My Testimony

I've been having this crazy feeling to share my testimony lately. I think God is calling me right now to share it with others, so here it is. This is what God has done...

I grew up in a wonderful, loving, home. I was the middle child of the family, with an older brother and a younger sister. My parents truly loved each other and us (and still do). Both my mother and father were both born and raised Catholic and so I was baptized as an infant into the Catholic faith. Our family never missed a Sunday Mass, only occasionally for a baseball game. I grew up my whole life knowing about God and some of the stories in the Bible, but never cared to know anymore about it. I had the foundation laid, but what you might call a nominal faith. My life growing up revolved around sports. Well, sports and some school in between. I excelled at baseball and because of this, I was offered a scholarship to the University of St. Francis in Joliet.

At St. Francis, my life revolved around school and being the best player on the team. Specifically, I wanted to be the best hitter ever at St. Francis and get drafted to play baseball professionally. I valued my education intensely and wanted to excel greatly in the classroom. Some of my achievements at St. Francis included earning a 3.65/4.0 GPA throughout my four years in college, being named an All-American Scholar Athlete my junior and senior year, and graduating with honors. Some of the achievements on baseball field included leading our team all 4 years in hitting, with a career batting average of .390, setting school records in hits, stolen bases, and doubles, I was All-Conference all four years, and an All-American my freshmen and senior seasons. During the end of my sophomore year, I began dating a mysterious, but beautiful, talented, and intelligent woman named Meghan. She was a softball player at St. Francis, so needless to say we had a lot in common and hit-it-off (no pun intended) right away.

At this point in my life I didn’t feel I had a lot going for me. I knew I did. I was smart, athletic, energetic, and had many friends. I had many talents, including teaching myself to play guitar. I was excelling at school and baseball, had a wonderful girlfriend, and was looked up to by a lot of people. I was “happy” but I couldn’t help but feel I was still missing something. I always needed more.

Despite my seemingly perfect life, things began to change during my junior year. I knew my college years were going to be coming to an end, so my priorities began to change. I was feeling unfulfilled and upset that my life revolved around school and baseball. I felt empty. I wanted to start exploring other options, so I helped form a band with some friends. It was extremely fun to play loud, emotional, and energetic music. It made me feel good, so I started devoting more time to the band. I’m the kind of person who, if I’m going to do something, I’m going to do the absolute best I can at it, or I’m not going to do it at all. I was the lead singer (don’t laugh) and guitarist, and I was writing the majority of our songs. If someone knew me from the outside, they would have thought I was one of the happiest and most pleasant persons to be around, but the songs I wrote in this band were depressing, angry, and vulgar. I thought that’s what you have to do! Heavy metal music is about being angry with things and getting your frustrations out. I was “getting things out,” and filling the void in my heart, or so I thought.

Regardless, I still worked hard at school and baseball; those things were natural for me, but I couldn’t help but look for something more. I took the summer off from baseball heading into my senior season to write music for the band and work. I was working with the grounds crew at Silver Cross Field, umpiring girl’s softball games, and giving hitting lessons. I was so caught up in filling my life with anything that would fill the feeling of emptiness. I could not get rid of. I wanted more than what I had. I began to drink. At first, it was occasionally, but it eventually became more and more. When you’re around people who are influencing you and into things you normally aren’t into, you begin to become the influenced instead of the influencer. The pressure of playing the part in the band began to take its toll and I began to even entertain the idea of trying drugs. I was so caught up in trying to find meaning and an identity I was flirting with more and more dangerous things. I thought, well, everyone else in the music industry seems to be under some kind of influence, maybe it wouldn’t hurt. Plus, it was readily available and some of my friends already indulged.

Sadly, during all this, I was neglecting the one person who constantly loved me for who I was the whole time, Meghan. I was taking her for granted.

We had told each other that we loved each other, but I had heard that once before in a previous long-term relationship. I knew Meghan was special and I knew she liked me a lot, but I was numb to the whole “love” thing. I wasn’t about to hand out my love again and get burned. God knows I didn’t like that feeling. Because of this, I was spending less time with her and more time with the band. The event that would change both our paths was about to happen and it would take almost losing Meghan for me to “wake up.”

The band and I decided to head down to a college party at one of the band members’ fraternity houses. We went out to a bar he previously worked at and had what I had thought was a great time sitting around a table staring at each other, shouting at the top of our lungs over deafening music, drinking over-priced drinks, laughing about 1st grade humor, and getting all our clothes smoky. It was…”great.” Needless to say I had too much to drink and when you drink too much you’re thinking isn’t as clear as it normally is, duh. You get careless. You forget where you are. And you forget who you are, especially when you don’t know to begin with.

To make a long story short…I got so careless I almost cheated on Meghan that night. In a moment of carelessness, selfishness, weakness, and shamefulness I lusted over another woman and forgot about the one person who didn’t do anything wrong, but only love me for who I was. That was the breaking point.

It was a month before I was able to confess to Meghan what I had done. I had tried to suppress the constant feeling of guilt over it, but I started to not be able to sleep at night. My life had reached a new level of fakeness. Not only was I fake with the band and myself, I was now fake with Meghan. I finally told her. It was one of the worst feelings I have ever felt in my entire life. The look of disappointment and frustration on her face was almost too much to bear. I felt the entire world I had carefully cultivated collapsing around me. I was “that” guy; the liar, the cheater, the selfish and prideful hypocrite.

I tell you all this background, not to bring your mood down, but so that you can better understand what God was working with. For 20 some years, God had witnessed a prideful man living a life for himself only. He had seen a man searching to fulfill himself in all the wrong places. He had a man given a wonderful life and girlfriend about to throw it all away.

Meghan and I talked that night over the phone…well, she talked mostly and I listened. She told me I needed to talk to “Marc” maybe and figure things out. She may have mentioned something about God or church or who knows, I wasn’t listening, but she didn’t make a big thing about talking to Marc. She almost mentioned his name in passing while she was yelling…crying…er, talking to me. Let me tell you about Marc. Marc is Meghan’s step dad. He was born into a Jewish family, but had become a Jehovah’s Witness for some time. But now, for the past 6 years he has known His Lord and Savior Jesus Christ personally. Up until that point in time, I had barely ever spoken to Marc. I probably had one of those usual fake conversations with him, “Hey Mark, how’s the weather?” You know the type. Anyway, Meghan and my conversation ended in; maybe I’ll call you in a couple of days, maybe I won’t. So I got off the tailgate of my truck, hung up the phone, and thanked her for our conversation by slamming the tail gate closed (you can still see the dent today). I figured my two choices now were either the band and that life or Meghan and who knows what.

I went searching…at Barnes and Noble…specifically, the Bible section. I was thinking what every man has ever thought, “What does she want from me?” So I picked up a “Chicken Soup for the Soul Bible”…it was pretty looking…and drove home. As I opened this Bible, for the first time in my life ever going to it for advice, I thought, “Ok, what does she want me to do, read it?” As I read a couple of pages, I can’t even remember what I was reading, I had this strange feeling to get up and call Marc. The thought entered my head like a subtle whisper, but I ignored it. I thought, “I barely know Marc. I have never spoken seriously to Marc. And, Mark doesn’t even care what’s going on in my life right now.” I kept reading. Again! This thought to get up and call Marc came upon me and before I knew it, I was grabbing the phone from downstairs and dialing his number (how I don’t know, because to this day I still have to look at my cell phone to call them).

Marc answered the phone and for three hours, for three hours, he patiently listened and answered every single question I threw at him about God, faith, religion, and life. We read the Bible right over the phone and as I read the passages Marc directed me to, it was as if the Holy Spirit was speaking to me Himself! That night in June of 2004, I gave my life to Jesus. After Marc and I got off the phone I remember crying myself to sleep praying, “Jesus, I surrender, I surrender, I surrender.”

I came to find out later, that when I called Marc, it was probably one of the worst times for him to have to spend three hours on the phone with someone. He was right in the middle of trying to figure something out for his work the next day. God was testing Marc’s faith and patience as well as leading me to Jesus.

Oh yeah, what about Meghan? Well, God seemed to take care of that too. I went over to her house after a weekend of not speaking with her to share this new “thing” called Jesus I had just discovered. I said to her, “Meg, I just found out my choice isn’t either the band or you; it’s Jesus. We need Jesus.” She began crying right away and oddly enough, I knew everything was going to be fine. It would still take a lot of talking and long walks before this trial would be behind us, but in the midst of all of it, I saw first hand from someone in human flesh what it was like to forgive someone. I knew I was going to marry her (August 26, 2006).

Had Meghan not loved me for who I was, had Marc not given me the time of day, and had Meghan not forgiven me, like Jesus does, I would not be here today. Everything is different now. The old is gone, the new is now. God says through Paul in Ephesians, “…put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Ever since that night in June, I have felt fulfilled like never before and it never stops (maybe it’s all the food we Baptist eat?)! There’s a sense of peace that you have to experience to know what I’m talking about. Words do not do it justice – you have to experience Jesus to know wholeness. God has replaced all my fears with tears of joy, with an abundance of friends, with a family who’s getting to know the Lord better every day, and with a wife like a golden crown. I am so much more at peace in Christ than anything this world has ever offered. I know what the world has to offer – nothing for me. I leave you with the words God spoke through Paul in Philippians,
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Blessings,

Joe