TESTIMONY and STATEMENT of FAITH

I was eleven years old when I heard a sermon preached and made the decision on my own to come forward as a confession of my Faith in Jesus (my parents had no idea that I was going to do that, so please note that I did it by my own volition). We sporadically attended church as a family and were not “regulars” in attendance by any means. Although both my parents were Christians and my mom regularly was a part of Bible Studies growing up in Atlanta. That Sunday at age 11, I trusted Jesus as my Savior and came forward to let the church leaders know of my decision after the service. It was a rather large church (Probably 1500-2000 in attendance in that service) and I got up and walked down from the 2nd level by myself at age 11.

I spoke to someone about my decision and that I had prayed with the Pastor which he had led at the end of his message that Sunday and how I had asked Jesus to come into my heart and life and to be my Lord and Savior. The Pastor preaching was Nelson Price and the church was Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta, GA. It was a pretty long drive from East Cobb where we lived, but my dad had been moved by a message from Nelson that he had heard and how Nelson had responded to his house burning down. I think my dad was moved by Nelson’s faith amidst tragedy and wanted to attend the church (not something we had done in East Cobb). The year was 1981 and I believe it was the month of May. I was baptized by immersion by Nelson in a worship service at the church service the following week after my decision.

I would later turn 12 that summer in July of 1981. I would also much later in life realize something as an adult that I now continue to appreciate every day: that Jesus would be faithful to me and honor my decision by Faith that day. And that, although I would prove to be a roller-coaster of a guy with some years more faithful than others at following Jesus in Life, He would always prove to be the Faithful part of our relationship!

I had a fun life as a kid. I had always been adventurous and curious. My first memory is seeing my little brother in his crib after he was born when I was about 3 and a half years old. I was thrilled to have a little brother. Our father encouraged us to be pretty bold early in life. As mom tells the story, at age 3 my dad thought I should be able to walk around the entire apartment complex where we lived by myself. Apparently it made my mom a nervous wreck as she would say. You should know we lived in South Atlanta in an area called College Park and we were off a busy main road. Most people today would not allow a 3 year old to do this. I should interject a short story here.

A little less than a year after my brother was born, I would have been about 4 and a half years old. I got it in my head that I should take my big wheel (by myself) to make an attempt at a big jump in the apartment complex about a 100-150 yards around the corner and out of sight from the front door of our apartment. From what we know I had never seen anyone try and jump this spot and must have gotten the idea on my own. It was a large hill and where it met the parking lot there was a ridge culminating in the curb that could get you air borne if going fast enough. I guess this would be my first attempt at physics. If you know big wheels, the peddles are attached to the large front wheel and at high speeds going down a large hill it is hard to keep you feet on those peddles. You don’t have to be a visionary to see where this is going. I went for it and made the attempt but my left foot kicked up into the forks of the big front wheel and it almost ripped my big toe off. There was a lot of blood.

I had to crawl the 100 yards or so on the ground across the parking lot to make it back to our front door and let’s just say there was a long trail of blood across that parking lot. Long story short my mom rushed outside, wrapped my foot in a sheet and took me to the emergency room. They sewed my toe together and they were able to save it, but you can still see the scars today. Candidly, it has left me an incredibly ugly big toe. But that said, I remember the operating room to this day and they strapped me to a restraint called a papoose board so I wouldn’t move. The crazy thing is I still remember after it was over I was walking in the hallway of the hospital that day and they had a pirate’s chest on the floor  that was full of toys and they let kids pick one after their surgery. I remember this vividly. I had a big smile on my face holding the toy and thought to myself: “totally worth it.”

I liked to learn as well and our family always encouraged adventurous thinking as well. I was a weird kid too, and I would end up making my own mazes for several years on graph paper and seeing how complex I could make them. My parents also bought me a science kit that I can still see vividly in my mind with dozens of those blue bottles with white caps for mixing various chemicals and a microscope to study the reactions. We also grew up with these toys called “erector sets” where you could build all sorts of engineering type toys and functions that encouraged making your own designs from buildings to moving cars with wheels and electric motors. I also grew up during the dawn of computers and electric games and still have my very first memory playing “pong.” The wild part is that we were at the lakehouse of my parents friends (a lawyer in my dad’s law firm where they were both senior partners and my dad was the tax attorney over mergers and acquisitions). I remember it was during the summer and I can still see the scene in my mind. We are inside their lakehouse next to these large glass doors and as we were sitting there so excited to play the new game “pong,” just outside the glass in their backyard was an actual tennis court. Life was entering a digital age and I had mixed feeling about it, and proved to be a kind of surreal moment.

Back on track about my faith, so let’s skip ahead several years.

Years later after that decision at age 11, I was a teenager growing up in East Cobb County and attending Walton High School, and I like many in the mid 80’s lived a life that did not reflect the Christian Life as God intended. I turned 16 in the summer of 1985 after my Sophomore year. For those who know the film, I felt like I lived the life of a “Ferris Bueller” type existence. Just a note to clarify about my life during that time: I had been invited to Prom by a stunningly beautiful blonde-haired blue-eyeded junior who was also a track star and a cheerleader. If you were a Sophomore you had to be invited by a Junior or Senior to get to go to Prom.

I was one of those kids who had a lot of girlfriends in Middle School and High School but let’s just say that I credit her with taking my HS life to a rather epic level in 1985 and 1986. Thanks to my parents, later that Fall I would also get to drive a 1974 Convertible Mercedes 450SL that was British Racing Green with a Biscuit White leather Interior and had one of those cool wood and chrome Nardi Steering Wheel’s that I can still feel in my hands today. It was a true classic to get to experience in the 80’s as a High School Student. Although I had many fun friendships during my time there at Walton, I was living in a way that was not honoring to God. That said, I was always a loving person and hopefully a good friend to many. I enjoyed being a popular student and dated rather prolifically some of the most amazing girls in my high school. I would end up towards the end of my junior year dating a girl that I would later ask to marry me.

One day I’ll tell the story here about how I ended up leaving Walton. But for now, after my Junior year, that summer I was enrolled at a Boarding School in Asheville, North Carolina called Christ School for both my Junior (I had to repeat) and my Senior year. I’ll never forget my first night there. It was a wake up call spiritually. I had left a nearly 6,000 square foot house on 7 acres in the Suburbs of North Atlanta, where I had a large bedroom on the third level of the house and my own private bathroom and walk-in closet. We had motorcycles all growing up as kids (since age 8) and my younger brother and I spent most of our time outside building Motocross tracks and jumps. Our 7 acres also backed up to core property owned by state along Sope Creek and could ride motorcycles through the water and jump the banks of the creek, something probably not allowed today. It was a beautiful time in life. Our family also had a lakehouse and boat and grew up skiing (I could get up on one ski) and we were first generation knee boarders and wakeboarders (started with the Skirfer an iconic 1st generation wakeboard). At this large house and with a lakehouse, my baby sister would be born when I was 13, and I would end up only having 4 years with her before being sent away to this Boarding School in N.C.

Now don’t get me wrong, Christ School had a gorgeous school campus of over 600 acres, but you could not have a car there and there were no girls there at the school (local girls from Asheville NC had to visit us in the afternoon and at certain times on the weekends). But, I vividly remember that first night laying on the top bunk of a metal bunk bed looking at the ceiling with my luggage on the tiled linoleum floor and it had those painted concrete blocks with grooves across the walls. It was a big change in lifestyle for me at that age. It was pivotal moment in my life. I was laying there and I thought: “God what I have done to get to this place in life?” I resolved at that moment something that would stick with me the rest of my life. I resolved to “learn one thing from each student in the school” (they were from all over the U.S.) and incorporate it into my personality “to make me a better man.” I can’t say that I became a better man, but I learned a powerful lesson in life that has stuck with me ever since. God made every person with unique abilities, gifts and insights into life. I learned that by looking for that one thing about them that I could learn from, I learned to listen and try and discover the best about people. It was a form of loving people and respecting them, regardless of their position or power or personality.

After graduating Christ School HS in 1988, I enrolled at The University of Georgia. Interesting note here is that I had been born in Athens, Georgia in the summer of 1969 while my Father attended Law School at UGA and my mother worked to provide money for us as a telephone operator during all those early years of education for my father. I love the University of Georgia and my father would end up being a 35 year season ticket holder for UGA football games and although we lived outside Atlanta by the time I was three or four we always spent Saturday’s every Fall back in Athens. UGA football would be an important part of our family life. Sometime during this time while I was attending UGA as a college student, and after making a return trip to Christ School for an alumni weekend while on the drive back to Athens (near Mountainside Park), I would end up rededicating my life to Jesus and I got serious about growing in my faith as an adult.

I attended the University of Georgia for about 3 years before I returned to my hometown in Atlanta (East Cobb) to pursue getting married to my high school sweetheart who I had dated at Walton. I enrolled at Georgia State University where I would graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology (I was highly interested in the neural workings of the mind and lab based psychology) and a Minor in Philosophy (studying many of the leading thinkers historically and in modern humanism).

During this time at Georgia State I would constantly stand up to accusations made by Professors against Jesus and Christianity in various classes in Psychology, Philosophy, and Biology etc… that would “take shots” as those who believe in Jesus and lived by Faith. I was not being told to do this by anyone, as I didn’t have any Christian friends and did not attend Church regularly during my college years. I was standing up for the truth. I believed simply put that all religions and philosophies, even including humanistic ideals and  “self-help” books of the time had a common problem. When you failed they did nothing but point the finger at you. Whether it was Buddha or Mohammed or some unnamed philosopher, the onus was always back on you. How well did you live by the laws or ideals of what they promoted? And, if you made any mistakes you were left to the consequences and they blamed you.

BUT, the love of God through Jesus was strikingly different. There was still justice in that there was honesty about the failure or sin or breaking of the law or however in the philosophies of men that they framed “not following” these laws or moral ideals or psychological advice, etc… but the difference was that Jesus took the penalty of that failure or moral debt on Himself at the cross and interceded for you. Like an ultimate friend or pure love, He put Himself there between you and your accusers. I began to understand His atonement and sacrifice on a much deeper level that made Jesus stand out in contrast to everyone else in History. My faith was becoming rock solid and I was letting the professors know what I thought whenever it was discussed in class. Note: some of the idea I began to consider now being expressed in UFT1. I wrote on some book in the library and signed my name to it: “Trumpet at The Crossroads of Time” after reading passage in Revelation Chapter 10.

Art was during this time that I would get my calling. As I was standing up for Jesus in various classes, I felt like God said to me: “I want you to do this full time for me.” During my last year before graduating I started I started distancing myself from a path towards a doctorate in psychology and started looking at seminaries. The year after graduation I enrolled and the rest is history. (I’ll update this next part of life later)