A little about myself

Since before I could remember, my father would lay down with my brothers and me, and he would read to us. Sometimes he would read to us stories from our children’s bibles and other time he would read to us fictional stories like the Chronicles of Narnia. I remember one time where my father finished reading us the last of the Narnia books, The Last Battle. At the end, C.S. Lewis writes in the mouth of Aslan (a Christ figure), that he is someone they have always known, but by another name. It was at this point that my father finished the story and then explained to us how in Narnia, Aslan was meant to be Christ and that C.S. Lewis used Aslan to show all the wonderful loving characteristics of Christ. This was but one way in which my father tried to help guide my brothers and me to God as we grew up.

While my father had a decent impact upon my idea of and relationship to God as a young child, he had an even greater impact once I began to develop my own personal relationship with God. As a young child, my faith was not mine, but rather the faith of those around me that I loved and trusted. It was something that I did because those that I loved did. I believe because they believed and taught me to believe. It was not until I was in junior high that I was truly taught that my relationship with God had to be my own, and not just a reflection of my influences. I need to make my own choice to want to follow God – no one could do it for me. Once I began to try to pursue God on a personal level, my conversations with my father began to deepen. Soon I was asking him about all sorts of things regarding God – on how to pray, what it meant to listen to God, and many other things. Though much of my teaching arose from my youth group at church, it was always my father who I asked the most personal questions and shared the more private things with. I remember one evening when I was in high school, I was leaving standing outside my house looking at the stars (something my father taught me to do) and I looked over at my father and said, “You know what Dad? Right now I’m perfectly content. I don’t really want more than what I have and I am good with what God has given me. Thanks to him, I am content and it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world.” It was at this point that I realized a sense of peace that God had place over my heart and it said a lot that the first person I wanted to share that peace with was my father.