Let me back up now and give you some background on who I am so you can understand how I got to where I am now and why Jesus is so important to me-
I was born on October 10, 1993 in the beautiful city of Houston, Texas to two loving parents. I grew up a lonely only child. I had no siblings and very few friends until high school. I always made good grades and had average athletic ability. If you haven't caught on by now, I was a huge nerd. Luckily I did break out and start to play football in 5th Grade and was actually quite good after lots of work and practice. I have realized in my life that I am not naturally really good at anything, but if I force myself to practice and keep working on a skill, I will improve and I can actually attain a level of admirable proficiency. Growing up, God was never important to me. My immediate family is culturally Christian where we celebrate the holidays and pray before dinner, yet we never went to Church and I did not know who God was or even really care.
Finally in high school, I started to gain really strong friends who cared a lot about me. I do not really know how this happened, but most of them happened to be really strong Christians. God definitely had me in his sights for a long time before he decided to call me to Him. I went through the first three years of high school not caring about God at all, and I was still battling some of my loneliness, depression, and anger issues that I had my whole life and I had little hope of a positive future. I could only look for the day I left home and went to college for a chance to break out and start a new life for myself. God realized my huge desire to start a new life and took the necessary steps to shape my new life to be one that followed him. Around mid-October of my Senior year at St. John's School, one of my best friends, Alex, told me about this new thing called Young Life that was starting up at our school. She kept begging for me to come with her to come sing songs, dance, play games, party, and hear a little about Jesus. Even though I had never cared about God, I did not have anything against Him. I decided to go, not because of Jesus, but because I wanted to do something fun with my friends.
My first Young Life "club" (what they call their meetings on Monday nights) was outstanding! I had so much fun playing the ice breaker game with my friends, singing the songs and watching the skit. When the time for the message came, I was already in such a great mood that I decided to listen to what the guy had to say. The head leader for St. John's, Mike, talked that night, and he had no idea about the prodigious implications that his subject matter for that night would have for my life. He talked about Jesus in a way I have never heard Him talked about before. Mike started his talk about by saying that Jesus was a "badass". Immediately I was stunned; since when do Christian leaders say things like badass? It seemed kinda blasphemous, yet I was intrigued. He referenced John 18:3-6 which says,
"3 So Judas, having procured a band of soldiers and some officers from the chief priests and the Pharisees, went there with lanterns ad torches and weapons. 4 Then Jesus, knowing all that would happen to him, came forward and said to them, "Whom do you seek?" 5 They answered him, "Jesus of Nazareth." Jesus said to them, "I am he." Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with them. 6 When Jesus said to them, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground."
From that, Mike explained how Jesus' power and absolute confidence (since he is God) shocked these strong soldiers who were adorned with "torches and weapons" so much that they fell to the ground. My whole life leading up to this moment I had perceived Jesus as this wimpy hippie of a dude 2000 years ago who was a really nice guy who also happened to be God's son. After Mike's talk that night, I had a completely different view of Jesus. He was a man of great power who left his peaceful and perfect existence as God in Heaven to become a human on Earth, living a tough life full of pain, suffering, and temptation. From the great fun I had at club that night and the message Mike gave, I decided to continue gong to Young Life and give it a shot.
After I had been going to Young Life for a while, I found myself hanging with two of my best friends, Nick and Nathan, who were super strong Christians. I do not remember how we started, but we found ourselves talking about Young Life, which led to Jesus and God in general. I had never heard anyone talk about their religion so intensely. Those guys truly believed what they were talking about and they absolutely loved Jesus. Their extreme vested interest in the subject stole my attention and interest and we found ourselves talking until about 5AM. By the end of it, they had convinced me to talk to our Young Life Leader, Mike, and learn about God and decide what I believed. At this point I did not believe in Jesus really yet, but I had come to the conclusion that I did want to find the truth, whatever it was.
I messaged Mike on Facebook and he immediately showed great interest in me. We met at Freebirds World Burrito. After getting to know me better, he gave me three books that we were going to go through together. One was, The Case for Christ, by Lee Strobel, which is a book that proves the Gospels through archaeology and history, which was very important for my math and science brain. The second was The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren, which was a 40 day journey book where you are supposed to read a chapter a day and hopefully find the truth and learn about Christianity and Jesus. Lastly, Mike gave me my first Bible. Mike and I read through the books together and met weekly to talk about what we read, any questions about Jesus or Christianity I had, and also just to hang out. All of those meetings with Mike, all of my reading, all of my talks with people like Nick and Nathan, all of my Young Life clubs and bible studies, culminated in a decision that changed my eternity: On November 24, 2011 I gave my life to Jesus Christ and accepted Him as my Lord and savior who came to Earth and died on the cross to release me from the punishment for my sins.
After that moment, I started learning how to lead a Christian life. I became active as a leader in Young Life, I attended Christ the King Presbyterian Church, and I started trying to think about God continuously, day in and day out. My life immediately started to change. Through God, I started making more and more friends who turned out to be the closest friends I have ever had, and even through living over a thousand miles from each other this first semester of college, we keep in touch regularly and I could not love them more. I became a much happier person too. I even started to grow closer with my extended family and cannot wait to spend more time with them over Christmas break. My priorities and desires slowly started to change. My once trashy mouth has now turned pretty clean (not perfect, but I am working on it). I have started trying to put others above myself and learn to serve instead of just trying to find what I can get from others. And on January 11, 2012, I was Baptized by Mike at a Young Life bible study before school in a Young Life kid's hot-tub. The experience was truly fantastic and I will never forget it for the rest of my life.
Just days after my high school graduation, I left to serve kids through Young life at a camp up near Whistler, Canada called Malibu Club. While there I had the chance to work day in and day out cleaning dishes in an effort to display the love of Jesus to kids for 4 weeks. In that experience I learned loads about what being a follower of Jesus means and I also learned how to trust in Him for confidence when I was asked the first week to share my testimony in front of around 300 people that I either did not know or had just barely met. With Jesus, anything is possible.
When August came, it was time for me to figure out how to follow Jesus as a college kid at the University of Miami. I found an awesome on campus ministry called Cru. Through Cru I have met all of my best friends. For the first time in my life, I have more friends than I have time to hang with every week! They all love me to death and I couldn't imagine life without them now. I have awesome freshman friends, but some of my closest friends are sophomores, juniors, and even seniors! All of these kids absolutely love Jesus and have been great role models for me. Here in Miami, I go to college at Crossbridge Presbyterian Church and I attend bible study through Cru and also am engaged in a leadership role in Cru as a part of the Freshman Leadership Team.
Anyway, you may be wondering, "why are you writing this blog and what is the purpose of it?" Well I have hated writing my entire life, until Jesus, Benjamin Alsup, and Tyler Cooney entered my life. This year in my English 105 class, by professor Benjamin Alsup made us write on Tumblr daily. For a long time the task was absolutely horrid. I never had anything to say and it seemed like a waste of time. One night, I decided I was going to write about my faith a bit. Before I knew it I had written pages of awesomeness that I had no idea I could, and I had kinda enjoyed it. Every once in a while I would write about my faith or Jesus on my Tumblr for class and I always enjoyed it. Also, one of my bible study leaders and best friends here at UM, Tyler Cooney, has recently started a blog, Walking Campus With Jesus, and I really enjoyed reading what he had to say. Tyler's blogging and Ben's constant nagging for me to write, eventually gave me the idea to start my own blog. I have found that when I write about God, I grow closer to Him. it has become our time when we hang out and get to know each other, its how we bond. So through this blog, I hope to strengthen my relationship with Jesus and share with friends and family and anyone else who decides to read this.
I love all of you and thank you so much for reading! (My future posts will be much shorter, don't worry)
Ty
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