I came to know God when I was eleven years old.
I was asleep in my bed completely knocked out. Then, all of a sudden, I was wide awake and I knew that I needed to be saved. So I went to my grandmother and told her what had happened so she walked me through the Salvation Prayer.
The next day we went to our church and the pastor confirmed what had happened and a few weeks later, I was saved. After that, I didn’t do anything with my newly found freedom. I went to church and went through the motions of Christianity, but there was no real growth in me.
Not until my father became ill, after that my world came crashing down around me, did I begin to experience transformation. The once comfortable life that I had known was gone. It was ripped from me in a second and there was darkness all around me.
So I began to question what I believed and came to the realization that I didn’t know anything about God or the Bible. So I went to my youth pastor and said, “I need you to tell me about God and the Bible.”
He looked at me, confused, and said ” Brandon, you have been saved and have come to church every Sunday. You know who God is and what the Bible says.”
Then I asked again and so he started at the beginning. But while he was speaking he was just going through the motions of telling me about God and the Bible so I stopped him and said, “If we do not have a serious discussion about God and the Bible, I will walk out of this church and never come back.” He could tell I was being serious, so, for five hours we talked about God and the Bible.
Four years after I had accepted God, my walk with him truly started and it took my father getting sick to start it. After a year and a half, my father was released from the hospital and came home. For the next few months, things felt somewhat normal. My father was still sick and I helped take care of him. Then one day he called me into his room and asked me to go and get him some of his pain medicine. After I got it I asked, “Dad, are you ok?”
He said, “I’m fine.”
I could tell he was lying so I asked again, “Dad, are you sure your ok?”
Then he looked at me and said, “My leg hurts here,” and he pointed to where one of his arteries were located.
I looked at him and said, “Dad, I think you have a blood clot…”
He looked at me and said, “Brandon you cannot tell anyone.”
I knew how serious this was and I looked at him and said, “Ok, I will not tell anyone as long as when you go to the hospital in a week you tell them.”
“Deal,” he responded.
A week came and went he went to the hospital. I got to come home for lunch that day and send him off. He said “We will be home later tonight. We will need help getting into the house, so be ready.”
After school I was waiting in my room watching T.V. when I heard my front door open. I got up and went into the living room and saw my great aunt was there. I hadn’t seen here in a few months and was very happy to see her.
She looked at me after a while and said “Brandon are you ok?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“But I though your dad passed away this morning.”
“No I saw him at lunch today and I haven’t gotten a phone call.”
“Oh, ok. Let me call your grandmother.”
So she did and after she got off the phone, nothing seemed to be wrong. Twenty minutes later my grandmother came to my house.
I looked at her and asked “ Do I need to help the paramedics get dad in the house?”
She shook her head. “Brandon he’s gone.”
The world grew cold and all of the happiness that was inside my soul was gone. I didn’t feel anything. Then sadness came, but in that sadness I could feel love – a love that surpasses all understanding.
The next few weeks were some of the hardest in my life. After some time, though, I started to look back and was able to see that God had been walking with me all the days of my life – not just in the good, but also with me through my dad’s passing. And that’s where I’ll leave you, knowing that God works all things for good and that he will be with you always.
