Could I tell you another story? It's a long one; however, it's my story, and I wouldn't trade it for anyone else's in the world...
I guess I have been blessed in a great many ways, really. I had the privilege of coming to know Christ at a young age, spent most of my early life in a Church-attending household, and have always had someone waiting for me when I got home from school. Honestly, God has always provided me with everything Ive ever needed, and more. To tell the truth, though, I think what I did with Gods abundant blessings bears great testimony as to how wretched a sinner I really would be without Christ.
As I said, I first accepted Christ when I was still a little kid of about 6. It was a bright, Sunday afternoon; my brother, Nathan and I had gotten out of church before the rest of my family, so we headed out to the van to wait on them. When we got there, he turned to me and asked, Do you want to accept Jesus as your Savior? I said yes, and he led me through the sinners prayer. I really believe that I was saved that day, as small as my understanding of the prayer or the Savior was; I knew that Jesus loved me because the Bible told me so, and in that instant that was all I needed to know to love Him back.
The next several years passed without any serious upsets, until I got to the fourth grade; you see, my family moved from St. Louis to Huntsville right after I got out of the fourth grade. Most of my family, anyways; Nathan had just turned eighteen when we moved, and he chose to stay behind. The move wasnt easy on any of us, to tell the truth; my dad had been in denial about the whole thing and hadnt made immediate living arrangements for us, my mom was hedged someplace between a nervous breakdown and divorce court, and my fifteen year old brother Zachary hadnt stopped raising cane since wed pulled out of our old driveway. As for my little sister and I; well, we just cried most of the way.
I was a total basket case by the time I started back to school in the fifth grade. I socialized well and I guess I made friends alright, but I always felt awkward around everyone. Over time, I sort withdrew into a little box. My brother was stirring up all kinds of trouble for my mom and dad, and we didnt really attend church for quite a while, which left me quite convinced that I was all alone in my own little world, just me and my computer.
I learned the hard way how badly man can corrupt his box in the fifth grade, when I stumbled onto a porn website. Honestly, I didnt realize that what I was doing was bad for a very long time. With no church to guide or encourage me, and my parents to busy fighting each other or Zach to keep an eye on me, I was simply left adrift in a churning sea of sorrows, knowing that something was drastically wrong in my life but not really having learned enough by the 4th grade Sunday school class to know what to do about it.
All of my hidden sins really started casting a dark shadow on my daily life in the seventh grade. I was filled to the brim with lustful thoughts, testosterone, and more than a little bit of arrogance, when I managed to fall for a
bit of a rebellious girl, you might say. So what did I do? I showed off how cool I was by cussing so badly that I could of made a sailor blush, getting thrown out of band, getting into fights, spending weeks in ISS, and just to prove I wasnt chicken, I was a thief, to boot
Do you know what happens to bad habits that you started because you wanted someone to like you, once you lose interest in them? Theyre a lot like wet concrete; take out the water and youve got a brick thats hard to break, harder to move, and is going to cause nothing but trouble. In the eighth grade, I was a foul-mouthed, lying, thieving, arrogant jerk. Why? I didnt know or care; people paid attention to ME when I did those things, and that foolish, trapped, little fifth-grader inside of me wanted nothing else.
Im grateful to God that I got burned by the candlestick in the eighth grade. I stole one to many things of a little to much value in school, and got myself caught. I spent two solid weeks listening to the words expulsion and solitary being tossed around with my name. Its a very frightening, humbling thing when you realize you have ruined your entire life before you even made it to high school; and for a while, thats exactly what I thought Id done.
But then God moved one of the kindest men I have ever known to pity; the principal of my former middle school, Mr. Terry Davis. He did something incredible that day, when he chose not to place the thievery on my permanent record, or to pursue any punishment outside of a five day suspension. He did that, even after I had looked him in the eyes and lied to his face about what Id done. He forgave me. That day was the first time in 4 years I had really seen that sort of love from anyone (not that it hadnt been there; its just that I was so wrapped up in me that I never took notice of it).
After that experience, my family finally got back into church; at Bethlehem, in fact. Slowly but steadily, I felt myself start to open. Through the words spoken from the pulpit, the ideals taught in Sunday school, and the movement of the Holy Spirit, years of lust, anger, enmity, and sin began to crack and give way. Then, at one point during my freshman year, I found myself at a week-long youth rally called Explosion 2001. All week long I felt a dull ache in my heart. That old sense of something being wrong, but not knowing exactly what was back; but it wasnt until Friday that a name was given to my illness.
That night, they put on a passion-play they brought a man in, and had him mocked by a crowd, spat upon, beaten, whipped, nailed to a cross as his cries filled the gymnasium, and lifted up
As the speaker talked to us, he began addressing all of my faults, my offenses, and my sins. But when he invited us to come down onto the gym floor and make it our altar, almost everyone in the gym flooded onto the floor, and there we stayed weeping our hearts into the pads they had placed down. That day, my eyes beheld and my mind at last conceived of how deeply Jesus really does love me, and how greatly I am indebted to His kindness.
From that day forwards, I have tried my best not to let my Christian life grow stagnant, working where workers were needed, and trying to show Christs love in my actions and my words. By the grace and strengthening of God Almighty, I have been allowed triumph over the sins my mouth and my hands, and by the daily renewal of my mind, it is my sincere hope that I will soon be completely freed from the last remaining shadows of lust that dwell within my mind. And thus has it been, for three years, with little more than a few minor bumps and hiccups along the way. So come what may, my faith is resolute; my hope, unfailing; and my strength is not my own.
May the God of Glory guide you; signed,
Caleb
something always stops me from hitting rock bottem. something always reminds me im not alone. for some reason, someone stops me. i believe its god. jesus loves me. he shows me it when i need it most. thats why i believe. and thats why im a christain.
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