In lieu of Sarah Simpson's latest blog where she shared her awesome testimony, I thought I would share mine as well.
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 who owned a Meat Market, my Dad had a wholesale car 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). I really was just going through the motions, and then it got worse for me. My Father had a massive heart attack December 7th, 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 friends from youth group who I had a falling out with who tried to reach out to me, but I felt her and my relationship 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 a year ago, I was still attending the same church even though these feelings and their actions had not changed much. A little over a year later, 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 noone 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 rebeled from God, the more it reminded her of him from before they were 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 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 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. I was used to having a woman by my side at this point to cure the lonliness 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 Jarrod, I hope that soon there will be some restoration to our relationship. I have not seen him in 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. 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 Jarrod, 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. 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 500 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 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 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 the 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 Wanda to watch her while she went to school and she was absolutely stunning. I was immeadiately 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 about 2 months and 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.
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.
