"An Autobiography of Me"

I was born on July 19, 1970 to Herbert and Agnes. It was a special day for them because I was born on their 18th wedding anniversary. I had a good childhood. I grew up going to church with my Mom. I attended church school, accomplishing the sacraments of first communion, first confession, and confirmation.
I went through my life up through my 20’s believing that I could be nice to people and help them when they were in a pinch, attend Sunday Mass, say the necessary prayers and be forgiven for all my shortcomings, then go do them all over again. I blended in well with society. The majority of people around me were doing the same thing. In reality, I was a foul-mouthed young man, who was following the crowd, not really sorry for anything. I thought it was all okay to do.
In the late 1990’s, I started working at the local high paying factory. My Dad had my brother get me an application, and he made sure that his long time friend, who worked his way into being the supervisor, knew that I had applied By the year 2000, I was able to move into a different department. I befriended many there. I became friends with one man that really was different from the rest. He listened to this strange radio station I never heard of before, he read his Bible frequently in my presence, which led me to discuss Biblical things with him. I had my Catholic view and he had a Protestant view. I realized I had no clear knowledge of many Biblical events. I definitely had no idea what these words meant. After much debate with him, I realized that I shouldn’t debate with him on things that I knew nothing about. I couldn’t figure out why this guy and others I knew in my own family were always so happy; there was nothing much I could see to be happy about.
In 2001, after many different health problems, my Mom was diagnosed with liver cancer. I could see it really devastated my Mom. Though I was very scared and heartbroken, I kept up a positive attitude with her. I went to church with many prayers from me and many friends and family. My Mom continued to get worse, radiation treatments were not working. By April of 2002, my Mom became so ill that she was admitted into the hospital. The doctors did several procedures on her and she started to get a little better. Then, the call came from one of my brothers that Mom took a turn for the worse and she wanted to see Dad and all her boys. I prayed harder than I ever had the entire 50 mile journey to the hospital. I was able to spend a few last moments with Mom, and on April 17, 2002 she died. I was very upset with God for taking my Mom from me. I really didn’t want to go to church anymore, but for my Dad’s sake, I went. While at church, instead of prayers, I gave chastisement in my mind to God for not answering my prayers. Eventually, my grief and anger toward God subsided.
Something made me look up on Yahoo Personals, the profiles of single women in the area. After much looking I came across a few in my close area. After talking with them, one stood out. I became an IM and email friend with her. After much hinting and coaxing on her part, I asked her out on a date to see a movie “Sweet Home Alabama.” I eventually met her family. Her parents and grandparents intrigued me. The debates I had with my friend at work came flooding back into my mind. These people were professing Christians. I developed much respect for them. My heart softened a bit toward Christianity.
In the winter of 2003 my Dad was diagnosed with lung disease. It was not long until I started praying to God again for his well being. He was in ICU for weeks. Eventually, the doctors were doing a routine tracheotomy, when they made a mistake and nicked an artery. Because of this, my Dad died during this procedure. Once again, this devastated my family. Shortly afterward, I asked my girlfriend Jennifer, and her three kids to move in with me. We lived together for 15 months before I finally mustered the courage up to ask Jennifer to be my bride. I used our overused credit card to buy the wedding/engagement ring. I used Christmas Eve alone with her to pop the question, while putting out the presents. We set our date for November 5, 2005.
As November approached, we received a foreclosure notice in the mail along with several collection agencies attempts to get us to pay our debts. This caused me to talk us into getting another loan from a loan company that advertised in our local paper. This company turned out to be fraudulent and stole $1800 in “insurance” fees from us. This put us in a state of disarray. We could not afford to get married the way we had planned. On September 20th we discussed postponing the wedding. We were both just devastated. We talked about God again in a bad way and took this as proof that there was no God.
I was given a job that evening at work far away from my workmates. Then, a thought came to mind about that radio station that my friend listened to when I debated with him about Biblical matters. I turned to it. There was a teaching show on there “Living on the Edge” with Chip Ingram. He came on and introduced what his show was about that night. He was doing a study from the book of Job. This drew some interest for me. I heard a kind voice say “Listen, this message is for you to hear.” Then I heard another gruff voice say “No don’t listen.” This went on for a short time. I decided to listen with great interest. All the while this gruff voice became a spiritual presence and things on my machine started falling onto the ground. At the end of the teaching, Chip Ingram said “If this message sounds like something you can relate to, remember that Jesus longs for you to come to him. Pray this prayer with me, ‘Jesus, I have lived my life separated from you, please come into my heart and rescue me from this turmoil in my life. I turn from my sin and will follow you, Jesus I love you. Amen.’”
I then left my work area hastily to call Jennifer and tell her what had just happened. I could not control my emotions. I cried quite uncontrollably barely getting the words out that I just said a prayer to ask Jesus into my heart. She was so overwhelmed by this that after she calmed me down on the phone and hung up, she asked Jesus into her heart as well. The wedding, though scaled down, went on and was more enriching to both of us because God was at the center.
Since then, we have grown greatly in the Lord. All three of our kids accepted Jesus as their Savior and are currently learning how to stay on the path of righteousness. Recently, I was called into ministry and am currently attending Grand Canyon University for my Bachelor’s in Christian Studies with a focus on Ministry.
As well as being a story of my testimony, and of God’s never-ending love for me; it is also a story of God’s usage of people who don’t know Him as their Savior. He longs for them to know Him and love Him. He used my Dad, my brother, my Dad’s long- time friend, and several other people; believers and non-believers. My never-ending prayer is for them to come to know Jesus as their Savior, and know that He used them in bringing me to Jesus.