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Hi everyone,

I just came across a journal post that I wrote in 2004 and thought I would share it with you.  Keep in mind that I got into real estate in the beginning of 2003, which means I wrote this after I was about a year into the game.  As many of you know, my first year in real estate was one of the absolute worst years of my life.  For those of you that don’t know, I lost a grand total of $84,000 on my very first real estate deal…  It was such a disheartening experience for me that I came very close to giving up.

I know this is a very long post, but before I married my wife my pastor asked me to answer one simple question.  “What does God mean to you?”   Below was my response…  I wanted to share this with you because, the more I share, the more I realize that other people can relate.  So if you’ve ever felt how I felt below, now you know you’re not alone.  If you’ve never felt what I felt below or if you don’t believe what I happen to believe, that doesn’t mean that I’m going to judge you in any way, however, I felt compelled to share this with you today.

So I’m supposed to think and write about what my relationship with God means to me.  WOW.  That’s a pretty big question to answer.  In one aspect, I know what the relationship means to me at times, and I know what it SHOULD mean to me ALL the time.  I guess sometimes my side of the relationship isn’t where it needs to be.  I know that God’s side of the relationship is perfect though.

I guess I’ll start by giving a little background on where my road of faith has led me throughout my life.  I grew up going to Catholic church most of my childhood, and to be perfectly honest, although I don’t have anything against the Catholic faith, the church we went to left a horrible taste in my mouth.  We would go to church every Sunday and see the same priest over and over again.  He must have been about 100 years old.  Every Sunday it seemed like he would say the same thing he said the week before, sing the same songs, and teach the same stories time and time again.  I remember how I felt every week after I left and while I was there.  I was flat our exhausted.  I would get there fairly energized and by the time I left, I was absolutely famished and certainly ready to leave.  I guess some people feel a comfort by repetition and the habits that came from every Sunday doing and saying the same exact things all the time.  I on the other hand felt like church was a complete waste of time, and that what I learned in the beginning was what I was to continue to hear week after week after week. 

With that said, I really wasn’t interested in church growing up.  I tried to be a part of religious organizations through high school called “Young Life.”  That was a lot of fun.  W would go to the meetings every week on Wednesday nights and Chip, our leader at the time, would sing songs and preach to us about how God should fit into our lives and what he has done for so many others.  It was great to hear, and I must admit that I was very motivated on more than one occasion, but it never really stuck.  I mostly went because a lot of my friends went.  It was a pretty good time, not to mention a great reason to get out of the house late on a school night.  At the end of the night though, when no one else was around, I really never could figure out what all the hype was about.  I never got that crazy feeling that all of these other kids said they got from “giving their life to God.”  For me, for some strange reason, it just didn’t happen.

Time went by and I got into my 20’s.  As I lived each day, it seemed like God was always hanging around in one way or another, but when I prayed, the prayer usually started with, “God, IF you’re out there…”   It was never a true belief that he was there, but I did pray from time to time because I always felt like something was missing.  Not only that, but I could see the affect that the church was having on my Mom, my sister, and my brother, but I still didn’t get it.  I really didn’t have much of a relationship with God throughout my twenties.  What WAS there, really wasn’t genuine.  Needless to say, I spent a lot of my early and mid twenties very confused about exactly who I was, and what my purpose here on earth was for.

In the year of my 28^th birthday, I became very interested in the word “faith.”  I didn’t know how everyone else did it, but for some reason, all of these other people seemed to have access to a lot of “faith” and I just couldn’t see how they did it.  How is it that one person can just believe in something?  How is it that they don’t doubt something that they’ve never seen with their eyes before?  I couldn’t see how this was possible.  What I DID see, however, was the affect that God was having with my Mom and how it helped her to get over the death of my Dad just a couple of years earlier.  It’s kind of funny, so many people say that they started to believe more when they lost a loved one.  Others say that they had LESS faith.  It seemed like neither really happened for me.  I didn’t have much to faith to lose in the first place.  I remember being a little mad at God for making my Mom go through what she was going through, and I also remember thinking that I hoped that IF there was a God, that my Dad went upstairs instead of down.  But the bottom line is that I saw my Mom go through a transformation in life and develop this overwhelming faith like I’d never seen before.  Not only that, but I saw my sister go through the same thing.  It was when I realized this that I thought about what the hole in my life really was.  I always had this feeling like something was missing in my life.  I had already accomplished what I thought was a lot for such a young guy, but it didn’t matter.  With every new thing I did, and every new adventure that I took on, something just wasn’t’ there…  How is it that my Mom, my sister, and my brother have this thing called faith and I can’t seem to find it.  It was only after talking with my Mom one night that I realized why.  I had never even asked God to give it to me.  I had never really been honest with him by sitting down and truly telling him what I thought, how I felt, and the doubts that I had.  My Mom told me, “if you want to have faith, you just need to ask God for it.  He’ll listen.”  At the time, I kind of thought that it was a bunch of talk…, but I decided that I was going to do it anyway, just to see what happened.  I don’t remember exactly what day it was, or if was day or night, but I sat down and had a little one on one with God.  I told him that I wanted to have faith in him, and that I wanted his help in giving me that faith.  After all, I thought, if you’re as big and powerful as they say you are, then this should be no big deal for you right?

It was that day that my life began to change.

I met with my Mom’s pastor a few weeks after that.  His name is Pastor Dan, and let me tell you, this guy is really cool.  I met up with him after church one day.  There were a LOT of people waiting to talk to him and tell him how great the service was, etc…  To my surprise, he worked his way through the crowd, came right up to me and said, “Your Mom told me your having a hard time with some things and that you needed some help.  Let’s get out of here and talk about it.”  He then took me to a quiet room away from everyone else and asked me what was on my mind.  I told him that I had a problem with a lot of what I’d heard about religion in the past and then proceeded to play a game of 20 questions with him.  He politely answered each of my questions and then quickly changed the subject to tell me how I could find these answers any time I needed them just by picking up the bible and reading a little bit at a time.  He then told me to start with Genesis and work my through John following through the New Testament from there.  I left the conversation that day feeling really good about my new teachings, and decided that I would start reading the bible.  I would read a little bit at a time at first, and pretty soon I found myself late for work in the morning because I couldn’t put it down.  I could see that a new world was starting to open up for me, but at the same time, I had many questions, and couldn’t just give myself up completely yet though.  There were just too many things in there that I wasn’t too sure about.

Right around that time, my good friend Valerie introduced me to a church in St. Louis.  She said that she really like it there and that it was totally different from anything she had ever been to before.  She said that the pastor there was awesome to listen to, and that he talked to everyone there just we talk to each other.  He doesn’t preach at you, he just talks and teaches from the bible in today’s terms.  Not only does Pastor Jeff tell you what the bible says, but he shows you what that means in life today!  You see, that was one of the things that always erked me about going to church as a kid.  It seemed like they always talked about things that happened 2000 years ago, but my thought was always, “WHO CARES!?!?  That doesn’t have anything to do with me right now…”  Before you know it, I attended my first Sunday at my new church with Val and everything she said was true.  It was great.  They had a live band, and they actually played pretty cool music!  This wasn’t just the pipe organs and old ladies singing.  They actually had guitars up there and were rocking out!  I really listened to what the pastor said that day, and the great thing about it was that I was able to relate it to my own life.  I felt like I really “got it” this time, and for the first time in my life I was really interested in going back again.

For a few months after that I went to church as often as I could go.  I was just finishing up a sort of “wild” time in my life where I was dating quite a bit and having a lot of fun.  On New Years Eve of this same year I went on my first date with Jennie Camp.  It was a friendly date, partly because she lived out of town, but mostly because she was my sisters’ friend and, to be perfectly honest with you, I just wasn’t really that interested.  That night, however, we had an absolute blast.  I didn’t know it yet, but that night would mark the beginning of the most wonderful gift I could have ever have been given.

Four days later I attended church yet again.  This time it hit me.  I decided that “Today is the day that I will give my life to God.  This is now for real.  I don’t want to wait any longer.  I am ready to allow him to come into my life and take me to places that I could never dream on my own.  Today, January 4^th, 2004 is the first day of the rest of my life.”  I would be baptized that day in front of the whole church.  I would show my leap of faith to everyone there, and this time, I would mean it with all my heart.  I wanted it very badly.  I wanted that feeling that my Mom and sister and brother had.  I wanted that feeling that no matter what I did, God would still love me.  And on that day, I got it.  What I didn’t know was that I had access to that my whole life, but for years and years I was so stupid that I didn’t even see it.  I asked and God listened.  He was there for me just like my Mom and Pastor Dan said he would be.  What a wonderful joyous feeling.

From that day, my life has completely changed.  My relationship with Jennie turned into something that I never thought would be a possibility.  Within just a few short weeks of my baptism, I developed a love for Jennie that was unimaginable before.  I am now in love with her more that I ever thought I was capable of.  I now know that it wasn’t just because I got lucky.  She was given to me by God because my heart was no longer too hard for me to appreciate her how I needed to.  Not only that, but I think people are unable to have this kind of feeling without Gods blessing.  She was my gift from Jesus Christ, and for that I am eternally grateful.  But that’s not it.  Remember, I said that my life TOTALLY changed, not just one aspect of it.  My family life is better than it’s ever been as well.  My business has really started to take off this year.  I’m finally starting to have some money again when just a few months before, I almost threw in the towel and got a job instead of following my dream of owning a successful business.  My relationships with friends are wonderful.   Basically, I have a whole new outlook on life.  My relationships with everyone I know and don’t know have grown so much.  For that, I am grateful.  For that, I have faith.  For that, I give my life to Him to do with what he wishes.  And I have to tell you… It’s a much better feeling to know that when things don’t go the way I thought they would, it’s only because God has something different in store for me.  What a great feeling.

I can’t lie, there are still times when I wonder about things.  There are still times when I’m not quite as strong as others.  I’m going to continue to do the wrong thing from time to time, even though I know it’s the wrong thing going into it.  But at least now I know that he’s there.  I know that no matter what happens, He’ll still love me.  And I know that no matter what I ever doubt or have trouble with, all I have to do is ask for help and he will. 

With that said, I also know that this marriage to the woman of my dreams needs to have a third person involved if it’s going to work.  This marriage is between myself and Jennie, however, God was the one that gave her to me, therefore He is the one that will lead us though our new lives together.  It’s also my responsibility to lead our family to Christ as the man of the house, and I plan on doing so.  I know that there will be times that will be tough, but I also know that those are the times when myself and my family will need him the most. 

Now that I’ve given the entire history of my life, it’s time to get back to the question…  Where does God fit into my life today and what does he mean to me?  Well, he’s given me more just by asking than I could ever give back to him in a thousand lifetimes.  For that, he means everything to me.  Without him, there is no me.  And for that, I’m eternally grateful.  Now it’s time to create my new family with him as well.