Mitch's Story

"Becoming a Christian, for me, wasn't any dramatic event like I have heard from some other people. It was more of an intellectual process for me, but then I realized maybe this will be helpful to other people who don't experience any one dramatic event.

"I was raised by parents who always emphasized good values, honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness. All four of us kids did indeed grow up with what we thought were good values and we thought we were good persons. However, we were raised without a single exposure to church, religion, or Christianity-with the exception of a couple of weddings and if I was lucky, playing basketball in a church gym. My wife likes to say I was 'raised like a weed.'

"I never really thought about God much at all because of this upbringing and going to public schools and public university. I was always a “nice guy” and treated people well. I don't think I was ever actually in a serious conversation about God until I was in my 20's. My response then was I was a good person; I was good enough; I was a lot better than a lot of people I knew that went to church. I gave answers like I knew what I was talking about, when really; I had no idea what I was talking about. When I gave these answers, I had never opened a bible, or for that matter, even read a book discussing the bible.

"When I was about 29/30 years old, I began dating the wonderful woman I ended up marrying, Susan. Things were wonderful and we both knew we loved one another. However, before we got engaged, she told me that it was very important to her for her to share faith with me. So I started going to church with her-at first, just to please her, but a funny thing happened-I really became interested and wanted to learn more about why people have this faith. I did learn a lot more. I approached this as I do with my work, with an analytical eye (an open eye) requiring investigation and data before I make a decision. The more facts I learned, the more I came to the inevitable conclusion that the Bible is true and accurate. Thus, I came to an intellectual conclusion first that God is real, Jesus Christ, his son was real, the resurrection was real and therefore God's mercy and grace have to be true. Unfortunately, I also learned I really wasn't that good of a person after all, I was a big-time sinner just like other people, who needed to be saved because I wasn't going to do it myself. (just kidding about the unfortunate part) After I prayed with Maurice and accepted Jesus Christ as my savior, the emotional/faith component of my overall faith really started developing.

"Soon after my conversion to Jesus, I broke my knee playing basketball. A very serious blood clot developed which almost killed me. I was indeed very fortunate to live, but that showed me two major points: (1) I was not afraid to die (not that I wanted to) because I knew I was OK with God and (2) I was fortunate enough to be able to build the foundation of faith before the storm came, because if this near death experience had occurred earlier in my life, I would have been so easily blown away.

"Again, I did not have one single event or occurrence that brought about my conversion, but rather it was a process. I am not a highly emotional person and thus the best foundation of belief for me is built upon facts, data and analysis. I am ever thankful for God having me in his family, although it still hasn't helped my jump shot very much."