Thanks for the welcome....a little bit about myself.
I was born in 69 to violent parents who were Jehovah's Witnesses. The majority of abuse came in the name of the discipline of Jehovah, so I had a negative view of God from the get go.
At age 14 I developed an ulcer in my stomach that landed on the main artery and started bleeding to death. I refused a blood transfusion, the state took me away from my parents and forced one on me. Many in our congregation didn't like that so I was shunned.
I left home at 17 and totally went into the world, sex drugs and rock @ roll. Got married eventually, had a baby girl in 98, got divorced, (still had a major anger problem and drug problem). When my daughter was 5 she started going to a private Lutheran school and halfway through the year we both submitted our lives to Christ and were baptized.
I developed a great zeal for learning all there is about God, Jehovah, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. Part of that search for knowledge I visited dozens of different religions, churches. Observed how they worshipped, studied why they believed what they did. I even went so far as to try to experience how an atheist thinks, got rid of all my bibles and material. I can understand science, but never how you cannot believe in God a creator. So I backslid.....
My daughter got tired of me dragging her to different churches. I could no longer go to the church we were baptized in, somethings happened and people exhibited behaviors that ran chills up my spine and left me spiritually unfulfilled and confused. So I finally made a resolution that for the month of January I would visit 4 churches and stick with one of them, regardless. The first church we went to Faith Evangelical Free church, was light and bright, the music was good and not too loud, (my daughter has a hearing defect which makes her hurt when she's around something loud). So that was a plus. Also my daughter had a loose tooth for several weeks, she was very anxious of when it would come out, you guessed it, it came out at that service.
So we decided it was cool to go the next week, and they did communion; as they were handing out the bread and juice she leaned over to me and said she wasn't supposed to do that. She, going to a Lutheran school had been taught that she had to be ordained as a Lutheran in order to partake of the bread and wine/juice. This in one way made me a bit angry, but also gave me the opportunity to teach her something about grace, and taught me as well! She took this positively, for she said, she's always wanted to do communion but wasn't allowed.
I know God has shown me a home where I can be with others.
So I ask for your prayers for I daily suffer with the thirst for over indulgence of alcohol and marijuana.
And thank you for taking the time to read this introduction.
Matt Schell
