Am I Light: A Story of my Life

There is something amazing about the power of testimony. We have all heard countless stories of people who have been open and shared the experiences they have had in life. When someone opens up like that, it has this way of capturing our attention. We are drawn to these moments because we can identify with the story, or part of the story.

In general, we as humans are secretive. We do not like having our lives exposed unless we gain from it. We like our skeletons hidden in the closet, where they are "safe and sound" and "never to be found".

Today, I want to open the doors of my life and expose myself to the world.

Since I was young, there have been people in my life that have invested in my life. My parents raised me well. They spent the time to instill me to be polite, thankful, have manners, etc. They did everything that they could do to set me up for success as I grew older.

As time passed, I became more and more independent and I began to make decisions for myself. In high school, I started to try and find who I was as a person. I tried different things like basketball, choir, and baseball. I began making more and more friends as I got more and more involved. As time went on, I found that I did not feel like I really belonged to any certain group, but was that guy who was kind of just floating between the groups.

Well my sophomore year in high school, I got in major trouble for the first time. I do not know if it was my way of trying to get attention, but I was caught stealing money from different places in the school. Growing up, I was the goody-goody who never got in trouble. So when I was caught, I was extremely embarrassed and ashamed. After I was caught, I went to all of the people I had stolen from and apologized, as well as paid them back. I only got a minor suspension. I was shown great mercy.

Well time passed, and I stayed out of trouble for some time. Nothing really changed in my life as I got older though. My senior year of high school I found myself in trouble again. I was caught stealing money...again. Only this time, it was a more significant amount of money. I spent the next few days at school awaiting my consequence. The administration again decided to show me grace. I was expelled from school, and was able to take my grades and make them final so I could still graduate. I do not know why they showed me so much grace. They could have called the cops on me, and I could have gone to jail. That was what I deserved, but they showed me grace.

At that point in my life, I began to start to really struggle with thing in life. I did not jump off the deep end and get more in more in trouble, but I did start to lose my foundation. My life began to spiral little by little, and I felt like I was being sucked into this vortex that I could not escape. My foundation was Christ, and the more that I felt like I did not fit in anywhere, the more I lost my foundation.

As I grew older, I discovered the party scene. It was something that I was always so scared to get near, but as I found less and less meaning to my life...I found more and more of the partying scene.

I felt so empty inside.

Growing up in the church, I knew how to blend and act when I was around my church people. I continued to party and try to fill myself, but nothing seemed to do the trick. I knew deep inside that the only thing that would fill me was God, but I did not want to give up the partying scene.

At one point it just HIT me. I knew I could not continue like I was. I called myself a Christ-follower, but there was nothing in my life that was separating me from what the world looked like. We as Christ-followers are called to be light, and I was not being light.

So, at that point, I decided to be different. I have eliminated the partying scene from my life. It has changed my life so much! I feel filled, and I know that I am filled with Christ. Day to day, I now choose to be light.
I do not have a step-by-step process of how you are to make that change in your life, but I do know the ONE who can CHANGE you!

I challenge you to look at your life and see what you are portraying. Are you being light? Do you want to be light? It might surprise you.


“The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians: who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” --- Kevin Max