First things first...

Who am I?  Good question!  I'm glad you asked!

The simplest answer?  I'm just a guy.  Seriously - nothing special here - that is until God got a hold of my life.  I was telling a Pastor friend of mine just last night that at High School I would achieve a 80-90% average in the first semester with relative ease, and then for the second semester I would start skipping classes but would ensure that my grades would be good enough to pass.

During the High School years I dated a girl for several years from the age of 17-22.  During one summer this girl and myself made a trip out to Prince Edward Island where we ended up getting engaged.  After the engagement I started having thoughts that my new fiancée was not the person I should spend my life with, but, I was ready to honour my lifetime commitment. It would be only a couple of months after our engagement that I found that something was really wrong with our relationship, but I couldn't figure out what it was.  What gave it away to me at the time were her eyes - they had gone ice cold - but wasn't able to determine the cause.

I made the decision to confront the situation head on to get to the cause.  While standing on her front porch, I informed my girlfriend and now fiancée that while I loved her deeply, we couldn't continue on.  All I could keep thinking at the time was that she was supposed to be break up with me, because it seemed like her love for me had gone cold, but that it was left up to me to sever the relationship.  During a lengthy conversation, I ended up walking away to my car, sobbing heavily, while my now ex-fiancée stood at her front porch with a cold demeanor.

The short 2 block, 1 minute drive home following that moment would change my life forever.

Prior to these events taking place, I was attracted to the teachings of a friend of mine from High School.  He started talking to me of the things of God and I was being drawn in.

Now I was driving home, thinking to myself "God, I know you were the one wanting me to break up.  I need to know you are there.  I need to know that you are real".  The 1 minute drive home was the most emotional drive I would ever experience.  I cried the hardest I had ever cried in my life, matched only by my boyhood dog being out to sleep, and years later having my Dad pass away.  The one thought that ran through my mind, which gave little comfort, was that one day they would make a movie about my life.

Within half an hour God would answer my prayer.  When I got home, I quickly informed my Mom that I had broken up with the girl that I had loved,  My Mom's response was simply that she wasn't the right girl for me anyway.  Seeing that it was late in the evening, I made my way up to my bedroom as the next day was Monday and I would need to get up for work.  I went ahead and started to set my alarm clock, and it was at this precise moment that I knew that my prayer from moments ago were being answered.  Upon turning on the radio to test that the alarm was set to an appropriate level of loudness the song "Spirit in the Sky" started to play.  My initial reaction was filled with thoughts of "I have never heard this song on this station before", "God - you are incredible was this is probably the only way I would know this from you", and most of all, all of the pain I felt since leaving the front porch of my ex-fiancée's house would temporarily be filled with awe.  I simply sat on the edge of my bed and laughed in disbelief.  "He is real!" is all that would keep going through my mind.

Over the next few blog posts I'll get you caught up to where I am at today.