A little background on me and my personal testimony.
This is my personal testimony. I wrote this as an assignment for a class, but this has quickly become my "flagship" to explain to people why I am where I am in my life right now. Here it is, feel free to comment as you like.
My Personal Testimony
When I sat down to write my "why I want to attend Lincoln Christian College and Seminary" paragraph, I felt I could sit down and write a book. This spiritual journey essay is the perfect opportunity to write that book. My life has been filled with God, hardship, and has been a big roller coaster of emotions, such as life.
My spiritual journey began as soon as I was born. I was born into a strong Catholic family on my mother’s side, and a strong Christian/Methodist family on my father’s side. My dad, being who he is, followed my mother’s wishes and raised my brother and I Catholic. I was baptized as an infant and took my first communion at second grade. As a child I felt pushed into church, as most children do, because I didn’t like formal things where I had to be quiet for more than 2 minutes.
At the tender young age of 12, I got the worst possible news that a kid could get. My dad had thyroid cancer. God was instrumental at this point in my life, due to the fact I didn’t know what else to do other than pray. I felt I had to grow up immensely in a short period of time. After dad had the surgery and pulled through, my relationship with him and God changed. I became a lot closer to both and valued the relationship of each all the more. Around this time I was approaching confirmation age at eighth grade, and as a result of my dad’s cancer bout, I began to get curious and ask more questions, becoming intrigued all the more. After completing confirmation, I followed a pull towards teaching/ministry in the classes called CCD that I went to as a child. I taught a few years of kindergarten before becoming consumed in high school activities and losing sight of my calling. As I was going through high school, I began to ask more and more questions in and about the Catholic faith and wasn’t getting the answers I was looking for.
When I turned eighteen in March of 1997, I made the decision to leave the Catholic faith and go towards the Christian path; I joined my dad and grandparents church. I immediately was involved in everything from hand bells to choir and even sharing "special music" as it was entitled. Some were my compositions, others weren’t, but I loved being involved all the same. This is where my first real mentor towards ministry, former Youth Minister of East Peoria United Methodist Church, Bob Herath, got a hold of me and started to teach me. As most Youth Ministers are, he was great at connecting with me and showing me new things about God, Jesus, The Bible, and of course the Holy Spirit. Although he really didn’t encourage me to go into ministry, he did have a profound influence on my Christian walk, which has led me here.
Ever since those days, deep inside I’ve always felt a call to ministry. As a young adult, I pushed the calling away; pursuing sins of the flesh, not knowing what trouble I was headed for. I withdrew from my family and most importantly, God. In August of 2000, I got married to my first wife. She started to get me back into church, but that marriage was doomed to failure, and I moved even further away from God. I only attended church during an almost two year period from December of 2001 to June of 2003 on Holidays. During this period I was in Culinary school trying to get my life together. While there, I ended up meeting my true life mate God intended for me, who by her recent baptism into Christ, started drawing me closer to God again. By the time June of 2003 rolled around, we had been married four months and had our first daughter in May. We hopped from town to town, following my culinary career, attending church sporadically.
After my career took us to St. Louis in August of 2004, we sputtered around and didn’t attend church until we went to Watson Terrace Christian Church in March of 2005. It was a church, one of many, that I passed everyday on my way to work. With my career, I worked almost every Sunday. Eventually, I vowed to my wife that one day we would go down Watson road and try every church until we found one we liked. Watson Terrace Christian Church was the first one on my list only because it was the first one I passed on my way to work. We went in one Sunday, met the pastor’s wife first, then him a little while later. It was a very small church of about fifteen to twenty people attending each Sunday, but we were hooked. We never made it to the second church on my list. The way God spoke through my second and most powerful influence, Rev. Carl A. King, was miraculous to say the least. Every Sunday I felt as if God was intending that sermon just for me. In April of 2005, we were expecting our second daughter in August, but got terrible news about my grandma on my dad’s side. She had cancer for the fifth time and, incredibly, she only had six months to live. This time, it was a severe tumor on her bladder that had grown onto her pelvis; an inoperable nightmare. Everyone, including me, was devastated. She was the one person who, through everything, understood who I really was and knew there was more beneath the cover I was showing. I loved her dearly, and miss her even more. That summer was a very emotional one; the most important one that had happened up to that point in my life. My second daughter was born in August, as planned, and a few weeks later we dashed to Peoria to show her off to my grandma, as we all knew she was headed downhill fast. She got to visit and hold Hannah a few times over the next coming weeks. All the while God still tugging at my heart through Rev. King’s sermons. In early October 2005, my grandma went into hospice and never got out. On October 10, 2005, my dad called me at work around 10:30am to tell me grandma passed away 45 minutes earlier. One more time, I was crushed. As I hung up the phone, the pipes screensaver on my computer outlined a very bold cross on the screen. I knew God was with me telling me everything was alright. We held the funeral, coped with our loss, celebrated her life and joining God in heaven, and tried to carry on. At the funeral, I was elected by everyone in my family to read a compiled list of stories about my grandma because I could, as they told me, "hold my grace under fire". A few months later, I had a dream that has forever changed my life. It’s a dream inspired by God and one of the few moments in life never to forget, as it is so profound. The dream went like this:
It’s dark. I’m standing in an open sandy beach. There’s a tree in
front of me, lifeless, with no leaves. Around me there are people
I know, some still living, others passed on; my grandma being one.
I stop and talk to people, not really knowing where I am going.
As I get to the dead tree, I start walking to the right around the
tree and now I’m standing in a huge cove on the beach.
The ocean is behind me, a big amphitheatre of rock around all
other parts. Off to my left is a podium of rock on a stage of rock,
and Jesus is preaching to a very large crowd of hundreds upon
thousands of people. It’s as if I’m standing offstage, behind the
scenes, watching as Jesus is preaching. As He walks off the stage,
without saying a word he motions to me to go to the podium. I
look at Him and say, "I can’t go up there!" One more time He
motions me to the podium. I look at the podium and there’s an
orange piece of paper with an obviously unreadable foreign
language on it. Once again I look at Him and say, "I can’t go up
there, I don’t know what to say!" And in a calm and loving voice
He says, "I will teach you. You will know what to say, now go."
I walk up to the podium and the words flow like I’d never known
before. I looked at Jesus and He nodded and smiled, and walked
away.
When I woke up, I just smiled from ear to ear, I knew exactly what kind of dream I’d just had. I maybe didn’t know the meaning yet, but I knew that it was an instruction from God for my life. It has taken me three years and a lot of inner battles to come to full conscious realization of that dream. I tried to distinguish between whether or not it was a teacher or a minister He wanted me to be. I was still fighting to get away from the calling of ministry. I attempted to go back to school and get my teaching degree in January of 2008, but is as the way of things, anything not of God’s will eventually fail. After that, I knew what the end result was. The dream was meant for me to be a minister. Still denying it on the outside, I went back to the culinary industry, miserable more now than ever before. When my wife enrolled in Lincoln Christian College and Seminary and started class in early September of 2008, I realized that this was the opportunity I had been waiting on. When I fully admitted and passed control of my life to God, and confessed that I knew He was calling me to ministry, I felt a peace within myself that I’ve never known before. The day I made the decision, at work that night, my cash deposit read seven hundred seventy-seven dollars and seventeen cents. Seven, the number of God, peace and tranquility. I knew that I had made the right decision. That day I had been fully transformed by God and now I am finally working on His will for my life for the first time, and it feels great. Lincoln Christian College and Seminary is instrumental in my new mission in life. Through the LincUp program I am going to be able to take one class at a time, concentrating on my studies and working to support my family as well. My goal is to graduate with my degree in General Ministry, and if its God’s will, continue on to Seminary school to achieve my Masters of Divinity. My mission is now to serve God in the way He calls me, anywhere He calls me, anytime. I have vowed to Him that I will follow where He leads me, unashamed, undeterred from my course. I want to save another person from wasting twelve years of their life, pursuing sins of the flesh. I want to get the Word of God out to those who haven’t heard it. I want to spread the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I want to follow Him wherever He leads. I want to never stray away from God again, ever. It scares me to think of where I was going. I admittedly need God. America needs God in it again. The world needs God. Let us go forth and spread the grace, mercy, hope, love and joy of God to those who need it, now and always.
My Personal Testimony
When I sat down to write my "why I want to attend Lincoln Christian College and Seminary" paragraph, I felt I could sit down and write a book. This spiritual journey essay is the perfect opportunity to write that book. My life has been filled with God, hardship, and has been a big roller coaster of emotions, such as life.
My spiritual journey began as soon as I was born. I was born into a strong Catholic family on my mother’s side, and a strong Christian/Methodist family on my father’s side. My dad, being who he is, followed my mother’s wishes and raised my brother and I Catholic. I was baptized as an infant and took my first communion at second grade. As a child I felt pushed into church, as most children do, because I didn’t like formal things where I had to be quiet for more than 2 minutes.
At the tender young age of 12, I got the worst possible news that a kid could get. My dad had thyroid cancer. God was instrumental at this point in my life, due to the fact I didn’t know what else to do other than pray. I felt I had to grow up immensely in a short period of time. After dad had the surgery and pulled through, my relationship with him and God changed. I became a lot closer to both and valued the relationship of each all the more. Around this time I was approaching confirmation age at eighth grade, and as a result of my dad’s cancer bout, I began to get curious and ask more questions, becoming intrigued all the more. After completing confirmation, I followed a pull towards teaching/ministry in the classes called CCD that I went to as a child. I taught a few years of kindergarten before becoming consumed in high school activities and losing sight of my calling. As I was going through high school, I began to ask more and more questions in and about the Catholic faith and wasn’t getting the answers I was looking for.
When I turned eighteen in March of 1997, I made the decision to leave the Catholic faith and go towards the Christian path; I joined my dad and grandparents church. I immediately was involved in everything from hand bells to choir and even sharing "special music" as it was entitled. Some were my compositions, others weren’t, but I loved being involved all the same. This is where my first real mentor towards ministry, former Youth Minister of East Peoria United Methodist Church, Bob Herath, got a hold of me and started to teach me. As most Youth Ministers are, he was great at connecting with me and showing me new things about God, Jesus, The Bible, and of course the Holy Spirit. Although he really didn’t encourage me to go into ministry, he did have a profound influence on my Christian walk, which has led me here.
Ever since those days, deep inside I’ve always felt a call to ministry. As a young adult, I pushed the calling away; pursuing sins of the flesh, not knowing what trouble I was headed for. I withdrew from my family and most importantly, God. In August of 2000, I got married to my first wife. She started to get me back into church, but that marriage was doomed to failure, and I moved even further away from God. I only attended church during an almost two year period from December of 2001 to June of 2003 on Holidays. During this period I was in Culinary school trying to get my life together. While there, I ended up meeting my true life mate God intended for me, who by her recent baptism into Christ, started drawing me closer to God again. By the time June of 2003 rolled around, we had been married four months and had our first daughter in May. We hopped from town to town, following my culinary career, attending church sporadically.
After my career took us to St. Louis in August of 2004, we sputtered around and didn’t attend church until we went to Watson Terrace Christian Church in March of 2005. It was a church, one of many, that I passed everyday on my way to work. With my career, I worked almost every Sunday. Eventually, I vowed to my wife that one day we would go down Watson road and try every church until we found one we liked. Watson Terrace Christian Church was the first one on my list only because it was the first one I passed on my way to work. We went in one Sunday, met the pastor’s wife first, then him a little while later. It was a very small church of about fifteen to twenty people attending each Sunday, but we were hooked. We never made it to the second church on my list. The way God spoke through my second and most powerful influence, Rev. Carl A. King, was miraculous to say the least. Every Sunday I felt as if God was intending that sermon just for me. In April of 2005, we were expecting our second daughter in August, but got terrible news about my grandma on my dad’s side. She had cancer for the fifth time and, incredibly, she only had six months to live. This time, it was a severe tumor on her bladder that had grown onto her pelvis; an inoperable nightmare. Everyone, including me, was devastated. She was the one person who, through everything, understood who I really was and knew there was more beneath the cover I was showing. I loved her dearly, and miss her even more. That summer was a very emotional one; the most important one that had happened up to that point in my life. My second daughter was born in August, as planned, and a few weeks later we dashed to Peoria to show her off to my grandma, as we all knew she was headed downhill fast. She got to visit and hold Hannah a few times over the next coming weeks. All the while God still tugging at my heart through Rev. King’s sermons. In early October 2005, my grandma went into hospice and never got out. On October 10, 2005, my dad called me at work around 10:30am to tell me grandma passed away 45 minutes earlier. One more time, I was crushed. As I hung up the phone, the pipes screensaver on my computer outlined a very bold cross on the screen. I knew God was with me telling me everything was alright. We held the funeral, coped with our loss, celebrated her life and joining God in heaven, and tried to carry on. At the funeral, I was elected by everyone in my family to read a compiled list of stories about my grandma because I could, as they told me, "hold my grace under fire". A few months later, I had a dream that has forever changed my life. It’s a dream inspired by God and one of the few moments in life never to forget, as it is so profound. The dream went like this:
It’s dark. I’m standing in an open sandy beach. There’s a tree in
front of me, lifeless, with no leaves. Around me there are people
I know, some still living, others passed on; my grandma being one.
I stop and talk to people, not really knowing where I am going.
As I get to the dead tree, I start walking to the right around the
tree and now I’m standing in a huge cove on the beach.
The ocean is behind me, a big amphitheatre of rock around all
other parts. Off to my left is a podium of rock on a stage of rock,
and Jesus is preaching to a very large crowd of hundreds upon
thousands of people. It’s as if I’m standing offstage, behind the
scenes, watching as Jesus is preaching. As He walks off the stage,
without saying a word he motions to me to go to the podium. I
look at Him and say, "I can’t go up there!" One more time He
motions me to the podium. I look at the podium and there’s an
orange piece of paper with an obviously unreadable foreign
language on it. Once again I look at Him and say, "I can’t go up
there, I don’t know what to say!" And in a calm and loving voice
He says, "I will teach you. You will know what to say, now go."
I walk up to the podium and the words flow like I’d never known
before. I looked at Jesus and He nodded and smiled, and walked
away.
When I woke up, I just smiled from ear to ear, I knew exactly what kind of dream I’d just had. I maybe didn’t know the meaning yet, but I knew that it was an instruction from God for my life. It has taken me three years and a lot of inner battles to come to full conscious realization of that dream. I tried to distinguish between whether or not it was a teacher or a minister He wanted me to be. I was still fighting to get away from the calling of ministry. I attempted to go back to school and get my teaching degree in January of 2008, but is as the way of things, anything not of God’s will eventually fail. After that, I knew what the end result was. The dream was meant for me to be a minister. Still denying it on the outside, I went back to the culinary industry, miserable more now than ever before. When my wife enrolled in Lincoln Christian College and Seminary and started class in early September of 2008, I realized that this was the opportunity I had been waiting on. When I fully admitted and passed control of my life to God, and confessed that I knew He was calling me to ministry, I felt a peace within myself that I’ve never known before. The day I made the decision, at work that night, my cash deposit read seven hundred seventy-seven dollars and seventeen cents. Seven, the number of God, peace and tranquility. I knew that I had made the right decision. That day I had been fully transformed by God and now I am finally working on His will for my life for the first time, and it feels great. Lincoln Christian College and Seminary is instrumental in my new mission in life. Through the LincUp program I am going to be able to take one class at a time, concentrating on my studies and working to support my family as well. My goal is to graduate with my degree in General Ministry, and if its God’s will, continue on to Seminary school to achieve my Masters of Divinity. My mission is now to serve God in the way He calls me, anywhere He calls me, anytime. I have vowed to Him that I will follow where He leads me, unashamed, undeterred from my course. I want to save another person from wasting twelve years of their life, pursuing sins of the flesh. I want to get the Word of God out to those who haven’t heard it. I want to spread the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I want to follow Him wherever He leads. I want to never stray away from God again, ever. It scares me to think of where I was going. I admittedly need God. America needs God in it again. The world needs God. Let us go forth and spread the grace, mercy, hope, love and joy of God to those who need it, now and always.
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