This is why I became a Christian.
I was born into a non-christian home. My father was an alchoholic, my mother just..didn't care. My father divorced when I was three years old, and I grew up back and forth between the two parents until I was 7, where I had my last contact with my father. I have yet to see, or communicate with him since, and I am now almost twenty years old. My sister was heavily involved in drugs, my mother became an alchoholic for some time, and my brother left the house to move away from the rest of our family - to kentucky. I had a terrible experience growing up in school, as we were a very poor family which couldn't afford all the hip clothes and such. When I was 9, my mom started dating another guy, and he was an alchoholic as well. My father was never abusive, atleast that I saw, but this man was. And he beat my mother and my sister infront of me for almost a year. He was never kicked out, or arrested, because my mother and sister were both scared of him. I couldn't do anything either - I just had to watch it.
So I grew up in that sort of environment. School was horrific, and it was the same thing once I came home - except it was fighting, yelling, screaming, and hate. I tried to manage, and still happened to be the 'nice' guy, if I can label myself that. I rarely swore, I held doors for everyone, and I was friendly enough - if someone else would initiate the conversation. I was always picked on, and rarely befriended, though.
My mother didn't pay any attention to me growing up. I rarely heard her tell me that she loved me, and she was suicidal for a time. My sister moved out of the house around 16 or 17, leaving me alone in the house with my mom and her boyfriend, - who she never kicked out.
He stopped drinking after a while, and infact, it was around my freshmen year of high school. The damage was done already, though. He never apologized, and I never forgave him for that.
So I was the quiet, shy kid in high school. Messy hair, dirty clothes..Everything you'd imagine from that unwanted kid in the corner. I had a bad crowd of friends, who eventually led me into frequent swearing, and had attempted to get me involved in drinking and smoking, neither of which I delved into, luckily.
I was frustrated, depressed, and fed up with High school by Junior year, and I finally told my mother that unless I was homeschooled, I would quit school, which sounds utterly foolish of me at the time. So I moved to my sisters that december and finished my junior year off living with her boyfriend and her. She had taught me.
That next year, my senior year, I came back home, and since my sister couldn't homeschool me another semester, my mother had to go through another program. This is where things start to get..coincidental.
There were no other options in her budget except a Christian Academy, which she purchased the homeschooling materials for. I wasn't too thrilled about this, and I was still taking meds for depression. I started on it though, and as I went through a New Testament Survey..I started to read more outside of the school material. Then I came upon this passage, from Luke 8.
4While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told this parable: 5"A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path; it was trampled on, and the birds of the air ate it up. 6Some fell on rock, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. 7Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up with it and choked the plants. 8Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown."
When he said this, he called out, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."
9His disciples asked him what this parable meant. 10He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,
" 'though seeing, they may not see;
though hearing, they may not understand.'
11"This is the meaning of the parable: The seed is the word of God. 12Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. 13Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. 14The seed that fell among thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by life's worries, riches and pleasures, and they do not mature. 15But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop.
So it was through this passage that I came to some sort of revelation.
Despite my life, trying to live.."Good." in a surrounding of something..less than virtuous, It wasn't enough. I was always convinced there was a Higher power. I was always convinced I was going to heaven, because I was a good person. But I never understood just what it means to be 'Good.' in Gods eyes. After reading this..I think I understood a little better.
But back to my story. I read this passage, and just...fell apart. I couldn't hold myself together, because years, and years, and years, of frustration, anger, depression, and failure just came up. I wasn't a good person. I lied. I stole. I got plastered one night at my sisters house, and passed out. I was kidding myself if I thought I was good enough to get into Heaven with everything I did, and everything I thought. I didn't deserve forgiveness. I deserved hell. It was a terrible day, that day that I found out who I really was.
So I kept living.
I went to work one day in early October of 2005, and a girl who I had a crush on invited me to her church. Now that I look back on it, it was very..coincidental, on how everything went in such order - not even a week after reading the passage from Luke.
I went to church with her..And..I struggled. I didn't believe I should be forgiven, but it made sense when salvation was explained to me. I don't know how it made sense..It just did, and it's still something that I don't know how to explain. I accepted Christ when I came home that day from Church.
Since then, I've faced persecution from my family - None of them pay much more attention to me, and I've lost most of my friends from high school. It's odd how many people abandon you when you don't agree with the lifestyle they participate in.
That was two and a half years ago. I turn twenty at the end of the month, and I've just finished my first semester of Bible College.
Hope this helps.
