Let me start by saying I was raised in a Christian home, and have gone to church my entire life. Ever since I can remember I've known the gospel and the forgiveness that Jesus offered. Up until the end of last year I didn't care about being spiritual. I wasn't the one that decided to all of a sudden be spiritual and start searching for God, HE started the whole process. Early summer of 2011 HE pulled me out of an addiction. I didn't recognize it at the time, but this was GOD working in me, to protect me from any further harm than I had already done (to myself, to my family, etc.). The thought of GOD changing me at the time never crossed my mind, so HE had to change more things in my life. He only needed to change one more thing in my life for me to think about GOD, to really investigate who GOD was, and come to grips with my life.
This change that GOD made was bringing an old crush back into my life. I got her number and thought I was doing really well, I texted her and she texted back; life was good. But GOD had other plans for me, and HIS plan was for her to stop replying to most (and eventually all) of my texts. I was absolutely crushed when she didn't reply to texts and was on cloud 9 when she did reply. My whole mood for the day/couple of days was based on if she had replied or not. I’m not the brightest light on the planet, and it took me a while to put two and two together. It came to me one day and it hit me…”Andrew, your living for a girl right now”! My next thought was, “Andrew, she isn't going to get you anywhere in eternity”, and the thoughts of hell began to circle in my head. Needless to say, the thought of hell scared me to death. So what did I do? I texted her and asked her why she gave her life to Christ. She replied that she searched and searched and the only thing that filled the void was GOD. I needed to know more because I was feeling this same void, like my life was worthless. I thought “Everybody can go to school, get a job, get married, have kids, and retire….so what?” There HAS to be something more than just living. Little did I realize it at the time, but God was gently pulling the strings of my heart.
At this point I should mention that I am a complete introvert; I would rather have a conversation via email or text than in person. So my next move was to hop on the internet and see if I could get some of my questions answered. That night was when my original username was registered (August 12th IIRC). I still needed to be granted access and it was 2am already so I kept searching. After a while I found a site where I could ask questions about GOD. I sent them an email at 3:30 in the morning and wasn't really expecting to hear anything back. When I woke up the next morning there was an email in my inbox, filled with the information I was looking for. This was the start of a long process of asking a TON of questions about GOD trying to figure out HIS nature. For around three months straight I sent an email every night, and received a reply every morning. The emails kept getting longer and longer as the questions became more involved and through discussing the answers new questions arose. I started staying up late some nights chatting with the person I was emailing. The chatting was very beneficial to me; I could ask a lot of questions and get them answered right away and keep asking questions. I should also mention that at this time I was going to school full time at an engineering school, and in the midst of one of the hardest semesters I was there. There were weeks, where if I got 5 hours of sleep I was doing good. I was so sleep deprived at one point in the semester I got sick, and nearly slept through an entire day.
Anyways, I was realizing that chatting could only get me so far, and even with my introverted nature I needed to talk to somebody in person. I wasn't close to my mom, but I texted her one night and she came to my bedroom to talk. We talked that night till around 3am, and subsequent nights till the wee hours of the morning. It was during these talks to the wee hours of the night that the facts just couldn't be ignored, GOD had changed me and I believed in HIS son’s death on the cross and His resurrection.
It took a while for me to "accept" the fact that I was a believer. I don't know if "accept" is the right way to put it.....maybe more like completely convince myself that anybody could ever love me. To me it seemed there would be a big change all of a sudden, which never happened in my life, so therefore I couldn't be saved. But further convincing from my mom and others close to me I realized that not everyone has a conversion that could rival the spectacular nature of Paul’s conversion.
Looking back on how my life has changed since that August night when I sent that email, it is amazing to see how I've changed.
I lived my whole life up to that point in a shell, a very tight shell. The shell was made slightly larger when I got saved, but I still struggle greatly with being seen for who I am, letting people see my problems, etc. I am learning to let people into my life and letting them help me progress along in this life. I have met some wonderful wonderful people here who have helped me. Being that I lived in such a tight box, no one ever could care for me, could never really love me, because they didn't know who I was. where I never let anything get to me, it was and still is a battle to accept the fact that Jesus loves me, and that other people love me as well. Again, I've met some wonderful, gracious people who have helped me greatly in this area.
