“I was raised by Christians, but I didn’t buy into the ‘Christian’ thing. I felt like church was a thing, and God was the thing church was about. When I was 11, I thought church was cool, there were nice people, I just didn’t believe what they believed. For the next three years, I lived trying to make myself as happy as possible. I decided life was what I make it, so I was in the pursuit of what was the best the world has to offer. But it left me really empty, thinking that if this is how it leaves me, life sucks. There’s nothing worth living for, but that’s all I had. So I became extremely depressed and a steady cutter. I had really great Christian friends at the time and they told me, ‘Christian, come to church camp.’ The speaker said on the first night, ‘I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what you’re doing. God loves you and he wants you, right now. You don’t have to fix yourself.’ I just kinda laughed, ‘if that’s the truth, if God really wants me for his purposes, then God is silly. I am a messed up kid and have nothing to offer God.’ I ignored it the first night, but it kept coming back, ‘Christian, I want you. Christian, I love you. I don’t care that you’ve done this, I don’t care what you’re going to do, you’re going to mess up a lot more then just now.’ Eventually, it just broke me, ‘God if you really want me, then I’m here. I know your love is real, and if you want me, then I’m running with it.’ And so I did. I became a born again Christian at 14, and that was the start of a wonderful journey.”