My Story

I said I was going to tell you a story, so here it is.

I was born on June 2nd, 1990. I grew up in a newly Christian family, and attended Bethel Mennonite Church for the early years of my life. However, the teaching was shallow at best, and the atmosphere was almost too laid back. In an effort to find a church that offered more spiritual “meat,” we began visiting churches around 2000-ish, and came across many different kinds.

There was one we were visiting for a while, and I remember one evening a missionary from the Philippines came and gave a sermon. He talked about the status of his efforts in the Philippines, and where he was planning to go from his current situation. Near the end of the service, he mentioned an incident where his car broke down. By the end of the story, several random Filipinos had stopped to help get his vehicle back up and running. He said that they were all nice people, but they're missing the one thing that will get them to heaven – a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

From what I had come up around, I was accustomed to the “good people go to heaven” point of view. I was a good kid – not a perfect kid, but I never did anything like sneak bad stuff into the house or steal cars. “If good people don't go to heaven, where do they go?” I thought.

The missionary then explained that Jesus was the only way to eternal life (see John 14:6), and that any other way – including being a good person – would lead to eternal death and separation from God. Mr. Missionary had me at this point, but then he added in another bit which, looking back, might've scared me into it. He talked about the return of Christ, and how no human really knew when it would happen. I remember he said “He may come this month, He may come tomorrow, He may come before your bedtime – but if you are not one of His children when he comes, the only place for you will be Hell.”

There wasn't much after that – the prayer time started, and I began to think. I could be a good person all I wanted, but that would never get me into Heaven – and I had this sinking feeling that Mr. Missionary was right. So I began to pray. I prayed for forgiveness from the sins I had committed (which even for a young boy can be plenteous), and accepted for Jesus to be my Lord and Savior.

It's hard to really explain how relieved I felt once I finished that prayer. I don't remember the day, I don't remember the missionary's name, I barely remember the year – but I remember that moment in time when I accepted Jesus as my savior. And that, to me, is all that matters. The joy of knowing I was part of His kingdom was unlike anything I've felt before or since. I told everyone I knew at that church that I had gotten saved – and everyone was happy for me! I went home that night and began to wonder about how awesome it would be to be caught up in rapture with the Most High God.

I remember a couple days later, after school, sitting in my room watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I distinctly remember during the fight scene with tank, posing the question to myself - “Well, I'm saved. Now what?”

Unfortunately, I didn't properly address this question until much later in life.

Shortly after I got saved we found a church we liked, and are still attending – Heritage Baptist Church. I read my Bible, turned in my Sunday School homework, and filled in the blanks of my outlines, just as every good Christian does. However, it all became a routine activity – no real thought went into it, it was simply “something you had to do.”

This attitude persisted throughout most of my teenage years. In 2007, I got my first job working as an office assistant for Glick Real Estate. It was a 9 to 5 job at a small office. Looking back, I am rather thankful that while things that happened at that office may not have been the best thing ever, the people I worked with were Godly people, or at least very religious. One of my co-workers was a pastor, and was using his job at the office to make extra money so he could provide for the family. Kevin, the pastor, gave me guidance from time to time that really helped me in retrospect.

During that time, however, things began to change. My Bible reading began to trickle off to nothing. My prayer was nonexistant. And conversations about spiritual things? Pft, forget about it.

This translated into my work ethic. About a quarter of the way into my tenure at the office I began to get sloppy, and adopt the “why do today what you can do tomorrow?” mentality. To clarify, I wasn't doing a menial “collate this document” kind of job – it was my job to make sure real estate transactions got processed by the title company, and get the paperwork back. This was one of the bigger money-makers for the company. The pile of stuff in my “to-do” box on my desk kept growing.

Then one day I asked my boss' wife if it would be okay to download some files, stick them on a CD I had brought, and take them home (once I clocked out for the day). She said that would be fine, so I clocked out, copied the files, and went home. (I should explain – we had dial-up at home, and the office had broadband.) I continued to do this over the course of several weeks. However, one of the files I downloaded must have brought a virus onto the computer. I went back over everything I ever took home a bit after the fact and scanned everything with a fine-tooth comb, but everything came back clean. Anyway, it did a real number on my work computer. My supervisor, who goes to the same church I do and still keep close contact with, called my dad late a couple nights afterwords to give my dad a heads-up – I was going to get fired the next day.

My parents, to say the least, were not pleased. The next day my dad drove me to work, and went in with me. We talked to my boss, and he explained why he was going to let me go. First he talked about my work ethic, and how lax it had become. He explained to me that it was a critical function that I performed – something I really didn't realize, being the first job environment I was in. He then talked about my downloading deal, and asked me if I knew what the policy said about using the work computers for personal use. Much to his surprise, that was the first time anyone ever mentioned a company policy to me. I was given a copy of the company policy, and told that if I violated it I was out the door.

He then addressed my sloppy work ethic. He told me “I really don't care if you're flipping patties at McDonald's or working on a multi-million dollar project – do your job, and do it well.” He then gave me one week to clean up my act, or I was fired. I think having Dad there helped me get that one week – I tell him he saved my job for me. I cleaned up my work habits and began working like a maniac to keep my job. I did, and managed to get back the trust of my co-workers. However, even though my exterior habits had been cleaned up, my internal ones had not. My spiritual life continued to take a walk off a cliff.

Then August 2008 came. I began attending Stark State College of Technology pursuing the Cyber Security & Computer Forensics degree (my interest in computers and security went WAY up after my virus incident), and began working at the Stark State Help Desk as a student worker. That was when my spiritual life was truly ignored. Few people were religious, let alone Christian – most people lived ungodly lives in any way you can think of.

I was told that it would be very easy to just blend in with the crowd, and forget my spiritual walk. And whoever told me that was right. My Bible reading was already negligent – now it was gone completely. Prayer hadn't been voluntarily committed in a very long time. Christianity became my label – it had no other real meaning to me. All my thoughts about God and the Christian walk took a back seat. After all, I was in college now; I had more important things to worry about.

My conduct and conversations echoed this. My attitude towards my parents, my church, and life in general took on a rather ungodly perspective. My relationship with my family became strained to say the least, and I didn't want to spend any more time in church than necessary. I was “playing the part,” you could say.

That progressed until the summer of 2009, when Mom asked me when I was going to get around to joining the church. I had kept my general lack of a spiritual walk hidden from my parents, and was still playing the part when I was around the family. The way I had set up school and classes over the summer, I had a 9am – 12am class, and then work at 5 pm. So, I would sit around the college and do whatever I needed to do. When Mom asked me that, I began to think. In order to become a member at our church, we must give our testimony to the congregation. What would I say? Looking back over my life, I remembered that initial joy and eagerness to tell everyone about Him. But now, I'd put Him out of my life completely.

That night, I got on my knees and prayed. I didn't know where to begin – I'd done so much wrong, I'd kicked God into the closet of my life and left him there. I had sinned so much – not so much in action, but in thought and conduct. I didn't think God would take me back, but He did.

I steeled myself that night to serve God no matter what got thrown at me. I picked up my Bible and began reading it again. Not as “the book you're supposed to read,” but as God's Word, through which He revealed Himself to us. There was so much I missed all those years! And with those wondrous truths came a lot of conviction... I had a lot of work in front of me. Habits and actions I had thought nothing of for years now had to change. But I knew I was right with God, and that He would help me through it.

And so began my renewed walk with God. It has not been easy, but it has been totally worth it.

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...That is my story. There was more I was going to add that talked about recent occurrences, but I figured this was long enough for now. If you want to see it (which I don't mind), just let me know in the comments. :)

-Kyle