Here I Raise My Ebenezer

Before the second week of August, 2023, no one had ever really asked me about my testimony. And being a mildly trauma-scarred extreme introvert, I never really thought to offer it. After all, what do I have to offer? I wasn’t a drug addict who suddenly went cold-turkey from all my meds cuz I found Jesus. I wasn’t some criminal who stumbled onto the gospel while serving jail time. Why would anybody want to hear my story? But that second week of August 2023, I got asked. Twice. Then a third time. By good friends that I trusted and respected. And if they asked me, they clearly wanted my answer. So, my quest began. A big, long, barely coherent ramble of my whole life. Most of it relevant to the story, but a good testimony shouldn’t ramble that badly. Having had that experience, I decided to write it out a bit more concise. Doesn’t mean it will be short, because the thing is, Yahweh has been showing me how so many little trivial things in life all connect, how one thing leads to the next. It is all part of the story he is telling through me, and stories are intricate and complex. But hopefully now it will be more organized.

So what is a testimony in religious terms, anyway? According to Wikipedia, to testify or to give one's testimony means, "to tell the story of how one became a Christian. Commonly it may refer to a specific event in a Christian's life in which God did something deemed particularly worth sharing.” Another explanation is that a testimony bears witness before others, to the fact that Yahweh has forgiven our sins. And with this, my story begins.

I was born into a Christian home. My dad was a pastor in a (what used to be) highly conservative denomination known as the Brethren. The Brethren denomination has its roots in the Anabaptist movement in 18th century Germany, and is not the same as the Mennonites (though they share the same roots and are often confused for each other). And that is your first history lesson for the day. Two of my uncles were Brethren pastors. My mom was a graduate from a Bible college, as was her mom. And her dad, my grandfather, was yet another Brethren pastor. And being homeschoolers in a pastor’s family, we were no strangers to church or scripture. In many ways, I and my eight siblings practically grew up in a seminary of sorts.

So I knew from fairly early on that people were supposed to pray and ask Jesus into their hearts, but it was head knowledge, not understanding. What did it really mean to “ask Jesus into my heart”? And why did I need to do it when I grew up in a Christian home as a pastor’s kid? And I didn’t really grasp the concept of sin. Yes, I broke a lot of rules in my childhood, and willfully. But in my mind it wasn’t really sin. I wasn’t smoking or drinking or killing or doing drugs. I was simply ignoring illogical rules that seemed like they were put in place for no reason, because back then, although I didn’t know the word, my family was actually rather legalistic. Toy guns was a no-no. Playing guns with sticks was a no-no. Rocky music wasn't allowed, not even contemporary Christian music. Pants and shorts were for guys, dresses and skirts were for girls. And plenty of other stuff.   I have seen legalism carried further than my family, but not by a whole lot. I have a friend who isn't allowed to wear short sleeves, so…yeah.

A lot of my family's legalism was the product of an organization known as Institute for Basic Life Principles, or IBLP, headed by a man named Bill Gothard. This is an important factor. And the thing about IBLP is that there was enough truth in the books, the seminars, the people involved, that it all seemed true. But it never did quite sit right with me. It felt too…perfect.

            Anyway, at a very young age, my naïve mind had a wide variety of conceptions about God. I have no idea how old I was when I first started grasping the concept of believing in Christ as my personal savior. But I suppose at some point, I did so, because my earliest memories on the subject are from 2008, when I was around 11 or so, and I remember I was re-giving my heart to God. So there was evidently a first time sometime. But at the time of this "re-commitment" at 11, while it was just between me and God and my intentions were genuine, I think I still sort of understood it as just something one does, and I didn't yet have that personal relationship.

In the midst of all of this, however, I was a little rebel. I had always been a bit resistant with the while IBLP thing. It felt...off...but I could never explain it, as I had no concept of legalism at the time. Even though I was familiar with Pilgrims Progress in which Legality is a mentioned character. I also was and am the only child of the family who has yet to take membership within the church. I guess I prefer a lack of denominational ties. Of course, the "worst" part of my rebellion is how I tend to question things like symbolisms and traditions and stuff.

And I still couldn’t get over my terror of death and fear of ‘what if I’m not saved’ or even ‘what if I get into heaven, but it’s not all that its cut out to be?’ Truth be told, much of my childhood, I would have recurring nightmares about death. Most commonly, Russia dropping nuclear bombs on my tiny, middle-of-nowhere, 3,000-person hometown for absolutely no reason. Yes I was a strange and overtly paranoid child.

Somewhere around this time, I started devising a story in my head, about what my life might be like if I had gotten a twin brother. Eventually, the story grew to where the character was me in an alternate reality. By the time I was 12, my imaginary twin was no longer anything remotely like me. He was an orphan that lived on a farm somewhere out west. And other than being an orphan, his story started becoming the story of the life I wished I had.

By the time I was 13, I had started writing this story down on paper. Though not with any real goal in mind.

What also happened in that timeframe is that I really started pushing even harder against the way I was raised. Actually, I was starting to outright question everything I believed. Inwardly. Not outwardly. I was a very quiet and reserved person. Still am. But I started questioning faith and religion, wondering how Christians, as divided and denominational as they are, could know that they are somehow the right ones and everybody else is wrong. I was a quiet rebel, not openly defiant, but I was struggling in my head. I continued to be a quiet rebel for most of my teen years. My parents could see my defiance from time to time, and they would try to correct it, but I’d dig in till they got frustrated and decided those behaviors weren’t worth the effort to correct. But what they saw were only tiny bits and pieces of the rebellion in my mind, half “I want it my way” and half “something really doesn’t feel right about my entire upbringing, but I still can’t quite put my finger on it.”

And about this time, I developed addictions to video gaming, junk food, movies, and dopamine. Won’t go into details of exactly how I coaxed my brain to release high levels of dopamine on demand, but I did it. Meanwhile, I continued to write. My writing life was kind of an escape from the madness of the real world. And also an escape from myself, honestly.

But it was a struggle. The devil fought me at every turn. Several times, I destroyed all my original paper manuscripts. They were outlandishly cheesy. Then I erased my computer manuscripts. I had no real direction for the story. It felt like a dead end. Once, I was so discouraged, I took the old computer I used for writing, and smashed it to bits. At that point, I was convinced I was done.

Still, the story was stuck in my head. Echoing. Echoing. Then I found a floppy disk. (I know many people probably have no clue what that is, but it is a storage device that pre-dates CDs). And what was on this floppy disk? One of my manuscripts I had forgotten to erase. I was just like "Okay, God. I get it. I'll keep writing."

The next season of my testimony occurs in 2014. My family found out the truth about IBLP, the organization we had been a part of. We found out Bill Gothard was sexually harassing interns. His brother was involved in outright sex scandals. Several other key high-standing men in the organization were also living in various sexual sins. These were people I had been taught to hold in high esteem. People I had been encouraged to use as role models. And they had been using all their legalistic teachings to cover up their sins and sweep them under the rug. Teaching women to be ultra submissive to men, teaching them to feel too guilty and ashamed of themselves to speak up about the immorality going on. But some of the girls and women finally spoke out. And I was angry.

It made sense now why all the IBLP stuff never sat right with me, why it always felt off. Now I understood why. Our whole lives, we talked about grace, and salvation through faith, yet we had been living as though salvation was works based. And what more, we were adding on all these extra rules, just like the Pharisees, in attempt to ‘become’ more perfect. But it was all white-washed tombs, hiding dead men’s bones. And I was angry at Bill Gothard and the other men for falling to such low levels. I was angry at the organization for downplaying the sins and covering them up for so long. I was angry at my parents for raising us in IBLP, which I now recognized as a legalistic cult.

That mystery solved, I became less of a rebel. But at the same time, my trust in man was shattered. My whole life, I had seen Bill Gothard as the most model Christian in modern times. So I no longer trusted anybody. I didn’t even dare trust my own parents, because they had led all of us kids straight into the lies and never questioned any of it. So who could I trust?

I wasn’t even sure if I trusted Yahweh. Now, I still believed in a supreme deity, I just questioned if the supreme deity I thought I had followed my whole life was the real one.

 

In the midst of this, I got a job toward the end of 2014, working part time in the middle of my senior year of high school. I graduated in 2015, and immediately transitioned into full-time. On my boss’ wishes, not mine. I would’ve liked a couple weeks to pause and think. But as it was, life moved on.

In March 2016, I became the proud owner of a little blue Dodge pickup truck. Now, I was finally free. I could go anywhere, do anything, explore the world around me for as far as my wallet would fill the gas tank. So that April, on the first warm day of the year, I set out to hunt down some waterfalls in the neighboring counties. One of these was a remote swimming hole, a bit off the beaten path. It was small, shallow, nothing too crazy. Even the deepest part, I could still have my head above water, or so I thought. And I liked this, cuz at the time, I was a weak swimmer with low stamina.

But toward late May or early June, my life was drastically changed forever.

At that point, I had been working in construction for 18-19 months. I was still writing, sort of. And by that I mean, the story has evolved to something much more complex and less cheesy than the original, but I keep hitting writers block. I still had my addictions, but at this point, I hadn't actually acknowledged them as addictions yet.

But this one particular day, shortly before my 19^th birthday, I went to this remote swimming hole. Alone. And it had just rained the night before, so the waterfall was flowing with more volume and the pool was deeper.

Does it sound like the setup for something really bad? Oh yes. I ended up over my head, stuck in the waterfall’s pull, and panicking. There was nobody around, and I knew there wasn’t, so I didn’t bother trying to yell. But in my head, I screamed ‘Jesus, help me!”

My situation didn’t improve. It dawned on me that I was going to die. Eighteen years old, a couple days short of my nineteenth birthday, all alone, in the middle of nowhere, and nobody knew where I was. My life was over.

Funny thing was, the instant I acknowledged that, a peaceful calm washed over me. I had spent my whole life terrified of this moment. But here I was. I was gonna die, and—I was oddly okay with it. I prayed, “God, I believe you exist. I don’t know what you are like, I don’t know anything about you, but I believe you are real. And I’m about to meet you face to face. I’m coming home.”

I was so exhausted that I was seconds from blacking out. As I slipped underwater for what I assumed would be my final seconds, on the verge of blacking out, I prayed “Lord, into your hands, I commit my spirit. My life didn’t amount to much, but…it is finished.” And the next instance that I was aware of, I was standing on a solid rock, with my head above the water. I was able to collect my breath, rest, and then from that footing, get myself to safety.

I knew three things. First, God was very real. Second, while I still questioned some things about Christianity as a religion, I realized that real Christianity is a personal relationship with God, and I was on the road to having that. Thirdly, I knew I had been turned away from eternity for a reason. I didn’t know what that reason was, but I was gonna find it. And this is one of the most important parts of my testimony. That I believe Yahweh is real, because I should have died that day.

Still, while I knew I believed in him, I still didn’t know much about him. So life continued much as it had been before. Till that December, I was driving to work on an icy morning, I lost control of my truck, and I crashed in a deep drainage ditch and totaled the engine.

My first truck. Barely owned it a year, and I totaled it. I was depressed, I was frustrated with myself, I felt like a failure, and I was ready to lock myself in my room and stay there forever.

But my Dad had known for years that I was working on writing a story. He sent me a link to a video where Brett Harris (whom I was familiar with from Do Hard Things, was advertising this new thing called a ‘young writers community’. I jumped on the bandwagon there at the start, January 2017, and in the years since, my path has crossed with several particular individuals who really helped my writing take shape in major ways. And I've been able to sharpen my skills in critiquing others, as well as donating my "expansive" knowledge. The quality of my storytelling exploded from what it had been. It felt like I was making an actual novel. And I was excited.

Now we fast forward to 2019. I've been working (full time) for four years. And still struggling to break my addictions. My pay sucks, the work is often exhausting, I struggle to find time to write, my mind keeps slipping off into alternate dimensions which messes with my workday.

Every mistake I've made at work over the last four years keeps playing back to me in my mind. Actually, all my mistakes over the course of my whole life. The rest of my life fades from my memory like a faint recollection of a dream. But my mistakes are vivid as yesterday. And they wear hard.

The discouragement is taxing. I'm fighting both depression and anxiety. I start questioning if I really have a purpose I was designed for. I start questioning the purpose of life itself. I get somewhat nihilistic. Without even seeing it coming, suddenly, I'm thinking about how easy it would be to just put myself out of my misery. I'm too rational to actually attempt anything, but as winter rolls in, I think about how easy it is to accidentally lose control of a vehicle. Nobody would ever know if I did it on purpose. It’s extremely appealing.

I'm internally screaming to God every day, to give me a sign, anything, something to help me figure out what I'm doing. I'm listening to Linkin Park's One More Light on constant repeat, reminding myself that I don't want to just throw in the towel and let myself be one more extinguished life. Ironically, I'm simultaneously writing one of my characters going through suicidal contemplation as well.

Finally, one day in March 2020, something in my head clicked. My mistakes weren't the only thing connecting in my head anymore. I started remembering various points in time, all throughout my life, coming together to form a picture of me in a role as a cop. It’s like God was saying "Hey. Aim for law enforcement. Look at all the hints I left you over the past twenty-two years. Aim for it, and find out what happens". So I aimed for it. At least mentally. And I worked hard all summer 2020 to meet and exceed the entry PE requirements. I met my goals, but by this time, Covid was in full swing, schools were shut down, and I couldn’t go any further.

In April 2020, my dad's father passed away in his sleep. Not from Covid. This was the beginning of a chain of events which later that year led to Dad accepting a new pastorate at a church in Greencastle, Pennsylvania, and buying his father's house just a few minutes away, in Hagerstown, Maryland. So the family, for the first time in over 30 years, would be picking up roots and moving to a new house in a new state. The question was...was I gonna go or stay?

I couldn't afford to live independently. Not on $9 an hour. But my boss offered to try and help me find accommodations. Still, in a choice between sticking with my family in a new territory and finding a new job or leaving my family and staying in my old familiar town with my old familiar and underpaying job, I decided to move. Unfortunately, this meant abandoning the law enforcement goal for the foreseeable future. While I didn’t slip back into suicidal idealization, it was still a semi-depressing season. Especially when it came time to actually move.

I borrowed a box trailer and made a preliminary trip out to the new house with the first load of stuff. I got there just fine, and my family showed up a few days later with a van-load of more stuff. Then we started back to Ohio for more. That's when tragedy struck.I was almost at the halfway point between the two houses, about two and a half hours each way. My truck was running fine, no signs of trouble, and pulling an empty trailer. Suddenly, the engine overheated and died.

I pulled off to the side of the highway, got out to look over everything, and couldn't see anything wrong externally. So after letting the engine cool a bit, I started up again and kept going. I made it to the next exit and to the end of the off-ramp before it gave up on me and I was stranded.

At least I was safely off the highway. But I had to call a tow truck, call my parents to change course and pick me up, and leave my truck and a borrowed trailer at a repair shop. But Yahweh's hand was with me. I broke down a few minutes away from a shop that specialized in engine rebuilds. Had I broken down back in my hometown, no local shops would've been able to help me out. But if I had to break down, it happened in just about the best possible location.

My truck sat for over a month before everything got put back together, but at long last, we were reunited. And then began the search for a new job.

I had an uncle in Maryland, who knew a guy with an excavating company. Connections were made, and there was my new job. But wages were low, the commute was long, and bad weather left me with so few hours that my gas, food, phone, and car insurance were costing me more than I was earning.

This is when I started to learn to trust God. I told him, “You know I need a better paying job. Help me find where you want me to be.”

I stayed at that job all summer. Meanwhile, on the writing community, I became unlikely friends with a fellow student who was many years younger than me but who was struggling with depression much like I had. As I got to know her and adopted her as my younger sister, it dawned on me… maybe I had been allowed to suffer suicidal depression so I could better be God’s love and hope to others who are still hurting. So that’s what I decided to do. And I made more friends. And I became more social.

            Finally, the answer to my job came in the form of my cousin, who worked for a commercial dairy equipment distributor. He asked me to think about applying to also work there. I agreed to at least go and introduce myself to the management, and they pulled me right in, sat me down, interviewed me, and gave me a job offer on the spot. I started working there October 2021.

            Life was looking up. I was making way better pay than I ever had before, I was starting to become more social on my writing community, it was great.

            Then, in February 2022, one of the writing community members took his life. It was hard on the whole community, but especially on me. I realized how easily that could’ve been me only a short two years prior. Further, I only knew that student distantly. I never even knew he was struggling. And that left me with a ton of guilt, wondering if I had been a better friend, if I had gotten to know him more, could my experiences with suicidal depression possibly been enough to stay his hand?

            So at that point I committed myself to being a big brother on the community to as many other students as I could. To look for the lonely and hurting ones and offer my hand.

That April, I met a girl in my age range. Our conversation took off and within a couple months, it occurred to me we were flirting hard and fast. But the thing was, I had never envisioned myself dating. Definitely never marrying. But I wondered if I had been all wrong. Everything seemed to line up too perfect. We were twin flames, like a union that was meant to be. Still, I had my doubts.

In June, my old boss from my Ohio hometown contacted me and asked me to come back to work for him again. His offerings made it sound like I’d be on track to having my own home, becoming a partner instead of an employee, and maybe even buying the company out from him. It sounded too good to be true. And there I was, with a girl just waiting for me to up and ask her parents for permission to court. But I felt it again. That little nudge down inside that something was off. I wasn’t sure what it was. Just something.

My family went to see the production of King David at the Sight and Sound Theater in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. That was a huge moment in my spiritual walk. The way they told his story, it felt like my story. And it was almost like I could feel God’s presence over me. All my doubts and questions regarding my salvation were gone. I knew at that point I was forgiven, redeemed, and called to his service. I committed myself to be a man after Yahweh’s own heart.

            So then I made my move out to Ohio that August, and for several months, I was out of contact with the girl I had been flirting with. Apart from each other, we each spent a lot of time with Yahweh. And I stayed true to my desire to pursue him the way my namesake did. But I didn’t like where he was leading me.

            He revealed to me that I was set apart, that I had a calling that would be difficult to bear. My calling did not forbid me from marriage, but I felt him telling me I would not be having my own biological kids. Which inherently makes my prospects of ever being married significantly lower. Some are eunuchs by birth, some are made by man, and some choose that path for the sake of the kingdom. There are some who marry, but many do not. Let him who is strong enough to receive these words receive them. And the Lord told me I was one of those called to walk that road. It suddenly made sense why, among all my many temptations and struggles, I had never struggled with porn or sexual cravings. That part of my psyche simply didn't exist.

            Because of that, my flirting experience came to a rapid but mutually agreed end, though I retained a dearly beloved sister-in-Christ. But though there was pain for a time, it was a necessary experience to learn. I needed to learn to hear the words of the Lord and act on them even if I didn’t like them. And as it was, it ended up being for the better. My employment situation started going downhill in late fall, and by December, I determined it was not sustainable. I no longer had any intention or desire to be a partner or eventual owner of a company in such disarray. So Christmas Eve, 2022, I returned to my parents in Hagerstown, Maryland and remained under their wing a while longer while I sought Abba’s next step for me.

            And once again, life seemed to be looking up. I had a part time job so I could make money but still have lots of writing time. I joined the worship team at the church I started attending. I started doing things with their young adult group. I had a new writing project that I was super excited about.

Then in March 2023, I got myself into a sticky situation. My big brother behavior, combined with some poor judgment, led to a decision to remove me from my online writing community due to a significant incident my actions had caused with one particular student. My motives were pure, but I had developed a significant savior complex and several of my actions were missteps. And this was an extremely trying season in my spiritual life. Six years’ worth of noble and honorable reputation and one mistake blew it all. But Yahweh was still there. He taught me that he is Abba and I just need to remember that I am his child and I need to hold his hand.

But then a big question came up. Given my removal from the online writing community, would I still be attending their next writing conference? I was extremely torn. I could see pros and cons in going and in not going. I could see wisdom in both choices. I had a wide variety of people I respected counseling me toward both options, and I felt like chaff being blown around in the wind.

But Abba wasn’t through with me. He told me, “Go, but remember to walk in the light, even as I am the light.” And from that, I realized where I had gone wrong. I had been trying so hard to reflect his light to the hurting people I was trying to help, that I had strayed out of his light and was trying to make my own.

Having been corrected, I followed his leading and attended the writing conference. And I’m thankful I did, because the things I learned there got me over multiple major hurdles that I had been stuck on in my writing journey. Just another one of Abba’s reminders that he is with me.

So here I am, mid-August 2023, writing my testimony. I’m not suicidal, though I suppose I’ve retained a few mildly nihilist ideologies, in the sense that outside of Yahweh, everything is nothing and life is vain. I’m still in the process of rebuilding many of my beliefs, because I've had my faith in mortal men completely turned into wood-pulp, dried out, crushed into powder, and set on fire. Nevertheless, I am actively on a journey of seeking to know my heavenly father.

And here is what I know for certain. I know that Yahweh is a real and personal god. I know he spared me from drowning in a situation where I was physically alone. I know he pulled me out of suicidal depression that no human even knew I was in. I know my sins are forgiven and forgotten. I know I am after his heart above all else. I know he is my Abba Father and I am his child. I know he has called me to some specific purpose for which I’ve been created and trained. I've seen totally random and isolated events in my life connect to each other to create a roadmap of where I've been, how I ended up where I am, and where I appear to be headed. I know that to find and accomplish his purpose, I need to hold his hand and walk in his light. And I know that as long as I do that, nothing else matters. Not sickness or health, not prison or freedom, not even death or life.

When I do die someday, because it happens to all of us, I will be spared from an eternal death. A punishment I totally deserve. And all because Jesus let himself be executed, and he took everything I've done, and made it his. And all I had to do was embrace my freedom, and live in my freedom in such a way that I can one day draw others to him. Because I know his goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Selah.