God brought me here

When I was about ten my family stopped going to church. Ever since then I considered myself a Christian, but I didn’t know what that meant until fairly recently. I can remember going to church every once in a while with my friends if I slept over on a Saturday night, I absolutely loved it. Singing at church wasn’t a thing I did often, but when I got the chance to do it I went all out. But even then I didn’t know the meaning of church; I didn’t know anything about the bible. My friends would all talk about a CCD program they were in to make their first communion and I would wonder why I wasn’t doing the same. In a sense, even when I was younger, I missed church. As I grew I began to pray every so often, but I wasn’t praying for the right things or reasons at all. Being 12 I guess I looked at God as my genie and I thought that if I prayed to him my prayers, no matter how unorthodox or selfish they were, would come true. My faith clearly needed some help.

I didn’t really think anything of not going to church when I got into junior high and high school. Continuing to pray every so often as I had before, I didn’t wonder anymore why I hadn’t been going to church. I don’t know why that stopped. God has always been in my life, but not as prominently as he could have been. When I’m pitching and take my hat off before the game I’m praying to God to give me the strength that I know I have to pitch the best I can. But at the same time I’m asking Him that my uncle will be with me as well. In tribute I scratch the 7 in the dirt with my toe, I look at my hat and close my eyes and I feel that God is with me and so is my uncle. That’s really the extent of my faith in high school.

Searching for colleges I really didn’t know where I wanted to go, and this worried me sometimes. I stressed often about it and I was just hoping that something would happen that could show me the way. Then it came. I got a call from the baseball coach at Gordon College. I said in my head, what is Gordon College…And then the coach told me and I wasn’t sure about it, but God kept pushing. He kept calling and I mean that in two different ways. Coach Rypel continued to call me every week and I now see that God was calling me to come to Gordon College. The way I see it, God used Coach Rypel to guide me to where I needed to go. If it weren’t for Coach Rypel, with God’s guidance, I would not be where I am today.

After I visited one time, I knew that Gordon College was likely the place that I would be going to school for the next four years. My final decision was a financial decision, but I knew that Gordon College would give me a great education and would help me understand and grow my faith more. Just being here at Gordon for a month has changed my faith and made me begin to grow as a person. It feels great being here and even though I may not understand the Bible or my faith as much as other people here, I’m learning. Not only am I learning in the academic sense, but I’m learning spiritually. I like the idea of growing my faith.

Sometimes I wish that I could have had that community through church when I was younger and other times I remember that God shaped my life this way for a reason. I guess it was easier for me to just not bring up the idea of going back to church in the past, even though I thought about it every once in a while. Since I’ve been at Gordon College I’ve already grown a lot in my faith. I’m going to church on Sundays, something that I missed out on for a while. I’m attending the baseball team Bible study on most Sunday nights. I’m praying more than I have in the past. Not only am I beginning to fall into my own faith, but some of my family members as well have started to think about going back to church. I want to use my faith to give other people knowledge and understanding of Christianity in hope that they too will pursue their faith. Just as it says in James 2:17, “Faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” If you don’t go out and share your faith with others then your faith doesn’t mean much.

 Yes, I do attend a Christian college and I am learning more about Christianity than I ever have before, but I’m not going to let that change the person that I am. I’m not going to change who I am and start living differently just because I am getting a deeper understanding of Christianity. I am a Christian, but that’s not all that I am. There’s more to me, and more to everyone else, then their spirituality. I don't have regrets, I'm just me.

-Eric Proulx