I remember every Sunday morning when I was a kid, we could never go to the stores. I never really understood why. I also remember watching Sunday morning services on the TV and wondering why anyone would want to watch someone talk. Funny enough, it was my Dad who always used to watch them. After a while something changed his views, although I'm not sure what. Since he had a negative attitude towards religion I tried to avoid it. I didn't know much about it to begin with, but deep inside of me I knew there was a God... I was just afraid to admit it.
For the longest time I was innerly confused. I didn't really know who I was, who I should have been, what to believe or what crowd to follow, I felt rejected by everyone, including myself. It became very important for me to feel accepted. It wasn't until half way through grade 8 that I met someone who made me feel like I wasn't worthless. Kayles became my best friend and she is to this day. She helped me find myself, while I did the same for her, she was there through thick and through thin, but there was one thing in particular that she did for me that I will never forget. She introduced me to God.
It wasn't really that simple though, it took her a lot to get me to Sunday school. Her excuse: She was the only girl in her Sunday school class. So I took pity on her and reluctantly agreed to go. At that point I was stil worried about what everyone would think if I went to church. I wanted people to like me for who I was, but at the same time I felt obligated to change myself to make it easier for them to do so.
I had been to a few churches before and they were very formal and the atmosphere was uninviting. That's what I expected when I went to the Salvation Army, just another boring church (besides wern't they a thrif shop?).
I was proved wrong, what can I say? I became more comfortable with the whole church idea and after a while what people thought of me didn't seem to matter to me anymore. I wanted to be there and if someone else didn't think it was "cool", too bad!
God spoke to me through the sermons, and after a while I decided I couldn't tackle the road of life on my own. So I gave my life to him. About a year later I became a soldier and I had to write this testimony, little did I know how much it was going to touch people. Infact, I don't even understand how it did, but anyways, on with my little story.
God put me through a fair set of trials, in November, I gave up listening to non-christian music for a month. That was something else, VERY difficult. For a while I also thought God wanted me to become a Youth Pastor, however, I think I was misled into believing that was the only way I could serve God. I'm still searching to try and find out what exactly that is, but whatever that may be, even if it really is being a youth pastor, I know he'll give me the strength to do what I must do.
and on a last note I would just like to add
Jesus, you're way kewl!