Your Story (one page)

MY Your Story -> MANUSCRIPT 

————-Let me tell you my story. Before I met the Lord, three things described my life.

I grew up in Florida. I was born in Southern California and moved to Virginia Beach with my mom. She remarried, and we moved to Jacksonville, Florida. I grew up in a beach culture. I was from a middle-class home. I wanted for nothing.

I chose binge partying at around 15. It was a gradual thing. I started drinking some. Then I started smoking weed. Then I tried LSD. Before long, there was not much I had not tried. I would drink and drive. How I never received a DWI is beyond me. God was looking out for me. Drugs led to sexual immorality. I was a liar. I was very self-centered. I was out of control. I had no purpose. My life was meaningless. I moved to Texas after graduating high school. I play in a country band with my Dad. That ran dry. A year later, I moved back to Florida. I moved to Fort Pierce. I worked for the Parks Department for a year. I was still partying hard. Very hard. All of this culminated in me being homeless for a few weeks. It was then that I realized how lonely and purposeless I was in life.

I moved back to Jacksonville on January 1, 1984. I joined the Army on January 24, 1985. 

I found some immediate purpose in the Army. I was still partying, but it was limited now because of the discipline required in the Army. 

This is how I came to know Jesus Christ. 

In 1987, I met my wife Jeana on a blind date in Germany. I was way from God, but she was a believer in Jesus Christ. So I was confronted by an 8-year history of partying and rebelling against God, with the love of God itself. I did not know what to do. I realized I needed to change. The realization of the need for change in my life came from the godly example of Jeana. She never judged me. She just loved me. She became my friend, and it was then that I realized I loved her. So I proposed to her. 

Jeana and I got married in 1988 in Arizona. We lived in El Paso. After a few months of going to church and being exposed to Jesus’ love. I was in church in Arizona where we were visiting Jeana’s mom and dad. I was sitting in church one morning and the lid came off of the word, the love of God. I sat in a church service with 150 people in it and realized God loved me. I did not think I could be forgiven for the things I had done. It is as if God was saying, “Stop making excuses; I will forgive you if you will believe right now.” I remember praying, “Lord I believe (Eph. 2:8-9) You died for my sins, were buried, and rose again three days later” (1 Cor. 15:3-4). I repented of my sins and believed the gospel (Mark 1:15).  

I moved from the natural person to the spiritual person in a moment. 

My story after is simple. Jesus changed my life.

Jesus set me free from my past. I not longer live with guilt or enslaved to the wrong things. Great purpose came to my life. I now live for God. Peace came in my soul. I do not worry about eternity. 

Now that is what the good news that moves me from the natural to the spiritual person. 

Do you have a story like that?