Yesterday I gave a some-what brief description on what this blog is all about, and today I thought it as wise to introduce you to it’s author. If you’re reading this you probably already know me, but just in case someday I get some sweet Olympia natives following (which would be awesome) I’ll give you a little background. If you get bored just stop reading, seriously, other posts will provide better material, I promise.
So, I grew up in Parkersburg, WV. It’s one of the larger cities in the state consisting of about 60,000 people. Parkersburg is a great place to raise a family but in my opinion isn’t too economically healthy. I get the feeling that Parkersburgians (we’ll call them) just get by with what they need and nothing more; they work their tales off for the things they do have.
I was born into a typical American family: father, mother, sister, brother and cute little puppy. We attended Bethel Baptist Church most of my life. We’d go to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. If there was an opportunity to be in church the Burdette family was taking it. So I guess you could say it really blew my mind when my parents split when I was 15. I guess all those times that we were attending church it had become more about a routine instead of the content and the growth. (Caution: this is easy to fall in to)
My freshman year of high school was a dark time for me. My sister was attending West Virginia Wesleyan College and my brother was a senior in high school, always with his friends. Dad had a new girlfriend and worked a lot so I didn’t see him much and Mom cried, a lot. I spent several nights staying up till the early hours of the morning talking with Mom about the divorce. I woke up a lot in the middle of the night hearing her cry from her bedroom. It was at this point I quit following the Lord.
Mom and I had switched churches after the divorce and started attending Lubeck Community Baptist. I was going for no other reason other than to make her happy and so she wouldn’t have to go alone. Not long after we started attending this new church did I start doing drugs and drinking alcohol. These substances became a coping mechanism for me and in the mean time I found new friends to hang out with, one girl in particular, who was going through the same thing I was.
Each day after school we’d hang out and talk smack about our parents and smoke weed and be angry. We couldn’t help but feel that we were being cheated out of what we felt we really deserved, a normal family. Every day it seemed like we had new stories about a blow-up between our parents and who we thought was at fault.
Senior year approached and plans for college began to be confirmed. Columbia College Chicago was my destination with plans on studying Music Business. I visited the school, found a place to live, got some scholarships and I was set. Not longer after my visit to Columbia did my Grandpa, who had formerly been diagnosed with lung cancer, pass away and my sister got engaged. I slowly saw my college fund and my dreams of a life in Chicago dwindle away to nothing.
In August 2006 I decided I needed to get out of Parkersburg somehow, so I applied for West Virginia University. I got accepted and moved not long after. I had never been to Morgantown, but I heard the party scene was wild so I was into it. When my mom had finally dropped me off and headed back home it finally hit me I was on my own, and it felt weird. I didn’t have any friends around, I didn’t know the town or the campus and I had no car! Lame!
There was one night in particular, the second week of school that had brought me to my lowest of lows. A car full of guys had previously tried to pull me into their car, and it had scared me pretty bad. I pulled away from them and ran home. Upon arriving back in my dorm I got sick. It was an awful night and I remember right then crying out to the Lord and just being shocked that I had let my life get so messed up. I asked God to fix it and give me direction, that from there on out my life was in His hands and I was done fighting Him over the way I thought things should’ve worked out for me.
Later the next week I got plugged into a Bible study with Campus Crusade for Christ. It was then that the Gospel of Jesus really started to make since and I saw how applicable it was to my everyday life. After attending Bible study I started to make a lot of friends and things started looking up. Second semester I went on a trip to Maracaibo Venezuela where I got to share my story, and how I came to know the Gospel, for the first time. I would later make three trips total to Maracaibo throughout my college career and each time God would show me more of who He really was.
People are always asking me “How do you know God exists?” and let’s face it, a simple “faith” answer is never going to suffice for these folks.
All I know is, is that you will never know if it works until you try. It’s like looking at a dating relationship. You see someone and you begin learning about their great attributes and begin thinking I bet we would make a great couple. Well, you aren’t going to know for sure if it'll work until you date them, right?
I think for me it was all about surrender. I never fully surrendered my life to Christ until college and I always viewed Him as being so distant and judgmental, but it’s just not the case. I believe that God is like the chillest of chill. He is never looking down on any of us saying, “Well you could’ve done better,” or “I wish you would’ve done it this way,” or “Why didn’t you do this?” I believe He is just happy that we decided to follow Him and that we’re trying to love Him the way He deserves.
I’m following Christ because all the things that I had previously been looking for, He is. American culture tends to look down on Christians, and I don’t blame them at all. I believe Christianity is the number one cause of atheism in American, and for that I apologize, but lets face it, no one is perfect. All we can do as Christians is seek God and try to do what we think is right.
I would never say to anyone, “Hey, you need to be a Christian!” or try to convert someone. All I can say is that this is what I’ve been through and this is how I’ve decided to handle it. We’re all going to come in contact with some sort of struggle throughout our lives, but it’s how we react that shapes us into the people we’re meant to be.
So there’s a little bit about me.
Stay tuned folks!
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