Growing up, home was an extremely broken environment full of addiction, abuse, and neglect. I was familiar with God, heaven, and hell because my family went to church, but I didn’t have a relationship with Jesus.
All the trauma I experienced from a young age severely impacted my development. I learned to ignore and avoid my emotions, and I began to cope in sinful ways I had seen modeled by my family or in movies. I desperately wanted a way out of the pain I felt.
To escape the brokenness, I searched for safety and comfort in the only ways I knew how. These decisions only further affected my mind and distorted my perception of who I was.
Later, I found a new way to escape through music, and church was the one place that felt safe. I began to sing, play guitar, and lead worship. Sports became another escape. I noticed that the better I performed, the more affirmation I’d get.
As I entered high school, I built my identity around being a musician and athlete. I tried to cover up areas of brokenness in my life, including same-sex attraction, by getting involved in extracurricular activities and befriending people from different social circles. I thought if I could just be the Christian athlete everyone liked, I would finally feel loved.
After my parents’ divorce, I turned to drinking, drugs, and partying, still trying to hide my same-sex attraction. I called myself a Christian, but I was living a double life.
I broke my foot in my junior year, which took me out of sports. For four months, I was stuck at home, and no one came to see me. I realized that I knew a lot of people, but I had never allowed myself to be known. I felt empty and alone. I was so mad at God for everything he let me go through that I decided I wanted nothing to do with him anymore, and my addiction to drugs and alcohol escalated.
Even though I rejected God, he kept pursuing me.
In college, he led me to a student-athlete ministry, where others took a genuine interest in me and lived joyfully and authentically. I enjoyed the people so much that I joined multiple Bible studies a week for friendships and social activities, but I still didn’t want anything to do with God. I was convinced he had abandoned me.
That summer, through studying Scripture and being surrounded by his people, I realized that God never left me; he’d carried me through. I trusted that Jesus died and rose again to forgive my sins and bring me into right relationship with God, but there were still parts of my old life I held onto.
For three years, I was still living in the same sin patterns that marked my life before I believed in Jesus. Eventually, a trusted ministry leader called me out on my hypocrisy and showed me where my life choices did not align with following Jesus. That struck me. I knew he was right.
I learned the gospel more in depth and understood that following Jesus wasn’t about changing my behavior to do the right thing; it was about enjoying a personal relationship with God, and change would come from that. With this new understanding, my life transformed dramatically. I quit drinking, doing drugs, and sleeping around, and I befriended followers of Jesus who helped me live according to the new life God called me to.
The one thing I couldn’t reconcile was my sexuality.
Even though I had a relationship with Jesus, I assumed God didn’t want anything to do with my same-sex attraction. I knew God was holy, and I thought this was the “worst” sin. This friction left me so distraught that I took a hiatus from church altogether.
As I was seeking truth, I was at a crossroads: Was I going to give in to my sinful desires for my life and surround myself with people who affirmed me, even if it meant going against God’s Word? Or was I going to surrender to God’s good desires for my life and surround myself with people who loved me, even if it meant going against my sinful desires?
Around that time, I visited Dallas from Missouri and went to The Porch, where I heard about the freedom that comes from full surrender to Jesus through confession and repentance.
God is holy, which is why he sent Jesus to deal with all of our sin on the cross. I read Mark 12:30 and realized God didn’t just want part of me; he wanted all of me—mind, heart, soul, and sin. I didn't need to hold anything back from God; I needed to give it all to him.
God used the people and teaching at Watermark in such a profound way that I moved to Dallas in 2022, choosing to reject my sinful desires and embrace a life of full surrender to God. I began to serve at The Porch, where God provided a community of Christ followers to encourage and support me as I walked with Jesus. Since then, I’ve learned that surrendering to God is a daily practice (Romans 12:1).
I still wrestle with temptation to sin, but as my desire for Jesus increases, my own sinful desires decrease. It’s extremely hard, but my best practical advice for someone feeling stuck in sin is first to remind yourself of the gospel every day. When I wake up, I remember I am not my own, and the Holy Spirit is renewing me (Galatians 2:20; Romans 12:2). Secondly, surround yourself with faithful followers of Jesus who believe God’s ways are better and be relentless in helping one another honor him.
For so long, I thought I had to hide the broken parts of my life from God. Now, I am fully seen, fully known, and fully loved.
God never wanted me to run away from him—he wanted me to run to him.