Saturday, September 8, 2012

My Faith Journey

My friend Erin asked me this about a month ago: “I was wondering if you wouldn't mind sharing a little more of your faith journey. You seem to have a very strong relationship with God and I'm curious about how that came about” and I thought to myself that it would be a good thing for me to write about in my blog.  Fair warning, I am a very open guy (probably too much for my own good at times) so this is going to get pretty personal; but I hope instead of judging me, you realize that just because I am a Christian, it doesn’t make me “divine”, but rather I hope it shows you my acknowledgement of being a sinner and that I need the constant salvation of Jesus to break the chains of sin that “hold me down” in this world and that I need His help and guidance through His Word to become the person I want to be; the person I was born to be.  Through my memory I will do the best I can to illustrate how my faith came to be; so here goes!


My earliest memory of me experiencing God and Christianity was when I was around 8 years.  I remember my mother had been going to church without me when I would be with my Dad every other weekend and eventually she brought me with her.  I remember not wanting to go; having to wake up early and my mom taking me away from my precious cartoon watching time.  Believe it or not, I was quite shy for a lot of my childhood.  I didn’t want to go to Sunday school and preferred to stay with my mother in the normal “adult” service.  My mother did make me go to Sunday school sometimes but I was just too shy to really want to hang out with the other kids; I was definitely a momma’s boy.  I feel like a lot boys who grow up with single mothers end up having a really close relationship with their mother and for me, I just didn’t want to leave her side a lot as a young kid.  I don’t really remember too much from those early days, but my mother tells me that there were times that I would sing and dance during worship and sometimes she would just look down at me and see my face being lit up!

Much to my mother’s dismay, I rarely paid attention to the pastor’s sermons.  Even as I got older I just never was too interested in what they were saying; either that or thanks to my ADD I just couldn’t stay focused on the sermon.  I would get bored and end up doodling or something to help me pass the time.  It makes a lot of sense actually; to this day, I really don’t enjoy long lectures unless I am really into the subject (which these days in church, I certainly am), but I am a kinesthetic learner, which means that I learn by doing things; hands on, otherwise I tend to lose interest.  I do remember though around the time of me being in fifth grade, so 11-12 years old I would read a lot of the book of Revelations during sermons.  Now I know that might seem kind of strange seeing as Revelations is somewhat of a dark book as it talks about the end of the world and Jesus’s return.  I think I simply just found it really interesting at the time; like a really crazy fantasy novel and it therefore held onto my short attention span lol.

I remember into my preteen and early teen years finally starting to go to groups and services that were designed for my age group.  I remember it being fun and I enjoyed the singing and even started to pay attention more to the sermons.  There was a part of me that was just beginning to understand who Jesus was and what He did for me when He died on the cross.  However, I was also being pulled in the other direction; our culture I think playing a large part in that as it tends to be really focused on outward beauty, sex, alcohol and the like.  I was introduced to pornography at a fairly young age and became addicted pretty quickly.  I remember being obsessed with video games and I started to get chubby.  In school, I was still a shy kid until towards the end of eighth grade, except for a few friends I had made in the neighborhood I lived in; and as I was teased a lot for being fat or assumed to be gay in most of middle school, I believe I started to get somewhat depressed and it lead me to turn to pornography and video games even more for “love” and “acceptance”; as those things wouldn’t tease me and they made me feel “good”.  It was like I was being torn between good and evil, and evil was winning many of the battles.  Thanks to God’s grace, I am not really hard on myself for who I was, mainly because of the forgiveness God constantly grants me through the repentance of my sins in His Son’s holy name; but I believe I was just too immature being that young; immature in myself and in my faith to really understand how to live a righteous life. I just was not passionate about my faith.  Church was more like something I went to and learned about Jesus because my mother told me to go and brought me; I pretty much didn’t have a choice in the matter, which in many ways I think is good because I was being taught great things, I just wasn’t absorbing hardly any of it.  I even remember going to the grocery store with my mother after church and sometimes stealing Xbox demo discs from the Xbox magazine in the store; clearly I wasn’t learning much, mostly because of my own ignorance and immaturity. 

There was a big season in my life that really shook things up for me that had me dive into those evils even more; which spanned from the summer before my freshman year of high school into the summer after my freshman year of high school.  My dad moved to Maine and my mother got remarried. (Mom and Dad, I LOVE YOU BOTH SO MUCH, and in no way am I upset at either of you for the choices you both have made in your lives.  They are your lives and you control them); and to clarify these weren’t “bad” choices by my parents, just ones that greatly affected me.  Let’s rewind for a moment to try and have why both of those things impacted me so hugely make sense.  My parents split up when I was 2 years old so I have no memory of my parents being together and never grew up in a normal two parent household.  The interesting thing about the situation though is that both of my parents grew up outside of Washington DC, my mother growing up mostly in Maryland and my father growing up mostly in northern Virginia.  I was born in Oklahoma at a military base as my mother and father met in the Air Force.  After the separation they both moved back to where their families were and by the time their divorce was finalized when I was 5 years old; I had become accustomed to the custody agreement which was me seeing my dad every other weekend.  From my earliest memory, I lived with my mother and I would only see my father every other weekend unless there was a special trip planned or if there was a holiday, which my parents normally spilt those up equally; for example, I would spend every Christmas Eve with my dad and that side of my family in VA and then spend Christmas Day with my mom and that side of my family in MD.  The point of all of this being is that I had just become so accustomed to my dad always being around and in my life, even if it was not every day like most families so when he moved to Maine, it took a big toll on me.  All of sudden there were no “Boys Nights Out” every other Friday night anymore and the fun weekends we would spend together.  I remember the day he left pretty clearly; my mother was dropping me off at the local YMCA because I was a summer camp counselor that year.  As we pulled up I noticed my dad’s car in the parking lot FULL of stuff.  He came out and walked over to the car and said he was on his way up to Maine and wanted to say goodbye as he held back tears.  My mother even started to choke up a bit (which amazed me because most of my memories of my parents interacting had been fighting); I remember my Dad saying to my mother something along the lines of, “I bet you’re happy I won’t be around now”.  I gave my Dad a hug which he returned with a bigger hug than normal, told me how much he loved me and then he left.  The moment seemed to go by fast and my memory probably fails me on the exact details but that is how I remember it for the most part; I think I was too excited about my day at the summer camp.  My dad had briefly mentioned to me that things might be changing soon and that he might move to Maine, but I guess I never thought it would happen or even took the time to think about what that truly meant.  It wasn’t until a few days later and the weekend came that I was supposed to be with my Dad, did it really hit me.  All of sudden my routine of seeing him ended and my world exhibited a huge crack in its foundation.   I remember being in the basement and I just started to bawl my eyes out.  My mother was doing laundry and asked me what was wrong; and I said “my Dad is gone” …even as I reminisce about it now, I can still feel what it felt like; the tears currently in my eyes as I write the words; showing how hard that was to endure for me.  He didn’t die, but it almost felt as such.  He was no longer in the routine of my life and it stung; it was strange and so foreign.  My normal was now abnormal.  If you tack on going through puberty and the "fun and crazy" emotions that come with that, starting high school and doing so in a Christian school for the first time, it was a lot to take on as I started ninth grade.  This year was my “rebellion” year.  For the first time my grades were not A’s and B’s, I started to fight/argue with my mother which hadn’t really happened before; or at least not at the level that it was occurring at then, I would sleep during classes and I just stopped caring about a lot of things.  Being in the Christian school didn’t really do anything for my faith either; I just wasn’t “into it” at all so to speak.  For some reason it just wasn’t impacting me yet, and maybe it’s because I didn’t care about it or it didn’t seem like something valuable to me; yet.  Fast forward through the year and we get to my mother getting remarried.  I was not excited about it at all.  Growing up it had always been mostly just me and my mom; I was the man of our house and I was/am very protective of her.  She knew this guy from the past and they had reconnected but he lived in Florida and I had only met him myself less than a handful of times.  When she told me she was going to marry him, I was pretty shocked but I don’t think I let it really hit me because I was too busy being 15 and being “angry at the world”.  The next big shocker was that my mother was moving us to Florida because it was cheaper to live there and then she could be the mother she had always wanted to be; a stay at home one.  This shocked my system because I was being taken away from the area I grew up in, my friends, and my family who all lived in the same area for much of my life.  I remember after getting to Florida, just feeling really unsettled about living there.  The church we went to down there was actually pretty cool and really relaxed but I just couldn’t shake that living in Florida was not where I should be.  I can’t explain it even to this day, but everything happens for a reason and I know it was all a part of God’s plan.  I started to get this idea that I wanted to “give my dad a chance” and live with him in Maine for the first time in my life and after begging my mother to go, after a month in Florida I was on my way to Maine.  It was one of the hardest decisions I had to make especially because I knew that it was one that killed my mother to let happen; and to this day I think still bothers her a little.  I felt so awful watching my mother cry in the airport as she told me to give her my ticket because it felt wrong for me to leave and she was going to rip it up.  I had to hide from my own mother in the Jacksonville airport on my way to Portland.  I would never wish that feeling on anyone; another one that brings up tears again…

Now my father is someone that, until recently, never expressed to me that he believed in God or even had any faith.  He didn’t attend church every Sunday and thus neither did I anymore; whatever faith I had was now on hiatus and “on hold” for the next 8 years of my life.  I moved to Maine in August of 2003 and it wasn’t until May of 2011 that my faith started to become “unfrozen” and awaken from its deep DEEP slumber.  During this eight year time span (which wasn’t as bad as the picture I am painting, but I am focusing on the bad for the purpose of showing how badly I needed God in my life), I continued to fall deeper into the many misconceptions of love and happiness in this world.  I turned to sex, drugs, alcohol, and pornography among others which lead to one bad/unhealthy relationship to the next and at its worst (without diving too far into my personal life) minor bouts of depression, slight alcoholism, blackout nights in college, a bad pornography addiction, an insatiable appetite for sex in order to feel loved, and an overnight stay in a hospital which included a psych evaluation; which I passed with flying colors lol, I am not mentally ill, I had just been extremely drunk one night which lead to me saying things and doing things that isn’t truly me but did lead to me being forced to have 8 weeks of counseling.  I say all of this and am so open because I am not afraid to share how bad things got with me on my fruitless quest for love, acceptance, and happiness through the avenues that this world claims they can be found in.  I want people to know my story not so I can have their pity but because I want my life to be an example and a great testimony to how amazing God is and what coming to know Him has done for my life!

Okay, so now we are up to May of 2011.  As some of you have read in my first blog post, I met a really special woman; my current ex-girlfriend and someone who a part of me will always love.  Now I do not want to talk about my relationship with her anymore to respect her wishes and also because that stuff I realize should be private; but I do need to get into it some because she played a HUGE role in my life; specifically to my faith and how I got to where I am today.  We will call my ex-girlfriend “Silver” in this blog.  Without getting too much into things between Silver and I, we were both not in the greatest of places when we met; we were both desperate for love and “ready” for it; but we both fell in love with broken and damaged hearts.  We fought for our relationship many times and even broke up twice throughout the 9 months that we dated, but I think a lot of the time, we didn’t really understand why we were together other than the love we had for one another and us wanting a deep intimate and personal relationship.  Little did we know at the time, but our relationship was part of a much grander plan than we could see at the time.  Silver and I shared pretty much everything to each other and it became really clear to us the more and more that we did share with each other, of how badly we needed a greater love to heal us; we couldn’t “fix” each other.  It lead to Silver’s faith growing and being “re-found” and it lead to mine truly being found for the first time.  I can remember the night very clear when I just surrendered to God.  I was tired of hurting Silver and not being the boyfriend I knew I could be, and should be.  I knew I was better and greater than I was exhibiting and through Silver, I realized how badly I needed and wanted God in my life.  Granted my motifs were solely based off of my love for Silver, to be a better man for her and a better person in general; but it was done out of love.  To truly Love is to know God and I believe in most any circumstance if you are doing something out of love in a pure, honest, righteous and Godly way; you are exhibiting part of God’s character; the most important in my opinion.

“God is love, and all who live in Love live in God, and God lives in them.” – 1 John 4:16b

Three things will last forever; faith, hope, and love; and the greatest of these is Love.” – 1 Corinthians 13:13

It was a night towards the end of October in 2011; I was listening to a song by Jars of Clay titled Worlds Apart (the first song in the playlist below of songs that I am listening to as I write this blog post) after getting into a fight with Silver on Skype, as she was living in England for four and half months of our relationship.  As I listen to the song again now, I can remember exactly how it hit me that night; because I can feel the same things again right now… here are the lyrics to the song that moved me to my knees.

“I am the only one to blame for this
Somehow it all ends up the same
Soaring on the wings of selfish pride
I flew too high and like Icarus I collide
With a world I try so hard to leave behind
To rid myself of all but love
to give and die

To turn away and not become
Another nail to pierce the skin of one who loves
more deeply than the oceans,
more abundant than the tears
Of a world embracing every heartache

Can I be the one to sacrifice
Or grip the spear and watch the blood and water flow

To love you - take my world apart
To need you - I am on my knees
To love you - take my world apart
To need you - broken on my knees

All said and done I stand alone
Amongst remains of a life I should not own
It takes all I am to believe
In the mercy that covers me

Did you really have to die for me?
All I am for all you are
Because what I need and what I believe are worlds apart

I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
and wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
More and more I need you now,
I owe you more each passing hour
the battle between grace and pride
I gave up not so long ago
So steal my heart and take the pain
and wash the feet and cleanse my pride
take the selfish, take the weak,
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
the sin-soaked heart and make it yours
take my world all apart
take it now, take it now
and serve the ones that I despise
speak the words I can't deny
watch the world I used to love
fall to dust and thrown away
I look beyond the empty cross
forgetting what my life has cost
so wipe away the crimson stains
and dull the nails that still remain
so steal my heart and take the pain
take the selfish, take the weak
and all the things I cannot hide
take the beauty, take my tears
take my world apart, take my world apart
I pray, I pray, I pray
take my world apart”



I was done; I was done trying to live my life without Him.  I was done hurting her and myself.  I broke down in tears and cried, but cried like until this night in my life, I had never cried before.  I literally fell to my knees begging God to forgive me, repeating over and over that I wanted Him in my life and that I needed Him.  That I could/would no longer live my life without Him in it as the Jars of Clay song played on repeat for about an hour.  I cried so hard; there has only been one other time in my life that I cried as hard as I did that night which didn’t happen in my life until roughly 5 months later.  I was saturating the floor and my shirt; the tears just kept flowing and flowing.  It was like I was releasing 23 years of built up pain as I surrendered my heart to my Lord and Savior.  Snot was coming out of my nose and I eventually even just curled up into a ball on the floor as I cried and reached out for God.  It was an intense and amazing experience.

I remember feeling so good about it and so excited to tell Silver about the experience the next day.  A part of me hoped it would not only be a turning point in my life but also in our relationship; which at first it did.  But like I mentioned before, there was too much that needed to be healed and fixed in us than we could do for each other and I was so new in my faith; on fire for it as I am today, but very spiritually immature.  I would say there are parts of me that still are today, but not like I was then.  However, I do feel like God has placed me on the “fast track” in my faith and I feel like I have learned and grown a lot in it through the many trials I have faced since that night in October.  I did notice though, that at first I started to act “holier than thou” and judgmental; WRONG!  Thankfully God has humbled me greatly in those areas and has shown me that who I am called to be is not someone who judges others (and for the record I judge NONE of you reading this, whether you share in my beliefs or not); that judgment is God’s and God’s alone and the main purpose of my life is to love God and love others as God loves us and to be an example of who He is to the best of my abilities as an imperfect person.

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn others, or it will all come back against you. Forgive others, and you will be forgiven.” – Luke 6:37

God alone, who gave the law, is the Judge. He alone has the power to save or to destroy. So what right do you have to judge your neighbor?” – James 4:12

“Do not judge others, and you will not be judged.  For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.” – Matthew 7:1-2

“Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord. Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many.” – Hebrews 12:14-15

“Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.  Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.  Never be lazy, but work hard and serve the Lord enthusiastically.  Rejoice in our confident hope. Be patient in trouble, and keep on praying.  When God’s people are in need, be ready to help them. Always be eager to practice hospitality.  Bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them.  Be happy with those who are happy, and weep with those who weep.  Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all!” – Romans 12:9-16

“Teacher, which is the most important commandment in the Law of Moses?”  Jesus replied, ‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” - Matthew 22:36-40

As Silver and I’s relationship continued to fall through the cracks of the broken foundation it was built on; something still so beautiful and wonderful that only God could design was happening at the same time.  I was falling in love with God.  More and more I wanted to know Him, more and more I began to seek Him and pursue Him in my life.  Even after I moved to be with Silver after she came home from England and we broke up for the last time 3 weeks later and as I stayed there hoping her and I could use our renewed faiths to fill the holes in our hearts, God was working through the pain; just not as I had hoped for.  Silver and I did not work out but God has blessed me enormously through my relationship with her.  It forced me to take a deep hard look at who I was, who I am, and who I want to be.  To see things I couldn’t before.  He blessed me with meeting two amazing people in Maine at a Christian Marriage Conference I went to last November to try and learn how to have a better relationship with Silver and more importantly on how to have a relationship centered upon God.  He blessed me with so many amazing people during my stay in Connecticut; including at least one lifelong friend. 

Even with me being diagnosed with cancer; my faith has grown and God has blessed me in it.  I feel God’s love for me in every new friendship I have made and it has given me an even greater appreciation for the friends I already had; whether they are Christians or not, because I can feel God in them, even if they don’t even know it themselves.  I am just so thankful to God for all He has done.  Even through the fear of this disease, I can feel God’s power overcoming that fear and instilling in me the hope that this season is only temporary and I will be stronger and better than ever after!  I am growing so much as a person and spiritually throughout this time and God has blessed me with some great people here in Maryland and many others spread not only throughout the country but even across the Atlantic.

I wish I could truly explain the joy in my heart that God has brought me; but I honestly can’t because it’s a feeling that really just has to be felt to be understood; no words give it proper justice.  I am falling more and more in love with our Creator and less and less with “creation”.  God has helped me overcome many of the things I used to struggle with.  I haven’t looked at pornography in over 10 months, I have made a commitment to myself and Him to be abstinent until I get married, I haven’t gotten drunk in over 9 months now and I have a new found understanding of what true love is; His love.

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres.” – 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I realize that I use that verse a lot; the reason being that it is one of the most important verses in the Bible and one that I know I will need healthy reminders of throughout my life; seeing as I want to love as God loves us!

I also realize that many of you might be offended by my choice to not get drunk anymore; and for me, I just realized that too often I became someone I didn't enjoy being.  Once I beat this cancer; I may have a beer now and then or a glass of wine; but I am vowing to myself to never get drunk again; it just caused more problems than it was worth and I don't want or need any "false temporary solutions or highs" in my life.

"So be careful how you live.  Don't live like fools but like those who are wise.  Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.  Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do.  Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life.  Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts.  And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." - Ephesians 5:15-20

I can honestly say that I feel a greater "high" from praising and worshiping the Lord than I ever had getting drunk; and better yet, it's free and you don't have a hangover the next day!   =)

I am just completely on fire for Christ and wanting to share this feeling with all of those I encounter.  Will I be able to do it perfectly, no; but that doesn’t mean I should stop trying.  I find hope and inspiration in many things.  One of them being in other Christians; such as Ashley Paige and Jefferson Bethke who made these videos below.



DEAR POP CULTURE


COUNTERFEIT GOD'S



And also through my family and the many friends who I am so blessed to have in my life!!!!!

So here I am today, the same Matthew Nelson in some ways, but also a completely new Matthew Nelson in many others.

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” - 2 Corinthians 5:17

I thank God for it all, I thank God for the hardships I have experienced in these past 15 months and even the one’s further in the past because they have brought me to where I am today; I also thank Him for any future trials because they have all been and will all be for my good and ultimately have given Him and by His mercy and grace will continue to bring Him glory!   HALLELUJAH!

“Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.  For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow.  So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.  If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking.  But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind.  Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.  Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do.  Believers who are poor have something to boast about, for God has honored them.  And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field.  The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements.  God blesses those who patiently endure testing and temptation. Afterward they will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.  And remember, when you are being tempted, do not say, “God is tempting me.” God is never tempted to do wrong, and he never tempts anyone else.  Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away.  These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.  So don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters.  Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens.  He never changes or casts a shifting shadow.  He chose to give birth to us by giving us his true word. And we, out of all creation, became his prized possession.” – James 1:2-18

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them.” – Romans 8:28

Ya’ll gotta realize this; God is Always Good!  Even if you can’t tell right away, continue to trust Him, continue to praise Him, and continue to love Him; He never stops loving you!

I am so excited for this new life I am beginning to live and I just want to spread His love to as many people as I can!

I challenge you all this week to seek God in some way, in any way; whether it be attending church, loving someone you haven’t in a while, watching a Christian film, or reading the Bible etc.  You really have nothing to lose; except for your old self but I promise you, the new you is still you and awesome, just even better with God in your lives and hearts and minds!  Take a leap of faith; I PROMISE you that it won’t kill you; but in fact actually give you L I F E!  

I love you all

God Bless,

-Matthew   =)


Blog Playlist:

No comments: