I was saved at an early age. We started going to church, and I heard about being a Christian and if I confess my sins and ask Jesus into my heart, I would go to heaven. I believe in him and I remember really being on fire for him. I’d would tell my friends and family about Jesus, and wanted everyone to hear the good news. 

Over the next few years, I really started to stray from God. Probably because I had such an adolescent faith and not much foundation. I quit going to church, stopped reading my bible, and became consumed with friends and peers instead of the Lord.

I grew up in a really rough neighborhood, my friends were in gangs and doing drugs and stealing cars. They would always try to influence me but before I took it too far, I would always stop(or more realistically, God would stop me).  Looking back now, it’s so clear how God had his hand over me and the fear of the Lord was deep within me…..Even when I didn’t know it. How much Grace he poured out on me when I didn’t deserve it. How many times did I choose my flesh and sin, but he patiently waited and never stopped pursuing me.

When I got to high school, God was the last thing on my mind. I remember my cousin invited me to church. God works though people, because when I was younger and on fire for Christ, my cousin wanted nothing to do with God. I prayed for him everyday and I didn’t understand why God wouldn’t save him.…..Now I was the one who strayed…..And my cousin was inviting me back. If it wasn’t for that invite….Honestly I’d probably be in jail and it wasn’t until then that I stared understood God’s perfect timing. 

When I got to my 20’s…..Again I started to drift from God. I spent a lot of the teenage years going up and down. I joined the military, and really became a womanizer. I started to become addicted to adult content, and stayed on that path for a very long time. I battled with this sin, but found ways to justify it like we all do with our idols. But even in our deepest darkest moments….God is so patient. 

A few years after I got out of the Navy, I met the love of my life in a nightclub, on the Dancefloor of all places. I thought she would solve my problems but she would essentially be my new idol. I believed I wouldn't have the problems of always chasing girls or indulging in adult content if I was just married… For a while it did work...but then I started looking at adult content and our marriage was in shambles. Christ was NOT the center of our marriage. We both were selfish, not selfless. I would always justify my sin by saying to myself “at least I’m not cheating” or “everyone else is doing it”. We knew something wasn't right and we should probably go to church. 

I feel like this is when God truly started to reveal himself to us. We consistently started going to church, and I was constantly in the word. We surrounded ourself with Christian friends that pointed us to Jesus. And my knowledge of the Gospel really started to grow. I love and will always be a huge fan of community groups because of how I’ve personally seen God work through them! 

Even though I was  growing in knowledge….I still continued to indulge in my flesh and keep it a secret from Allison. I definitely felt shame and guilt when I did, but didn’t stop. It’s like Romans 7:15 “ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do…..I do not do…..But what I hate I do”. 

I know Allison is Ok with me sharing this…She came to me one day and said she needed to confess some sin to me. And she told me she had committed adultery. I was devastated. Basically my idol had disappointed me (as all idols do). But God was definitely drawing us both closer to him, because he showed me the pain and suffering I was causing by cheating as well. I was looking at these images of women and I was cheating with my mind and my heart every day. But God gave us the strength to forgive each other. I remember the day it happened…..after crying and feeling hurt……I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and a feeling that I needed to forgive her. And after we confessed those sins to each other, I believe it really changed us both. It truly helped us to understand forgiveness and the gravity of our sin and I didn't know at the time, but God was preparing us for great blessings because shortly after she became pregnant with our first son. 

I always say children are a lot of work, but it's so worth it. It's so amazing how much you can love them. Then I had a second son I was overwhelmed with joy. We continued to walk with the Lord and blessings were being poured out on us. but we still felt like there was something lacking, we hadn’t really truly surrendered to God in all parts of our life. 

Then we found out that we were going to have a third child. I remember at 20 weeks we were very excited to find out the gender. It ended up taking a really long time, they kept looking at him with the ultrasound and then re-looking at him and then leaving the room and getting the doctor. I knew something wasn't right the nurse got really quiet where she was kind of joking at first. They came back and told us that it was a boy there was something wrong with his heart and that they were gonna have to do some more tests. 

God was also testing our faith. Nico was born with 5 heart defects, and a condition called heterotaxy where organs are flip-flopped and/or mirrored. His stomach is on the wrong side. He was born without a spleen, and a lot of other intestine issues, but the main concern was his heart/cardiovascular system. 

He was born by an emergency C-section and immediately put on oxygen and rushed to children's Hospital. I left my wife minutes after recovering from surgery to stay with my newborn. They told us his lungs may not work, so he may not be able to breathe or make it through the night. He did breathe which was the first of many miracles, but he needed heart surgery. He received his first open heart surgery when he was days old. The surgeon gave him a 50-50 chance, and at the time his heart was smaller than a quarter. They had difficulties with the first surgery. He wasn’t getting enough oxygenated blood…..So he underwent a second surgery 14 days later. They again gave him a 50-50 chance of even coming out alive. I remember I kept thinking is this the last day I will get to see him, not wanting to leave him because our time with him was probably going to be so limited. Things actually continued to get worse  because the valve started to fail in his heart and he was put on the heart transplant list. He wasn't able to get enough oxygen to digest food, so he was fed via IVs, which caused him to have briddle bone disease. He had fractures in his ribs, both of his arms, his legs from just doing simple tasks, like  changing his diaper. We had to be super gentle with him and I know he was in a lot of pain. We couldn't hold him because of all of his lines, IV’s and brittle bones. We would just rub the top of his head to comfort him. God had been strengthening our faith, our marriage, drawing us in, and comforting us. I knew that he's the better father like is says in Matthew. So for many months, the only way that I was able to function was I had to repeat the same prayer. I would say “God I know you are a good and perfect father, better than I am and so if you want to take my son early, I know you will be a perfect father to him and I will see him in heaven and I'm OK with that but if he can stay with us a little longer, I would really appreciate it”

That was my prayer in faith. I truly believed it. He got a heart transplant and went into the surgery very sick. They again gave him a 50-50 chance which basically means they can’t guarantee anything. But I had peace and trust in God. And God heard our prayers and decided to give us more time with our youngest son. and he is still here with us today.  I now understood what it means to truly surrender….Even the lives of our children.

And I can honestly say I am going to continue to walk with God for the rest of my life, because I have the comfort of knowing him. I know the creator of the universe and he loves me and adopts me. There's nothing that can take that away, and there's so much peace in knowing that. In many ways, it's given me perspective on what is important, and how so many of the things that we're upset about are just wants but not needs.