Before Jesus Changed My Life
I grew up in a typical family that only went to church about once a month. Even though I spent a lot of time at church because my grandfather was an audio tech for different congregations, I was never really involved in the services themselves. I’d mostly help him set up and then we’d lock ourselves in a small room, making sure everything went smoothly from behind the scenes.
We lived in the projects, and money was always tight. As I got older, the only version of “success” I ever saw came from people who were walking the wrong path. So naturally, I started to believe that was the only way to make a living. That mindset led me into a dark cycle; drugs, constant fighting, and a deep sense of self-hatred. I thought if I could just get enough money, all my problems would disappear.
At 16, I got my first tattoos. That nearly got me kicked out of the house. But my grandma, knowing how lost I already was, showed me grace. She saw deeper than the surface and tried to help me stay grounded. Still, things kept spiraling. When I was 17, I overdosed and ended up unconscious in the hospital for three days.
Between the ages of 16 and 19, I walked through the darkest valley of my life. I came close to going to prison for attempted murder. I was almost killed three separate times. I fought, I ran, I rebelled but through it all, God never stopped chasing me. Looking back, I can see now that every time I came close to death, every time I hit rock bottom, it wasn’t just luck. It was God giving me another chance.
Even when the enemy had a grip on me, God had a plan. Every “almost” in my story was actually grace in disguise.
How Jesus Changed My Life
Jesus didn’t change my life all at once, it happened slowly, but with so many blessings along the way. One of the biggest turning points came when I decided to join the Army. Looking back, I truly believe that God had planned that step for me. It pulled me out of the environment I was trapped in and set me on a completely different path. That decision led me to meet my wife, and eventually, to where I am today.
My understanding of God began to shift when my daughter was born in 2023. Before then, I struggled to really connect with the Bible or I just didn’t want to. But something started to change around my daughter’s first birthday in 2024. I came across some Christian content online and remember watching a sermon that deeply convicted me. That moment led me to watch The Chosen with my wife, and together we began to explore faith in a way we hadn’t before.
That experience lit a spark inside me. It felt like Jesus was calling me to restore the broken image I carried of myself. A few months later, I started searching for a local church and eventually stumbled across Veritas. I still remember my first day there how different it felt from anything I had experienced before. I was filled with awe. I could feel the presence of God, and I knew something in me had shifted.
That day marked the beginning of a complete 180 in my life, a transformation I didn’t expect, but one I now know was God’s plan all along.
My Life After Jesus Saved Me
Since Jesus saved me, my mindset has completely shifted. I now seek to know Him more deeply, and that transformation began with one question: How can I serve God every single day of my life?
Around the time I was finishing my bachelor's degree, I had already started planning the next steps in my military career. Completing that degree would open the door for me to become an officer and earn a higher income. At the time, money was the driving force behind my decisions. But something inside me began to change. I realized that money could never fill the growing desire within me to live for something greater.
So I made a choice. I chose not to chase the promotion, but to pursue a calling to serve as a military chaplain. That decision required me to pursue a Master of Divinity, something that felt out of reach at the time, but I knew would better serve God’s purpose. I gave up what was within my grasp financially, in order to follow what God was calling me to do eternally.
This shift came from a heart for the next generation. Why would I focus only on growing myself, when I could pour into others? That conviction is what led me to serve in youth ministry. I believe God allowed me to walk through every dark chapter of my life so that I could testify to His greatness and use my story to help others avoid the same path. Now, I can speak truth into young lives with the words I wish someone had spoken into mine.
To sum it all up, life after Jesus saved me is a life of servanthood. I live to serve Him, not just because He rescued me from death, addiction, and selfishness, but because He died and rose again. Every new day He gives me another chance to share the good news.