Alan’s Story

Well, when I grew up, my parents took me to church. It was something we had to do, and I didn’t mind going really, it was just a bother to wake up early. I really wasn’t that interested in it, or anything else for that matter. I had always kept to myself, and only had a few close friends. Since I didn’t hang out with the popular kids, I felt like a loser during my high school years. I was content with it all, I guess, aside from the classes where I didn’t know anyone. That’s when I remember feeling the most alone, looking around and not seeing anyone. It felt really lame.

As high school was starting off, I was able to start dating a girl from my church. This helped me not feel like such a nerd, and was a reason for me to be sticking around church. I went to all the church stuff so that I could spend time with her. It started off great; I finally had someone who cared about me. Over time though, we began to spend most of our time making out and in fooling around. I remember wanting to stop doing it and I knew it was wrong. But I just couldn’t stop, and besides, it was ok to do on television, people joked about it all the time and all the high school kids were hooking up and doing the same things.  I mean hey, if you were a guy and didn’t have a girl you were fooling around with you were a loser. That’s just the way high school went, people bragging about this and that and how far… and so that’s where my relationship went.

I decided to go to NDSU for college, to be an architect. The people on my floor where the same as high school, caught up in fooling around with girls, like me. I became a room hermit soon after getting there.  It sucked. I tried to keep my relationship going, but that was not working out. Then I got the call that I had been cheated on, several times, since college. There I was, alone. Nobody came up to Fargo with me from home. My relationship was over. I had just changed majors to civil engineering, kind of randomly, and was no longer there for my career. What the heck had someone as anti-social as me come up to the vast nothing of Fargo, ND for? Life sucked, and I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone.

Well one day my peer mentor, who lived next to me, knocked on my door and wanted to know if I would come to a Bible study he was leading. I went with him; I literally had nothing else to do. Well, I hated it. I felt like even though I had grown up going to church, that these guys knew a whole lot more about it than I did.  How come they were so much better? I didn’t really want to keep going but I did anyway. Then a friend from class invited me to a Chi Alpha Bible study kickoff party. I decided to go, since parties sound like fun. While I was there, I met a group of guys that instantly accepted me into their group. I felt accepted for the first time at college.

My peer mentor was involved with Campus Crusade (Cru), and gathered people together to go to the weekly meetings with him. I started going to Cru with him, and I hoped I could meet some people there. At one meeting they started talking about “summer project” mission trips. One stuck out to me, the girl that was talking about it said, “I loved the Medora summer project because it was so small. The other projects have around a hundred people on them, while Medora only has 16. I know that the friends I made will be lifelong friends”. That was all I needed.  I thought, “Hmmm, I’m desperately alone and I can make friends forever on a project…”  Sign me up!  And that summer I found myself out in Medora, ND on some kind of mission trip.

While I was filling out the paperwork to go, there was a strange question on the application. It said to tell how I came to know God personally. I had no idea what it meant, I said I didn’t know what the question was asking and moved on. The guys reviewing it saw it, and decided to come and find me. They asked if they could meet up once a week to talk about life. That’s when it was explained to me that you could have a real relationship with God, that He wanted me to remember Him, and turn to Him so that Jesus could be my closest friend.

That’s when I prayed to Jesus to come into my life and take the load I was carrying off, and to make me into the man He wanted me to be. Right away, no there was no instant light coming down from heaven experience. I continued swearing and watching disgusting shows on TV, though I did know that I needed to change, but I couldn’t do it. Near the end of the semester I even met up with my ex and fooled around with her again.

Then the time came for me to ship out to project, and over those three months I saw a lot of change. Instantly I was the most social one there, for some reason, and I felt accepted by them. I was able to see how real Christians actually lived out there life in peace, and praying for God to help them live. I started praying more, to be who He wanted me to be, and not the sinful pervert that I had settled to be. I stopped swearing that summer, grew a lot in my knowledge of what God actually wanted for us and yes, made some (what I expect to be) lifelong friends.

I went back home with a knowledge that God loves me, and was excited to share about how much He cared, and how He would never leave me. And the next day, I met up with my ex and we fooled around again. I was so upset that I started crying and prayed that God would forgive me for what I had done; it was so soon after learning all this about Him. He did not abandon me like I expected He would, but he forgave me. Because even when if I screw up I have already been saved by Him, and He knows that we will all fall. But that doesn’t mean that He ditches us, He knows we need Him, it’s like when a baby who is learning to walk trips. What kind of father ignores him and walks away? Instead he picks him up and helps him.

So to date, God has continued to live through me. He has proved his faithfulness to me by stopping me from swearing, growth in the area of purity (something I could not do it on my own), support me in my work/studies/career, build many friendships, give me hope for a future, be there to comfort me when I feel like I can’t go on, making me more like Him, and loving me more than I ever thought was possible!  And that is my story.