Before Jesus Changed My Life

My life before my faith in Jesus was really just pretty boring. I had a blessed but normal upbringing. I was really involved in sports growing up and hung out with friends a lot. My family went to church quite a bit, but sports usually went first in our family which I think set a negative trajectory for me into high school. My high school freshman year was different than most with Covid hitting us. For me, I was just getting used to playing with the varsity soccer team and was peaking in my skills. When Covid hit I stayed at home basically for a year with no practices. My skills went down tremendously during this time, and it was evident when we got back. Suddenly I was struggling on the JV team, let alone the Varsity team. My whole life, I always tried to stack up to my brother because he was really good at everything. My brother played varsity as a freshman, so I felt that was always expected of me. So, once I got worse, soccer became my main source of anxiety and depression. I also lost many friends during Covid, and we stopped going to church completely even after Covid because we were just used to it. I became more and more depressed by the day during my sophomore year because it felt as if I had no purpose in life anymore. I had many suicidal thoughts during this time.

How Jesus Changed My Life

When I finally got to my junior year, an outlet came. The varsity football coach Mark Bliss came up to me and wondered if I wanted to go out for football as a kicker. This really wasn’t a hard option because I had nothing to lose. As the preseason was coming along, I started hanging around the wrong crowd though. It was Saturday night, 6 days before the first football game of my junior season. I was at my friend’s house drinking for the first time in my life. That night when I was going to bed, I suddenly was super interested in going to church the next morning, which didn’t make much sense because I hadn’t been to church in over a year. So, I looked up the times for Veritas online and went there in the morning. It happened to be the one morning when Veritas was postponed until the afternoon due to a fundraising event going on in downtown Cedar Rapids. But my experience at church that afternoon was the best I have ever had. I sat by myself in the balcony and cried during probably most of the worship music. I cried out “I am sorry Jesus for going my own way.” I didn’t realize that God was always there. Through all my depression and anxiety, he was waiting for me to reach out to him. So, when I finally realized that, it opened up something inside of me. The rest of that week leading up to the game, I just found myself praying continuously for the game. I prayed mainly for an opportunity. However, I was the 3rd string kicker out of 5, so my chances of even seeing the field were extremely low. Knowing this, I still prayed for an opportunity. Suddenly the game came. We played Pleasant Valley which at the time was one of the best teams in the state. The game was neck and neck. However, our starting kicker got hurt, then our 2nd string went in and then missed. Suddenly, I realized that God answered my prayer. It was my turn. But it is hard to explain just how nervous I was. The coaches asked me to do a kickoff. Keep in mind I am a 3rd string kicker kicking in front of about 5,000 people who are all people that I know… in the first game of the season, and we were only up by 4 points. When I was putting the ball on the tee my legs were shaking uncontrollably which isn’t good for being a person who only uses their legs. I kicked off to their starting running back, a 230-pound fast unit. All of a sudden, the running back got through all 10 of my teammates and he was coming at me fast. Keep in mind at the time, I was about 6’1 140 pounds. Let’s just say the odds were definitely in the running back’s favor for him to score a touchdown. I know this sounds crazy, but to this day, I don’t remember tackling him. I remember seeing him in front of me and then just seeing a face. This face I think, was Jesus. Next thing I know I am on the ground with the guy in my arms. I tackled him with perfect form! I had never tackled anyone in my life before. After that, I realized that Jesus not only answered my prayer, but everything that I had been struggling with in the past couple of years just got fixed. I felt as if I had a purpose all because of Jesus. This is what led me to my pursuit of Jesus and gaining a stronger and firmer connection with him throughout the past few years.

My Life After Jesus Saved Me

Since Jesus saved me, my life still hasn't been perfect, but I have experienced so much growth in my faith. A big step was definitely going to a connection group the summer after my senior year through Cedar Rapids Salt. I was able to meet some great guys that really showed me what truly matters in life, Jesus! I met one of my closest friends, Griffin Coates, there from a funny story of how he was the person who took out my wisdom teeth the week before. He has been a great brother who has discipled me in my walk with Jesus. Going to college far away from friends and especially my girlfriend at the time was super hard. However, looking back at that time, it was needed for my spiritual journey and my relationship with my girlfriend. It opened my eyes to sin that was taking place in my life that had never convicted me before and made me open up to people about it, even my girlfriend. Through that, Desiree (my girlfriend) and I grew tremendously. We both were not perfect throughout our freshmen year, but we always strived to put our relationship first. Then through this time, we realized that Jesus should come first, not each other. This then catapulted our spiritual journey in a great way. So, in February last year, Desiree got Baptized, which was life changing for her and also for me. It made me realize that we need to be more obedient to Christ. Then we realized that we knew we wanted to get married someday, and us being Christians and playing around with sexual temptation wasn’t ok. For a long time, I sought guidance from the Word, my brothers in Christ, and a pastor at Graceland University. This then led me to propose to Desiree on December 1st, 2024. Another huge step in my walk with Christ would be that I have been participating this school year in leading a Christian group at Graceland called Impact. A couple of other leaders and I hold sermons every other Wednesday night to around 20-30 college students. We definitely have had our tough times, though, with the main campus ministry at Graceland being Community of Christ. So, trying to point our peers toward the Word and what it genuinely says has been a huge focus for us. But I am planning on attending Coe College next Fall and playing football there. Mainly because I was told by many people that long-distance marriage is not very smart. So, I want to show that I am a committed follower of Jesus, and I’m not taking this lightly before I move back to my hometown. I think Paul talks about our walk as believers in such a great way in 2 Thessalonians 1:3, where he says, “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.” This verse in my mind speaks to my story. I MUST give thanks to God because it is evident that over the past 3 years, my faith has grown abundantly! Praise God! So, with all this, I just want to say that I proclaim Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior because he brought me from death to life, from suicidal thoughts to thoughts about how I’m going to deliver a sermon to college students, from chained to sin to broken free by the blood of Jesus.