For years, I had been thoroughly depressed and erratically angry. My soul screamed under the weight of a broken world and broken life. And I was helpless to do anything about it. I would cut at my wrists to the point of breaking the skin, but I was too young to go through with it.
God existed, in my view, but only to torment me. He said "Here, have a family...but never be safe." And "Here, have a church...but never be accepted." Also, "Here, have a heart and mind...but they will be warped beyond recognition." Everytime I thought the circumstances were bound to change, they would plunge me into a helpless misery once more.
At a sweaty summer camp, in that summer before high school, the challenge was posed to me as it had been for several summers previous: Will you relinquish your life to the Lord? I fought it. My identity as an outsider gave me power--something to hold on to. Many still thought of me as an outsider. Why would I join their ranks? But at the end of that camp, when given an opportunity to go off on my own with two sticks and decide whether or not to align them in the shape of a cross, signifying my submission, I began to break. "Screw it," I thought with tears in my eyes, "I can't fight anymore."
What I inwardly confessed at that camp became a fully-orbed reality later in the summer on the DC to Nags Head bike trip. I called home from Jamestown and told my parents that something was different. Brokenness no longer defined my life. It was the gateway to regaining my life. The words were tattooed upon my heart: "I am a great sinner and I have a great Savior."
I started to read the Bible and pray every night. I started with the book of Revelation, and though I largely couldn't understand it, I loved it. On the first day of high school, when a popular kid jerked his shoulders at me as if to fight me, I told him "That is not me anymore, man. I'm different."
Later that Fall, I went on a church youth retreat. For the first time, I started absorbing everything that was being said. And in my free time, while others were hitting the arcade, I opened up the Bible to the book of Romans for the first time since my eyes and heart were opened to the truth. I had sung some of the verses from that book in church musicals as a kid, but for the first time, the music of God's grace truly played upon my heart.
Even in college, I called myself a "young Christian" with pride, knowing that God's work upon my broken heart was still in the infant stages. But I can no longer claim that label. I have now lived over my half of my life since then. I am a 30 year old husband and father, a pastor and an Army chaplain. Today, I was awarded my combat patch. Tomorrow, I will preach and lead a chapel.
And beyond all of these things, one fundamental truth still abides. A truth that brought meaning to the brokenness and projected my life in an inevitable upward trajectory: I am a great sinner and I have a great Savior.
