My Spiritual Journey
I consider my up bringing as average and middle class. My mother grew up in a Presbyterian church and my father in an Episcopal church. My brother and I were not really raised going to any church. We probably attended less than 15 actual church services or Sunday school classes growing up. During the few times I attended a church I was taught that Jesus who was born miraculously was the Son of God, that he died on a cross for my sins and rose from the dead three days later. And that if I believed in him I would go to heaven and if I didn’t that I would go to hell. At least that’s how I understood whatever I was taught. As I got older I decided I didn’t believe that. And also that I didn’t believe in religion because there were so many religions and they all claimed they were right and the others were wrong. Because of that, they all seemed the same to me. All of them seemed to be of man and not of God.
What I did believe was that God existed, that there was only one God, and he could do anything he wanted to. I believed He knew all, saw all, and heard all. I would pray to God sometimes, and I believed he heard me because he heard everything. So I went on with life and lived with this kind of belief about God and religion.
When I was about 11 my best friend and I started getting in a lot of trouble together. We started by ditching school and getting involved with people that were into drugs. I was greatly influenced at that time by teens that were just a few years older than me. They were into skateboarding, tagging, drinking smoking, using drugs, backyard keg parties, and other crimes and ungodly things. But at the impressionable age I was, I looked up to them. To make a long story short, from the time I was about 12 to 16 years old, I smoked cigarettes and marijuana, drank, and I got arrested a number of times for vandalism. My mentality at that time was very backwards. I didn’t care about education. I didn’t want to go to school, and I really didn’t care about my life or my future. Read More »
