She had never been to a church like Dove before but she instantly fell in love with the music and the style of the church. 3 years later we were married by one of my best friends and an elder from Dove.
We had formally announced membership at Dove the first year we were together in 2004. It wasn't until 2008 that we had felt God drawing us elsewhere, and calling us for MORE! In April of 2008 I had not been to church in 6 months mostly because I was not satisfied with the direction of Dove. Diana at that time came to me and said that she too had some issues and asked me if I would go try a couple of new churches with her. The first choice was a church that Diana's friends Dan and Sarah Simpson had been attending. So we decided to go. Diana was absolutely sold....day 1. I on the other hand had some doubts mostly because I had put so much time into Dove and had been there myself since I was 15 more or less (mostly less since age 18) and I was very very VERY skeptical.
Ok so she got me to go back, I mean I liked the sermon, the preacher was a little odd, and the worship wasn't quite what I was used to, but man there was something drawing me closer to being there! After just 3 short weeks, Diana and I had made a decision to meet with Ray and Melissa about the church and maybe get some questions that we had answered. Ray and Melissa were very comforting and made our decision that much easier, we found a new home! God put us at Center
Pointe to be more involved, He put us there to love members of the church unconditionally, He put us there to help minister to the people there and to people that would be coming in the future, He put us there to see His Kingdom come full circle and to assist this wonderful group of people in furthering His will for the surrounding communities. God did an awesome thing to and for Diana and I.
Diana and I learned so much in our experience at Center
Pointe/Axiom Church. We encountered numerous things. We led a Small Group which was a lot of fun. We dealt with some hurt, and overcame it too. We made some friendships that will never die, and others that have already faded. Seriously though, looking back I wouldn't trade a single day of it for anything in the whole world. I have since learned that "God will not protect you from, what He can perfect you through!" Had I known this 2 years ago it would've helped me understand what God was doing a whole lot more (unfortunately I just learned this last month).
I am going to skip a whole bunch of stuff that simple doesn't matter anymore, and get to the good stuff.
In December 2009, Diana and I had all but left Axiom in search of a new church home. Then we went to Florida on "church-cation" (I'll explain,
lol). I use that term because we went to refresh ourselves on a beach somewhere, and actually got refreshed in my Mother's church called The Life. We spent nearly the whole week, just absorbing all that God was doing in that awesome place. We got to see
Beckah Shae (If you haven't heard of her, download some of her stuff she is AWESOME). We got to witness a New Years Eve baptism which was simply amazing! All in all, we came away seriously refreshed and renewed in the Holy Spirit!
With that said, we called the Pastor of Axiom, and proclaimed that we wanted to mend the broken relationships in our lives and at that church. We came home a week later and quickly begun calling members of the church that we had broken relationships with to have dinner with them and try and patch things up, but none of them were interested. Later that same week, we had been invited to a gathering at one of the leader's houses by a different leader and his wife, only to be told that we weren't welcome. This DEVASTATED my lovely wife to the brink of tears most of the night, which in turn made me angry, because someone had cause her to cry!
With $7 in our checking account (because we had not gotten paid since coming back from church-cation) we went to McDonald's to have a night out before we went insane. This is quickly turned into one of the best nights of our lives. We went in, sat down with the kids, ate our food, and left. As we were getting into our car a lady came over from out of nowhere and asked us if she could pray for us. We were like "heck ya!!! WE NEED IT TONIGHT" After she prayed the perfect prayer for us (I'm THOROUGHLY convinced she was an angel of God) she looked at us both, and said "God has a plan for you both, (then pointed her finger at me) and He is going to use you in Ministry". Since that night I have held those words so near and dear to my heart and try to remember them every day!
Finally, after quite some time Diana and I ended up going back to Axiom long enough to see some of our friends preach over the course of a few weeks and witness the Pastor's last Sunday, then stayed on for a few more months and the closing of the church. Which was honestly kind of bitter sweet for us, because we felt that God was leading us away from there and we just couldn't let go!
We both are very grateful for God leading us to Axiom and through all that we endured while we were there, because "God will not protect you from, what He will perfect you through!"
That was the Fall of 2010.
After visiting many different church's over the course of the nect 6 months we had almost given up on finding a new church.
Then we found Elevation!!!! Although our journey with this church is just beginning stages, God has been blessing us tremendously! We are already building relationships that I know without a doubt will never be broken. We are truly enjoying being a part of this particular body of Christ and we are both looking forward to what God has in store for us in the growth of Elevation.
We have been so blessed and I have been so blessed by everyone of my Christian friends and my family that never gave up praying for me that God would grab my attention and not let go, but I do have news for you, all of you He never once let go of me. Even when I denied Him, even when I screamed to heaven telling Him that I hated Him, He always had His hand on my heart and guided me to where I am today. Our God is good and he as the songs by Matt
Redman and David
Crowder Band say "He Never Let's Go". I hope you enjoyed my long version of my testimony and I hope this blesses you in some way! God Bless.
