As part of the adoption application (which we finally submitted - Yay!) we both had to write our testimonies. With Shawn's permission, I have posted his testimony below.
THE EARLY YEARS
When asked about what my testimony is, what’s my story, I
struggle. I am not a man of many words, so describing a distinct divine moment
is hard for me. You see, I have always seen life not as a time filled with
fate, but as actions of God’s will and man’s decisions. I was raised in a
“casual Christian” home. My father was a
retired military turned semi truck driver, and my mother was a part time
waitress. We went to church, when we had
time, when we didn’t over sleep or when the chores where caught up. Even though my family believed in Christ as
their savior, we were not the most obedient to his word. My mother tried to “church” us as she enrolled
me and my older siblings in a small private school in the basement of the
church we attended. My two oldest
brothers and my sister graduated from this school. My other brother and I were
not so fortunate. My parents had a falling out with the principle of the school
and we were tossed into the chaotic world of public schools where we learned
all the wrong things and not much of what the teacher was teaching…we became
those kids…
My grandmother is the most faithful person I have ever met. She was widowed before my birth, yet never
remarried or turned to another man. She
instead turned to God and the teaching of the bible. She only kept one husband,
even past his early passing. She loves
and lives for Christ. She was the early
beacon of light that introduced me to Him, to His ways, to His love.
My sister Krista and her husband Jesse White were early
leaders for me in the Christian faith. When
I was as young as 9 or so I would work for them every Saturday night and during
every week off school at their auction house. Moving small boxes, helping carry bigger
items, and catching bids as a junior ring man during the sell as well as clean
up and tear down afterward. I thought it
was awesome because I was out making money and all my friends were at home
bored to wits end. Little did I know
that more than work ethics were being instilled in me. Jesse’s dad, Jim, was the founder of the
auction that Jesse and Krista ran, but he was also a pastor. No matter how late the auction ran on Saturday
night, no matter how hard you worked, or how sore your muscles were, you were
up on Sunday morning and you were going to church.
Just like church, when it came time to eat, even if you had
moved an entire storage unit of furniture and boxes before breakfast, you took
the time to thank the Lord for your food before you ate. One afternoon we were taking a break at the
auction and I was talking to Jesse and Jim and a lot of the discussions we had
revolved around faith and Jim loved to share his testimony. I casually stated that one day I would like to
be pastor. Not sure where that came
from, I was a shy kid and did not like speaking in front of crowds. Well, a couple weeks later Jim called me to
the pulpit and let me have a turn at speaking to the crowd. At first I was frightened, but that subsided
and the words began to flow. I am sure
it was an incoherent rambling of mild biblical basis delivered from a stage
frightened 10 year old boy. All in all
everyone said I did a great job, but that’s what supportive adults do.
THE PRODIGAL YEARS
The early years seemed easy compared to my prodigal years of
being a teenager. I eventually
discovered females and wanted my weekends to be free so I quit working for the
auction when I was about 14. I started
chasing girls and being the youngest of five, I started partying most every
weekend too. I made every wrong choice
you could imagine. Yet most nights as I
would lay in bed I prayed…I would beg for forgiveness. Beg to be accepted into His kingdom. I would ask for a way out of the holes I had
dug myself into. Even though I was the
poorest excuse for a self proclaimed Christian you could find, He always lead
me out of darkness and I knew it was only by his grace. Yet I would fall away again and again and
again. I broke my word to him every time
I prayed, but He never betrayed me.
SWEET MERCY
Well, when you come from a lower income family, you can’t
party like a rock star unless you pay for it yourself. So, at age 16 (on my 16th birthday
to be exact) I started working at a local fast food restaurant. It was fun; the party would start while we were
at work and carry on to someones parent’s house afterward. There were mornings that I had to work the
kitchen for breakfast on a Saturday or Sunday morning and I would still be half
drunk and exhausted. So I would buy
no-dose or Stackers or some kind of energy pills (this was before the energy
drink craze). There were times I would
take too much and find myself dry heaving in the dumpster, my heart racing. At least once I thought I was going to die
from a caffeine overdose. For some
reason He spared me, maybe I was just over dramatic at the time, but I vowed to
never do that again, but of course I did do it again. Many times.
Thanks to this greasy burger joint, I was introduced to a young woman
named Amber. I swear to you God put her
there to save me from my self-destructive ways. Maybe it was a hangover and early morning
light, but I walked around the corner to clock in and she was taking an order
in the drive thru and she looked like an angel (wearing a head set and fast
food uniform), the light from the quick serve window radiating around her
struck me as divine. I had spoke to her
a couple times, but she was one of the “good girls” and I knew she wouldn’t go
for a foul mouthed cigarette smoking, alcohol abusing poor boy like me. But something inside me said “Get to know
her”. So I went out on a limb and went for it. So after time actually trying to get to know a
girl for who she was and not for my own intentions, I truly fell for her. She turned me down I don’t know how many
times. Eventually, not sure why or how
it happened she agreed to go out, that had to be the hand of God. Now, my life did not change overnight, but
through her I can see the same mercy and grace I saw in my grandmother. She did not give up on me, not even when I
continued down my foolish path. I
believe the only thing that held her hand in mine was the hand of God. He used her to save me.
BAPTISM
I was never baptized as a child, wasn’t really sure what it
was. But, my angel Amber re-introduced me to church. So if I wanted to see her on Sunday, I would
have to get up and go to church. And I
did. This forced me to change myself,
cut back on the drinking and not stay out AS late. Yes I still partied, but it was scaled back. I was fortunate enough to get to know Pastor
Tim Underhill the preacher at Rolling Fork Christian. He is a kind man with a pleasant disposition. He was not pushy about the whole baptism
thing. After a while I came to
understand what the baptism meant and I continued to pray. Now, by this time I
had left public school and had enrolled in a small Christian school so I could
hurry up and graduate (Amber had graduated a year ahead of me). I was getting my tank refilled with all this mercy
and love. The time had come. The old me had to die, be buried and rise a new
man in Christ. Now this time period in
my life was a blur. I am not sure if I had graduated yet or if I was still in
school. But I knew I needed the change. The voice deep inside pushed me to change. So I did it. I was baptized one Sunday morning and I felt
great, until I got home. My mom was
disappointed because she was not there to see it. I was a little crushed. But that is life.
CHANGE IS NOT EASY OR
NATURAL
I had a plan. I did
not get good grades in high school, so getting into college would not be easy. I had taken two years of Air Force JROTC my
sophomore and junior years in public school. So, it just made sense to join the Air Force
and attend the CCAF and get a degree by the time my 4 years were up. Fool proof plan. My Dad retired from the Army when I was less
than a year old, so I had heard all the stories my whole life. And in the post 9/11 America, the Air Force is
way safer than the Marines or Army. So
while signing up, I got knocked out of all the good jobs due to minor hearing
loss. Then, on my ship out date, I
shaved my patchy goatee and was ready to fly into the wild blue yonder…but that
didn’t happen. I was overweight by one
pound. I was devastated. So I came home and joined the work force. Yes I could have lost one pound and shipped 30
days later, but that was not God’s plan for me and Amber. Amber is a homebody who needs her family
close. Military life is not for her. So my plan changed, and changed again and again.
One thing did not change, Amber was by
my side keeping me in check, once again only by God’s grace and mercy. So we settled down and got married. We bought a house and Amber graduated college.
We no longer attended the church that I
was baptized in and that we were married in. We had switched to a church closer to home. It had a fine young pastor and his adorable
family. He reached out to us and our
families and I was so ever grateful for Matthew and Rachel Johnson. But a young pastor in an old church sometimes
does not mix. There was a group within
the church that attacked Matthews’s character and was trying to force him out. It was obvious that Matthew could not stay at
this church. We wanted no part of this
political battle, so we left the church…for years. Amber and I were on different shifts and I was
looking for a hobby so to say. I was
driving home from work one day and saw a banner hanging off the local fire
department substation that read “NOW RECRUITING” in large bold print. I had to do it. I needed this chance to be someone, I wanted a
change.
INTRO TO PARKWAY
So goes the days of being a jolly volunteer, running out in
the middle of the night, missing dinner and ends of movies. There were several near misses and emotionally
draining calls to respond to. I was
hooked and loved every last minute of my time with the fine men and women of
the Bardstown Nelson County Fire Department. It is really amazing how God used these three
years to lead us back to the church. It is still baffling to me today. As my job positions changed at work and I
jumped from shift to shift it was becoming difficult to get the required
training hours needed to stay active at the fire department. So I would attend Friday morning training with
the paid crew. Most of these days were
full of building preplans and computer training. One of the last Friday morning
trainings I attended we did a “preplan walkthrough” of Parkway Baptist Church. It is a larger church than I had ever
attended. From the moment I walked in I
was awestruck. They loved their children. They had a secure, fun and
educational preschool area, a playground outside, they had a nice area for
older children to learn and worship then they had an area I had never
expected…it looked like a night club almost, illuminated by black lights there
was a stage and a full set of instruments, colorful crosses and ten
commandments tablets glowed off the walls.
Where was this 10 years ago? Usually during a preplan, I concentrate on FDC
hook ups, and attack methods, areas that could be a potential hazard to fire
fighters entering the building. But not
today. I was blown away at how much this
church reached out to its youth. But it
was more than that too. There were
prayer rooms, and a library loaded with educational Christian books. The sanctuary had two large screens so
everyone could sing along with the worship leader and read the text the pastor
was preaching from. They not only loved
the children, but loved all who attended their services. God had blessed my home town with an amazing
treasure that I had failed to notice for all this time. When I got home, I told Amber how awesome it
was. Then I filed it away and never went
back.
PARENTHOOD, FOOLISH
PRIDE AND SAVING GRACE
Amber and I had been blessed with promotions and in my
foolish mind it was due to my hard work. We had sold our nice starter home and built a
large house on a huge plot of land that included a barn and a pond. We were at the top of our game. We were excitedly expecting our first child in
my mind our only biological child. I
always said we could have one child and if we wanted more, we could adopt one. Then the game changed. Amber
was forced to changed shifts so we could no longer ride share and had to buy a
car. My truck was too little to haul a
baby in, so we had to buy ANOTHER car. Finally the day came and we were blessed with
our beautiful Miss Abigail May, Abby for short. The blessing also came with diapers, formula
and clothes. No biggie we got this
right, wrong. Abby was born with reflux,
she had to eat special formula which was about $75 a week plus reflux medicine.
We were broke. Along comes the recession and I get moved from
a team leader position back to production reducing my pay even further. So we prayed and it was clear, we needed to
trim the fat and reduce our life style. We
purchased a much smaller older house and sold our nice big house. I jumped shifts to dodge layoffs, the whole
time being guided by Gods sovereign hands. As Abby started getting older, and our
mistakes became clear the need to join a church resounded loudly. We talked about this and that and decided to
try out that big church I toured a couple years before. It was a great fit. God is moving through that Church and through
our family. God has put in place strong
leadership that hold tight to sound doctrine. In the three years we have been attending
Parkway Baptist, I have grown spiritually beyond all recognition. We have added a second daughter to the
picture, Ashton Macie, who will be two in October. I love seeing my daughters enjoying church,
interacting with other children who love God as they do. I love hearing them sing Jesus Loves Me and telling
me about Noah’s Ark. It is refreshing
seeing what is being told to them at home being reinforced at church, because
you know parents can be so square. God
has brought us to a place that embraces change in a biblical method while
holding strong to biblical principle. This
atmosphere promotes healthy spiritual growth from within. I know while typing this up it was painful to
look back and see who I was, all the wrong that I’ve done. But there is peace knowing that through Christ
alone, these sins and transgressions are forgiven eternally.
WHO I AM
I have lived my life loving God, but denying his truth as
Peter denied Christ three times. I have
heard and read the Parable of the Prodigal Son, but more so, I have lived it. I have cried out to the Lord in anger just to
fall onto my tears to beg for mercy. I
have seen flames take 12 lives all at the same time, but found peace in His
word. I struggle with my pride, but ask
Him for help. I am a sinner, but I pray
for forgiveness with a heart of repentance. As I beg God for forgiveness, I struggle to
give forgiveness, foolish pride. God is
moving me to change my stubborn ways and with His help I will overcome this
sinful nature. I pray you find this
insight full as we move forward to adoption.
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