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As I started school, Religion seemed like something that took away from doing fun things.  Often my friends would say in a exasperated voice "I have to go to church".  I never understood why they had to go if the didn't want to. It is hard to understand the message of Christianity, if you never learn the stories about Jesus.

In High School It wasn't Sunday church that my friends had to go to, but some thing called "Confirmation" is sounded worse then school.  A co-worker once told me when I was depressed "God Loves you" those words meant nothing to me.  Religion was all in one big pot.  There was nothing different for me between different religions except on how they dressed or worshipped.  I often thought people were nuts when they looked up and said "Praise the lord". After learning some current history, and watching the news, I discovered that many wars we started because of Different religious beliefs.  And I thought the world could be a better place without religion.  I even had a person come up to me and wanted to talk to me about God and I told them I hated religion, they immediately said "your going to go to hell" I kindly smiled and said "What is that?".  for me, Death was the end, maybe you would be resurrected, but what kind of life is that if you never remember your past.

Yes, my life was horrible.  I lost all my high school friends.  My first love threw me away. By the time I was 19 I had nothing, and even attempted to end my life.  I spent my life in misery. Occasionally I would find some joy in life, maybe a good joke, or something to distract me from the real world.  But I was still alone.  And had a very low self image of myself.  How can someone be happy with nothing?  I had no friends that wanted to do anything with me.  I never even was able to get a decent job.

1 Peter 3:11 He must turn from evil and do good; he must seek peace and pursue it.

Little did I know, God was there with me.  Taking care of me.  Even though I, Like Saul, Persecuted, and brought joy to my life in making fun of religious people.  It brings me great peace, and great respect for the LORD knowing that even when I was in the pits of unbelief, he was there with me, preparing things for me.  And guiding my life

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My former Pastor Daniel Sims said, "Witnessing is like drops on a sponge" the analogy you might not get the sponge totally wet, but it adds up over time.  God uses the holy spirit to peck away at the wall of unbelief until it crashes down.

After High School, Religion was farthest from my mind, I enjoyed watching Comedy making fun of Religion.  One of my Favorites was Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) live performance skit "Welcome to Hell"  Some of the lines I can still remember. And I shudder now thinking how I enjoyed it.  Often I would bump into what I called a "Religious Nutter" and they would want to talk to me about God.  Well I didn't want to talk about God, Most of the time I was polite, but more often then not I would later make jokes about I would really say to them "Jehovah Witnesses? Sorry, but I don't think I will join, because only so many can be saved, and I would be kind of low on the priority list", "Oh your a Catholic? Don't you know Mary never stayed a Virgin?"

The worst case was one of my last Jobs before I moved back home.  One of the Employees was not to bright, but he was a Holy rolling bible thumper.  He almost felt it was his job to convert me.  "God Loves you!", "I am saved"  He would just make my angry, and a few times I even started yelling at him.  Well, I was under a lot of stress since my Boss ended up not likening me, and found ways to fire me.  It was at a retail store working night shift.  I lost my Job, went into a Deep depression, and wound up back home just so I could get out of dept.  I was 24,

I had probly about $2000 worth of Debts, no car, and I spent most of my time on the computer.  And then I found out about the internet.  I started playing on Online game, a flight simulator for Star Wars.  Started an online Squadron. And started meeting people from all over the world.

Here I was flat on my back, for once I started looking up into the heavens and really asking questions

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During my forum browsing a name popped up "Rosencratz" she seemed to be a very happy and funny person.  I did something I normally don't do and E-mailed her a "getting to know you better" e-mail.  I quickly got a response back ,and we started exchanging E-mails on a regular basis.  I was able to find out her father was a Baptist Minister.  And of course some of our conversations started to lean towards religion.

We were able to discuss religion very well.  She was able to accept me saying "I don't belive that"  What also happen is that I started opening up with my feelings.  I hadn't done that for so long and I really started caring for "Becca"  It was the fact, here was someone willing to listen to me, and think with an open mind.  To hear my problems and offer her heartfelt sympathy.

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One of the things about myself, is that I never really had any friends that cared about me.  The kind of friend that after something bad happened would come back with kindness.  Becca was different, we had our disagreements.  But we never held it against each other.  I became quite fond of her.

Then one spring she was planning a trip, she mentioned she was going to come down and visit me the summer of 2000.  I was very excited about this.  I thought this meant she really liked me to.  I started making plans for what we were going to do.  She was bringing a friend with her, which was fine because it is always nice having a traveling companion.  I just hoped that Becca and I would have some time by ourselves.  One thing about being excited is telling everyone the good news.  I never had much good news to share and this one I wanted to tell everyone.  Yea, I was ready to be disappointed in one way, but I would be able to find joy in another way.