My Life

I did not want to be a Christian

When I was young and growing up, I didn’t like Christians, I didn’t like who they were. The ones I met in my life where arrogant and self-righteous. I didn’t even want there to be a God, because I didn’t want to have to be judged for my life. The idea of there being someone watching me all the time, and holding me accountable for every single thing I ever did wrong was so stressful inside me that I did all I could not to think about God.

In July of 1985 I was caught in a riptide at Long Beach state park in New Jersey. I was dragged out to sea and I was under the water most of the time. After fighting to stay alive for as long as I could, I came to a point of complete exhaustion. I was under water and I realized that I was going to die. I felt this heavy anxiety in my entire being as I realized that I am still alive, but in a minute or two, I would be dead. Within a second I was walking in towards the shore line and the water was up to about my knees. I was 17 years old and I was not mature enough to be able to process that I was just saved from drowning in a miraculous way. I was in some kind of shock and I could not understand it. I never told anyone and I tried to never think about it again.

In 1995 God would bring that drowning back to my attention and he began to move in my life. I felt like my normal life was changing and odd things seemed to be happening. I would end up listening to Christian radio in July of that year. In just a few weeks, I would pray a prayer in my car to become a follower of Christ listening to the radio. I fought so hard in the weeks before that prayer. I did not want to be a religious nut. I did not want to have to live my life following some rules. I did not want to associate with self-righteous believers, and be just one more hypocrite. But I would. Now 30 years later, I would look back and see that I too became self-righteous, and a hypocrite, for many many years. I wasn’t changing into a loving kind person. I was changing into a pious critical and condemning person. I knew I was wrong but I could not change. I could hear and see who I was, I could hear the things people would say back to me, and tell me who I was. I knew they were right, but I had no ability to change. For years I started praying that God would not let me die this way. On January 2, 2025, God would begin to answer that pray. He would not let me die that way.

Changeology

I call myself a “changeoligist” as since I was in my early 20s, I was always fascinated by people and their inability to change. I would see so many people who were stuck in a rut and seemed to not be able to change to improve their lives. I knew in my 20s that I was immature, and I could see mature people all around me, but I could not seem to be like them. I wanted so badly to be stable and to be secure, but was was extremely sensitive and everything would upset me.

In July of 1995 I was looking for a jazz station on the radio in NYC and I came across Chuck Swindoll. I found myself wanting to listen to Chuck every day. In just a few weeks I would come to pray and ask Jesus to forgive my sins and help me to find how to live for him. My story is one of failure and mistakes. I saw so many different people come to believe in Jesus and have some kind of change but I had none at all in almost 30 years. I prayed for years that God would not let me die this way, being so bitter and angry. In January of 2025 God would answer my prayer and finally I began to change. This is my story, my reflections and observations on my life as a failed believer and how God has changed me out of this failure.