Where Do I Start?

Dear Reader, where do I start? As with all good stories, I believe the best place to start is at the beginning… I will do my best not to bore you and to be as succinct as possible. But I feel that in order to give you the best possible appreciation for my journey, I must give you as many relevant facts and descriptions of events as I can.

As a youth, I was what I like to call myself… An Interdenominational Ping-Pong ball within Christianity. Here is what I mean…

I was baptized as an infant in the Catholic Church in my hometown of Columbia, SC in 1985. After my parents got divorced and both remarried, I attended a Methodist Church with my mom and a Lutheran church with my biological father. Eventually, after a few years, my father and step-mother stopped attending their Lutheran Church and so my main exposure and involvement with church growing up, I’d have to say would be at the Methodist Church.

Growing up I honestly never knew there was a significant difference in denominations within Christianity and quite frankly, even though I had friends that went to different “types” of churches, I thought we were all the same in our beliefs and so I didn’t care.

I loved God and I was heavily involved in my church’s youth group in high school. I was the “Chaplain” for my JROTC unit for two years in a row. I loved FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) and I even started a bible study at school my senior year. I can say that I definitely wasn’t a “model student” and I certainly wasn’t perfect by any means… But I loved Jesus with all my heart in a more or less abstract way and I knew he was there for me when I was feeling down or having problems. That was pretty much my understanding at the time, of how my religion was supposed to work… I “knew” that if I did the best I could in life, if I loved Jesus in my heart and I felt genuinely sorry about the times when I did wrong, I would be okay.

After I graduated high school, I kinda fell into the “normal” college routine and forgot about God for my first year. It certainly did not help that I discovered I didn’t have to get up and go to church on Sunday mornings anymore. So naturally, my priorities changed somewhat to reflect my new surroundings and my friends. On that note… “Mom if you’re reading this and I forgot to tell you about that, I’m sorry…”.

To fast forward about one year, in the middle of my sophomore year of college, I had gotten involved in the campus CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ) with a girl (a Catholic girl) that I built a relationship with. I had a co-worker (a fellow Resident Advisor) who invited me to go with him to a Baptist church up the road from the university. I had never been a Baptist, nor had I consciously paid attention to ever having met one in the past. I went with him and really started enjoying it. The church was filled with fun people and the message seemed very simple and, quite frankly, quite easy!

“What really matters in life is that we are loved by Christ and that we love Him in return. In comparison to the love of Jesus, everything else is secondary. And, without the love of Jesus, everything is useless.”     Pope John Paul II

Now, ironically enough I got Baptized at that Baptist Church right after having started dating that same Catholic girl that I mentioned earlier! Well, it turns out that she and I got pretty serious and ended up dating for about 2 years. During those two years, she introduced me to The Catholic Church. I started getting very involved with the on-campus Catholic Newman Center and made a lot of friends. I remember my first mass there with a priest named Father Jim Sichko. He was really awesome. His homilies were fantastic and he was just an overall funny and easy-going guy who seemed to be well-liked by everyone he came in contact with.

Eventually, I went through the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) Program through the local parish and became confirmed into the Catholic Church in 2007. It was a happy day and all of my friends and immediate family were there to celebrate. At this point I won’t go into the details of why I joined, but please, dear reader… Please know that it was not just because of a girl. I found beauty and fulfillment in the sacraments of The Church. My problem was, unbeknownst to me at that time, that I did not know how to defend my faith.

After my formerly serious relationship ended, along with several “rebounds” over the course of a year and a half which were not intended to end up the way they did, I eventually moved back home to Columbia in May of 2010. My new job schedule didn’t really allow for much time to go to church, or at least, that is what I kept telling myself as an excuse.

In 2011 I left The Church but found something, or rather someone, that made up for it (at least in my mind at the time). A little over a year after she and I started dating, we got married. Prior to our marriage, I joined the Baptist church which she had just about grown up at and gone to for the majority of her life along with her immediate family. I felt comfortable there and was able to make my public declaration of faith in front of the congregation and be baptized (again…). I was SAVED by my faith alone and all was right with the world! Or at least that is what I was lead to believe…

Walk the way of the Lord in simplicity; do not torment your spirit. Speak the truth, always the truth.     St. Padre Pio

Little did I know that God was about to turn my world upside down by testing the bonds of my marriage and my faith in His will with just seven little words…

“Who Do YOU Say That I AM?”

Now that you have some background on my life which is relevant to my personal journey of faith, it is with those beautiful seven words of Jesus from the book of Matthew, that our journey together shall truly begin…

Until next time dear reader…

Your Servant In Christ,

William