This is Me

Well as I was sitting thinking about what my first blog should be, I began to realize that very few people actually know my testimony and how I came to serve God. It all started at the young age of 5 when my parents got me the tape “Bull Frogs and Butterflies” for Christmas. The only way I could sleep at night was to that tape, and there was a part when the boy gives his heart to the Lord, so with the aide of my Mom I dedicated my life to serving the Lord from that day forward.
All growing up I was an extremely passionate kid. I gave everything my all, even when I never saw the benefits of it. I always gave 100% especially in sports. I played soccer, football, baseball, ran track and cross-country, wrestled and lettered in three sports in high school. Of all the sports I played, I was exceptionally gifted at baseball. When I was 16 I was playing on the local American Legion Team Vancouver Cardinals, and had the season of my life. I was batting around .450, had an e.r.a. less than 2.0, and had a resord of 8-1. It was this season that put me in the Who’s Who of Youth League Baseball with my picture and profile in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Little did I know that was going to be one of my last seasons ever. My junior year of High School we were ranked #1 in the state and I was our #2 pitcher (only cuz the guy in front was a senior). After I got the win in the biggest game of the year I had this unusual deep, dull pain in my shoulder that got so bad I couldn’t even throw a ball 40 feet without rything in pain. Long story short, I had degenerative cartialge damage and only had a few fragments of cartilage left so when I was throwing it was bone on bone. This event like the butterfly effect caused a whole chain of events leading to a large scale alteration of events. God never wanted me to go down the path I was about to, but with God’s sovereignty I was eventually saved from myself.
One of my biggest weaknesses was I could play “Christian” with the best of them. If I wasn’t doing well spiritually I knew exactly how to portray myself around family, friends, and Church so they wouldn’t know what was up. I could pretend I was doing fine by just going through the motions, but no matter what I could not fake God. You see, God gave me a very tender conscious (at times I thought it was a curse) and no matter what I was going through, I would eventually break and confess everything. Sometimes it took longer than others such as my senior year of highschool. I had just been told by the Doctor that I would never be able to throw a baseball again, I would probably have arthritis in my pitching shoulder by 20, and most likely need shoulder replacement surgery at 25. Baseball was my life and that gift of passion that God gave me was directed towards baseball and not Him. I was crushed. My dreams of pitching in D-1 ball suddenly came to a crashing hault. Baseball wasn’t necessarily a god in my life but it was certainly a crutch and when it was removed I had nothing to lean on. I had forgotten how to whole heartedly serve God because I had been playing “Christian” for so long. So naturally I turned to the world for definition in my life. I began sleeping with my girl friend, drinking, cussing like a sailor, and even doubting the very existance of God and his divine power. The sad thing is, if I would have just been leaning on God, this could have all been avoided. Suddenly my life testimony of purity, serving God, and being the kid standing up amongst a world sitting down was a tradgety. Now what??
Well with the incredible family I have and the unfortunate luck I have of ALWAYS getting caught, everything surfaced. I must say, I would rather die a thousand deaths than experience that evening when my parents found out I had been lying straight to their face about everything and seeing the tears of dissappointment streaming down their cheeks. Now my only problem was I was sorry I got caught not sorry for what I had done. So within no time I was drinking again, and fighting God with every ounce of strength I had. It had gotten to the point where I hid my Bible because I knew if I read it I would be convicted and have to change my lifestyle. Being so deep in sin I knew where the truth was but I didn’t want anthing to do with it.
It was shortly after that I decided to move here to Boise with my parents and ’start over.’ The only thing that was different now though was I was stuck in the same sin in a different place. It wasn’t until Gen Unleashed that January that I responded to an alter call and finally esperienced the redeeming power of God. I finally let go of all the mistakes I had made, the bitterness of baseball being stripped from my future, and my doubting spirit was filled with Faith, along with a passion for purity again. It wasn’t until I finally leaned on God and stopped asking questions that I was set free from myself. The moment Christianity turns into a religion as a opposed to a relationship, a label instead of a lifestyle, is the very moment you fall down the slippery slope of “going through the motions.”