Mountain Top Experiences #7: My 30th Birthday

All of you who have been following this series (by “All” I mean “Both”) know that I having been writing it as a reflection on my impending 30^th birthday. Well, on June 3 that birthday arrived, and I am now officially “old.” To mark the occasion, I was made to wear a silly hat, and received a disc golf basket, both seen here:

That brings us to the most recent and now favorite addition to my list of mountaintop experiences: my 3oth birthday weekend. The best part of the whole weekend was that my birthday was, by far, the least significant part of a weekend full of celebration. As someone who had put a lot of thought into how this insignificant landmark affected me, it was wonderful to be reminded that there are people and events in my life much more important than me.

My daughter Sophie was dedicated at church on Saturday night. Nancy and I had dedicated Sophie in our own hearts and home countless times before this public dedication, but there is something important and meaningful about gathering together as a church body and dedicating the children of your church to God. In truth, it is less about offering the child to God as it is the parents and other adults of the church dedicating themselves to take responsibility for the spiritual welfare of the child.

A large group of family, friends and church leaders gathered near the front of the sanctuary to pray over and dedicate Sophie. She was tired and started to get squirmy, so I sat down with her on the floor hoping that freedom would calm her down. Almost immediately, she locked eyes with our Pastor Kevin Clark, who was praying over her. She neither moved a muscle nor took her eyes off of him for the remainder of that time. Maybe she just thought he was funny looking, but I like to think that she picked up that there was something special going on. This was a truly special, special moment for both Nancy and myself, and we are so grateful that our families made the trip down to share it with us, that friends took time out of their schedules on a Saturday night, and that we have a church body that places value on these types of events.

On Sunday, my birthday, we made the trek up to Cincinnati to watch my beautiful bride graduate. This was a drive that Nancy made as many as five days a week for 3 years, which is almost as impressive as the actual school work she completed. Most Ph.D. programs simply award their students the status of A.B.D. (All But Dissertation) when they have completed their coursework and passed their comprehensive exams. HUC is among a growing number of schools who now choose to celebrate this accomplishment by awarding their students an actual degree at that point, in her case an M.Phil. So, this graduation ceremony was for Nancy a joyful moment and one to be proud of, but also a reminder that she still has work to do! HUC’s ceremony was simple, elegant, and (as is required for any graduation ceremony) long. The highlight of the ceremony, at least for both of us, was watching the 3 Ph.D. recipients awarded their degrees. That room was filled with fellow doctoral students, faculty members and family members who have unique insight into the kind of sacrifice and hard work that culminated in that moment, which was obvious given the long and warm reception these scholars received. I choose to think that they include the dissertation stage students in this ceremony as a motivational tool, which, from what I’ve been able to tell, is an effective tool at that. I thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony. I loved pointing Mommy out to Sophie; I loved watching my wife walk on stage and get a hood (again); I loved having our family there to see these moments; and I love that I will get to attend that ceremony one more time and watch Nancy become Dr. Nancy. (Incidentally, I have long contended that Nancy does not NEED a second Master’s degree and that she should gift that one to me. She remains unconvinced.)

So, my birthday was the third most important event of the weekend, which is exactly as it should be.

As has been mentioned already, the Mountaintop Experience of the weekend for both of us was that our families chose to make the trip down to share these moments with us. It was a short weekend with a long drive on both ends, so we are grateful and honored that they could come. Nancy and I love living in Lexington- it is a beautiful city in a beautiful part of the country and we have developed a rich life with meaningful relationships here. Still, we miss our families greatly. Especially with a baby, it has become increasingly difficult to be away from our families. So, it meant a lot to us that we were able to have a special weekend and be able to have both of our families in town. Thanks guys! We love you!

Mini Mountain Top Experiences

-Chocolate Chip Cookies
-Wrigley Field
-New Tennis Balls
-Sitting in the screened in porch at the lakehouse, listening to the cows
-Watching Field of Dreams
-Baklava
-Throwing a disc that actually goes where I intended it to, preferably in the basket
-Thunderstorms at night
-Snow fall on Christmas Eve
-Teaching Phoebo and Sophie how to sneak up and attack Nancy
-The Kentucky Derby
-Anything grilled
-Doing a puzzle on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with Nancy
-Playing Scrabble with Nancy
-Back Scratches
-The writings of David James Duncan
-18 years of The Simpsons
-Seeing Roger Federer play the game of tennis
-Morning time with Phoebo
-Evening time with Sophie
-Chocolate Pudding Pie
-The sore feeling after a good workout
-Conundrum
-Christmas music, Christmas trees, Christmas lights, & Christmas movies
-Learning something new every day
-Finishing a crossword puzzle
-Smoothies
-Going to a midnight screening of a movie with all of the weirdos in costumes
-Cuddling by the fireplace
-Singing my version of the Hebrew alphabet even though I could do it right if I tried
-Churros at Navy Pier
-The end of winter
-The beginning of fall

Mountain Top Experiences #5: Sports

My earliest memories, many of my favorite moments, many disappointing moments, some of my most important life lessons, most of my friends, a college scholarship, and my source of income all have one thing in common: SPORTS. I have to admit it- My name is Dan Erickson and I am a sportsaholic. That’s right, if you have any sportsahol, I will consume it.

I love everything about sports. I love the relationships it creates and strengthens. I love the competition. I love the exercise when I play. I love the feeling my butt gets when it is sitting on the couch watching sports. Even more, I love the feeling my butt gets when it is sitting in a stadium watching sports. I love the instant connection I can make with a stranger because of sports. I love the memories of my dad, most of which revolve around baseball. I love that I was able to introduce Nancy to Wrigley Field and professional tennis, and I love that she enjoys those experiences. And I love that I am going to be able to share sports with Sophie.

As a kid the ONLY thing I wanted to do was play baseball. If that was not an option, then plans B-Z were play with my baseball cards, watch This Week in Baseball, watch a Baseball Bunch with Johnny Bench and the Kool-Aid Man (oh yeah!) video, watch a Cubs game, or color in my Chicago Cubs coloring book. I hated winter, because I couldn’t play baseball (this was before sports became year round activities, even for kids [which I can’t criticize since that concept pays the bills around here]). I played baseball so much that my Dad wouldn’t let us play it in the yard anymore because it would tear up the lawn. Instead, we had to play in the street. My daily schedule in the summer often looked like this:

WAKE UP
EAT BREAKFAST
GO WAKE UP MY LAZY FRIENDS SO WE CAN PLAY BASEBALL
PLAY BASEBALL
MOM CALLS ME IN FOR LUNCH
LUNCH
TRY TO GO BACK OUT AND PLAY BASEBALL BUT MOM MAKES ME DO FLASHCARDS
ESCAPE MOM, TRY TO ROUND UP FRIENDS AGAIN
THROW BASEBALL AGAINST PITCHBACK UNTIL FRIENDS ARE READY TO PLAY
PLAY BASEBALL
MOM CALLS ME IN FOR DINNER
PRETEND I DIDN’T HEAR HER, PLAY BASEBALL
MOM DRAGS ME IN FOR DINNER
DINNER
PLAY BASEBALL
MOM MAKES ME LET MIKEY PLAY BASEBALL WITH US. I PROTEST.
SUNDOWN. BASEBALL POSTPONED UNTIL TOMORROW.
BATH (MAYBE)
GO TO BED

The only thing in all of collegiate or professional sports that I truly and passionately care about is the Chicago Cubs. Yes, I root for Notre Dame football, Kentucky basketball, various tennis players over the years, the Colts and for every game to be a good game, but I LOVE the Cubs. The Cubs are the source of some of my greatest joy and most profound disappointment. Most often, they give me a dull ache in my heart and an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach that make me want to throw up, but hey, that’s love, right? For those of you who know anything about the Cubs or baseball in general, you know that my life can be summed up largely by the list of my favorite players through the years: Bill Buckner, Greg Maddox, Jody Davis, Sammy Sosa, Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, Nosewad, Shawan Dunston, Ryne Sandberg, Mark Grace, and Rick Sutcliffe. It’s been a long and strange life as a Cub fan, and I don’t anticipate that changing any time soon.

I played a little bit of tennis in the park in my neighborhood as a kid. I was a total hack. I had the ill-conceived notion that I could make the high school tennis team, so I tried out as a freshman. My Mom was making me do marching band, which I did not want to do, so I was hoping that if I made the tennis team I wouldn’t have to do the band. In retrospect, I’m glad I got cut. I didn’t touch a tennis racquet again until the spring of my senior year of high school. I had become friends with Dan Baker, who was heading off to Manchester College and was going to play tennis there. We began hitting with one another that spring and through the summer. By the end of the summer, we were about even as players (which was not at all good, I might add). As the summer wound down and I began to get ready to start my freshman year at Bethel, I thought it might be fun to try out for the tennis team there. I honestly didn’t think that I would make the team, but I thought it would be a good opportunity to meet some people and make some friends. So, I called the tennis coach and asked if I could try out, and he said yes. At the first day of camp, there were 4 of us. It takes 6 players to field a full roster. It turns out that 2 players had transferred schools and not told the coach, one was academically ineligible, and one left school to take a tennis pro job. Four of the previous year’s top six players were not returning, and this was all new information to the coach that day. My chances of making the team suddenly looked much brighter. We ended up holding an open tryout for any student on campus who might want to play tennis. Two guys showed up, so they automatically made the team, rounding out our top six. Sufficed to say, I did not win a singles or doubles match that year OR the next, nor did the team win a team match that year OR the next year. We were B-A-D at tennis. Nonetheless, I played as much as I could, usually with the extremely patient and MUCH better player, Jason Gingerich, and slowly improved. By my junior year I was respectable, as was the team. I finished the year with a winning record in singles and doubles, and the team finished with a winning record as well. My senior year, we were actually a good team with a legitimate chance to win every match. We finished with a then school record for wins and I had my best season as well.

I probably wouldn’t be a Christian if it weren’t for sports, at least indirectly. When I first started attending the youth group with Mike, there was a heavy emphasis on physical games. The idea, I think, was to wear us all out at the beginning so that we would be too tired to cause trouble during the message. I’m not sure how well that worked… In any event, playing those games, colliding at full speed and bashing a much smaller student with a rolled up newspaper, was really attractive to me. It kept me interested and coming back. Eventually, I was tired enough, I listened to the message, and I gave my heart to Christ.

As I write this, I am watching Game 5 of the NBA Eastern Conference Playoffs between the Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavaliers. I don’t care at all about the Pistons or the Cavaliers, and I barely care about the NBA. But I can’t turn it off. I’ll stay up past my bed time to catch every minute of this stupid game. It’s sportsahol, and I’m a Sportsaholic.

Mountain Top Experiences #4: Nancy Part 2

I think Nancy broke up with me 3 times in college. The first time was in the Fall of 1997 and I was in California visiting her. That made for a fantastic visit for both of us. By Christmas, though, she seemed to enjoy my presence again, so we were back on. Immediately after the New Year, I flew to Jamaica, as I was spending the semester there. She broke up with me in February while I was out of the country, but when I returned stateside she again reevaluated that plan. When she again broke up with me in September of 1998, I thought that was officially the end of our relationship (third time’s a charm, right?).

In October, Nancy called me out of the blue to tell me that she had been giving our relationship a lot of thought and prayer and came to the conclusion that she was sorry and was ready to love me in a permanent way. I can only begin to describe to you how badly I misinterpreted this conversation. Thinking that our romantic relationship was over, I assumed that she was simply apologizing for the way things went and that she was going to love me with “Godly love.” In other words, I heard “Let’s just be friends from now on.” What she was in fact saying, however, was “I’m sorry, I love you, and I’m not going to break up with you again in 3 weeks.”

When Christmas rolled around, she called me when she got home and asked me to come over. I had nothing else going on, so I figured it would be nice to go see my new “friend.” She greeted me at the door with a big kiss, which I returned with an extremely confused look. Now, I have a reputation for sometimes being a touch condescending with people, but in that moment I needed her to explain to me in terms a child could understand what was going on. Somehow she didn’t see this total lack of basic communication skills as a problem and tried to clarify for me that she was now in for the long haul.

When the time came for me to ask for Nancy’s hand in marriage, I had the entire event planned out. I had rented a tux (a story for another time), I had arranged for Amy to be there and take pictures from a distance, and I knew that I wanted to ask her at the beach. My problem was that I had never asked Nancy to go to the beach. We went there all the time, but it was ALWAYS of her initiative. I knew that if I asked her to go, she would know what was up (she knew it was coming soon anyway). I was pondering this dilemma as I was driving her home on a Friday evening. I wanted to propose on Monday night but couldn’t figure out how to make the plans without tipping her off. As I’m racking my brain for a solution to this problem, Nancy says “Do you want to go to the beach Monday night?” On the inside, I screamed out “YES!!!” On the outside, I tried to play it cool with “Sure, I don’t think I have anything going on that night.” On Monday night July 19 1999, right at sunset, I bent down on one knee, confident that the answer would be yes, and asked Nancy Dayton to marry me. As I was asking the question, I could hear the conversation from a group of people about 30 feet away from us that went exactly like this:
STRANGER #1: Hey, look- that guy is going to ask that lady to marry him!
STRANGER #2: What if she says No?
Since our conversation the previous Christmas about Nancy’s commitment to our relationship, I never had any concerns about being rejected in that moment. Although only about 2 seconds elapsed between Stranger #2’s comment and her response, it felt like a lifetime to me. I swear that every scenario of her saying “No” flashed in my mind in those two seconds.

Nancy kept her word that night, accepting my proposal. She kept that word 11 months later at our wedding. And she has kept the promise she made on that day for almost 7 years now.

So what is the Mountain Experience in all of this?, you ask. Was it at Christmas when I finally understood her commitment? Was it in July when she agreed to marry me? Or was it our wedding day itself? It is true that all 3 of those days were mountaintop days for me, but the real view from the top is found on other days, normal days. On these days, I can go out into the world and take risks, knowing that Nancy is going to be there for richer or poorer. On days when I am sick, she cares for me, and on days when I am well… she cares for me then too. On normal days, we can forge new relationships, confident in our own. On normal days, we can rely on each other for strength & encouragement and trust one another with our hopes and our fears. Those days in our marriage- those are the mountaintop days, and I sure do enjoy the view.

Mountain Top Experiences #3: Nancy Part 1

NOTE: Yes, I understand it is ridiculous to have a multi-part series within a multi-part series, but she's my wife for crying out loud. Besides, none of you want to read a 15,000 word single blog entry.


My wife Nancy is a fatally flawed woman. Yes, she is beautiful, intelligent, funny, a woman of God, a good cook, blah, blah, blah… But she has one flaw that I simply can’t look past and makes me lose all respect for her: she has terrible, truly abysmal, taste in men. Don’t get me wrong- I’m glad that she was willing to marry me, but that choice certainly brings her judgment and decision making ability into question. It keeps me up at night to think that Sophie is going to be learning this from her…


Despite the above, Nancy is actually quite lovely. We went out on our first date in April of 1993. For those of you doing the math, yes that puts her at 14 (going on 15) and me at 15. I turned 16 a few weeks later. For my birthday she got me a book which she inscribed, as is her habit. Displaying her characteristic lack of taste and uncharacteristic forwardness, she wrote “Sweet 16 and never been kissed…by me. Yet.” I suppose this was her way of telling me that I’m a big chicken and should make a move already (which she was, of course, absolutely right about. As I told you, she has BAD taste in men).


As far as high school relationships go, we had a good one. Probably too good. After her parents saw that I wasn’t going away (much to their chagrin, I’m sure), they instituted a rule that we could only have 2 dates per week: one on the weekend and one during the week. Thinking that we were super-smart, we immediately came up with a plan to work around this. Let’s break down the week as we saw it: On Friday night, we probably had a football game that we had to attend as part of the band. That was a school function, so didn’t count. Saturday night we could use our weekend date. Sunday we would go to church in the morning and church in the evening. Evening church was either followed by a youth group function or we would go back to her parents’ house and read the Bible together- for like 10 minutes. After that, we would play Euchre with her parents and eat Jack’s pizza (which we still do every Sunday night to this day). Since Nancy was introducing me to reading the Bible (we did read the whole thing in a year), it didn’t count as a “date.” Monday we usually took off. Tuesday we would use as our weekday date night. Wednesday had youth group and we would typically do something after that. We probably took Thursday off. So, 5 out of 7 days instead of 2 out of 7 (we totally thought we outsmarted them).


In the end, her parents were likely right that too much exposure to one another was not beneficial. After 19 months of dating (practically a lifetime commitment in high school), we mutually decided that it was time to break up. We both wanted to spend more time with our friends and enjoy being stupid kids for a while. I know what you’re thinking- a “mutual decision” is simply a euphemism for “Nancy dumped me.” Although Nancy did dump me, many times (I would say she became very good at it, except that she never quite got rid of me), she did not dump me THAT time.


I went off (down the street) to college at Bethel and had several half-girlfriends, all of whom fully dumped me. By Christmas of my Sophomore year, fresh off another dumping, I was pretty down and ready to take a break trying to find a girl. I was at Church the Sunday before Christmas and noticed the backside of a very cute young lady wearing a short, dark grey wool skirt and a light-grey cashmere sweater. She had short blondish hair and appeared to be a visitor who could use a proper introduction to our church. The good Christian that I am, I figured that when it was time to “greet those around you,” I would do the right thing and greet this young lady on behalf of the church. When the appropriate time came, the young lady turned around and confused me to no end by being Nancy. My confusion turned into captivation. I can only assume that Pastor Bob spoke that Sunday morning, but as far as I know it was a head of golden hair floating above a grey sweater. In a twist of my original intent, I used her as a tour guide after the service. I followed her to get her coat. I followed her to get my coat. I followed her anywhere I could. Eventually I suggested that we should get together some evening over break just to catch up. Having still not learned her lesson, she said yes.


I will always remember that Christmas season as one of my most innocent and romantic periods. We hung out all break with no intentions of anything other than friendship. It was a surprise to both of us when we found ourselves hugging goodnight in the light of the Christmas tree and sharing a kiss. In a series dedicated to mountaintop experiences, I must confess that moment as the most sublimely perfect, just right moment of my life.

Mountain Top Experience #2: Sophie

One of my major motivations for embarking on this Mountaintop Experiences series was that I felt the blog had changed from written entries about the adventures of our family to an online photo album of the baby. I wanted the opportunity to write about something other than Sophie, which I felt like I hadn’t really done since she was born. It is thus a little ironic that I should choose to write about her so soon in the series, but in honor of her 6 month birthday today, it seems like the right time.

As a teenager and into college, I was convinced that I wanted to get married as soon as I could trick a girl into marrying me and that we would start to have children immediately. I had relatively young parents and was convinced that if I waited past 21 or so to start having kids then I would just be too old. I think, looking back on it, that I was afraid I would never get married or have kids, so the idea of accomplishing those things early was a mental protection against them not happening at all.

I’m sure that I reeked of desperation which, combined with low self-confidence, had to be extremely attractive to the ladies. Nonetheless, I did end up managing to con a lovely young lady into being my wife (I’m still surprised…). Once we got engaged and I was sufficiently convinced that she hadn’t figured out my elaborate ruse, I began to rethink my long-held notion that I wanted to have kids right away. My one reason to have children so soon (fear of never being able to) just didn’t seem to stand up against all the reasons to wait (money, maturity, a wife who was in no rush, among others). Plus, I was beginning to wonder if I actually wanted to have children at all.

For the first several years of our marriage, we almost never talked about starting a family. We had too much work to do and were having too much fun to allow a baby to interrupt our lives. That changed when the doctors discovered that I had low levels of testosterone, which has since been treated. After further testing, one of my doctors informed me that I was “not infertile,” but only barely. He said that we could reasonably expect to be able to have children, but it might take a long time. Nancy & I still weren’t ready to have children yet, so I filed this information under the “worry about later” category in my mind.

Of course, “later” came sooner than I thought. Not one to worry, I made the decision that the safer emotional play was to plan on not getting pregnant rather than let my hopes build up and be disappointed (apparently I had taken care of the money and wife in no rush issues but still had a way to go with maturity). I can’t say this was the type of emotional support that Nancy needed as the months passed and the stick never turned blue.

As is obvious at this point, the stick did eventually turn blue. It was a Sunday morning and I was barely even awake when Nancy jumped into bed to tell me. I had no idea what to think or how to feel in that moment. On the one hand, I was excited and happy beyond measure. On the other hand, I didn’t or couldn’t or wouldn’t believe that it was true. What does a stick know anyway? As the days passed and it became apparent that the stick was right, I began to let my guard down. Maybe I really would be a daddy after all.

Nancy’s pregnancy is a story for her to tell, but it is enough for me to say it went better than I ever imagined it could. She never even asked me to get her pickles and ice cream in the middle of the night. I was disappointed, however, that she didn’t even entertain the notion of naming the baby Jackbauer.

As was well documented on this blog, Sophie was born at 11:45 pm, about 15 minutes before Thanksgiving. I think that by 12:15 I had called or texted almost everybody I knew. I was on the top of the mountain and wanted to bring everybody else up there with me.

Mountain Top Experiences

When Nancy & I got married, we were blessed to have her Dad serve us communion and share a short, private little pep talk during the ceremony. Although I won’t claim to remember all of the details of that blur of a day, I’ll never forget the essence of what he said. He told us that in our lives, we will have many mountain top experiences, some of which may even take place on top of a mountain. Our wedding, of course, was one of those mountain top experiences, hence the message. To borrow liberally from my wife here, when a mountain top experience happened in the Bible (regardless of whether it happened on a mountain or not), it was frequently marked with a massebah, or standing stone. These standing stones were erected as a reminder of what God did in that place. When people would come upon a standing stone, the natural response would have been “What happened here that they erected a standing stone to commemorate it?” This was then an opportunity to share the story of what God did there.

So, what is the point of that elaborate introduction? As many of you may be aware, I turn 30 in a few short days. All year I have resisted that idea and insisted that I was merely beginning a new tradition of turning 29 every year. This was to be my second annual 29^th birthday. Just in case, though, I spent a good part of the last year taking a poll of those who had previously crossed that 30^th birthday threshold and they seemed to speak in one voice: the 30’s is the best decade of your life. Unless they are all engaged in a conspiracy to lie to me about this, I see no reason to continue to deny the fact that I am turning 30 and to, in fact, embrace the upcoming years of my life.

So, with my new found acceptance and enthusiasm for the fate that lies ahead, I figured it was an appropriate time to reflect upon the last 30 years and tell the stories inscribed upon the standing stones that are erected on the mountaintop experiences of my life.

Full Disclosure: I find that the best ideas in my life are usually not mine. Although the idea of reflecting as part of my 30^th birthday celebration is mine, I also drew inspiration from Derry Prenkert’s well-written blog. His “Greatest Hits” series is beyond coincidentally similar, so I wanted to make sure to give him some credit. Nonetheless, I would expect our experiences, with several exceptions, to be strikingly different. You can check out Derry’s blog here.

MOUNTAIN TOP EXPERIENCE #1: My Salvation Story

I was born on June 3, 1977. I was born again on December 29, 1991. But I’m skipping ahead.

I think that I always believed in a god, even the Christian God- I just had no idea what that meant. I would occasionally go to church with extended family members or even friends. Growing up in the heavily Catholic South Bend area, I had no concept that there were churches other than Catholic churches, which was ironic since I had never been to anything other than a protestant church. I remember in 7^th grade a Catholic friend of mine asked me if I was Catholic. As I held some notion of believing in the Christian God and didn’t understand the distinction, I said “yes.” It was spring time, so he asked me what I was giving up for Lent. I had to admit to him that I had no idea what he was talking about, at which point he explained to me that I wasn’t Catholic. That was nice to know.

So, I was officially not Catholic. I was curious, though, what I was. For whatever reason, I wanted discover what I “was” spiritually, but I wasn’t sure how to do that. After my Dad died, I began praying. A lot. I suppose this is natural. Even though I did not yet know God at that time, I think of those prayers as some of the most “real” prayers I’ve ever prayed. Some were angry, some were sad, some were begging, most were totally selfish, but they were all authentic.

Several months thereafter, my very good friend Mike Grove invited me to go to church with him and his family. It was Palm Sunday 1991. I began attending regularly with him- his family had to drive past the church to get to my house to pick me up, but they did it every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night for several years. I’m fairly certain my mom thought I joined a cult.

Although I eagerly attended church for the greater part of the year, I never made a commitment to follow Jesus. As I look back upon it, I find this strange, because I was clearly looking for God to fill that void in my heart. Over Christmas break of that year, Mike invited me to a youth conference, which was then known as NCYC. I remember being a little hesitant to go because, although I was starting to get into the whole church thing, the idea of spending 3 straight days in church over my Christmas break didn’t yet sound all that appealing. Mike sold me on it as a 3 day sports event. We would mostly play in basketball, soccer, and volleyball tournaments, and if there was time we might get in a little church stuff as well. We most certainly did play in a basketball, soccer, and volleyball tournament, losing in the first round of each.

During the appointed “church stuff” hours, I found myself surprisingly captivated. Although I really enjoyed our youth pastor Jim’s messages, I had never heard someone speak so clearly and intentionally for a youth audience. When he explained the heart of the gospel message and asked us to pray and invite Jesus into our lives, I knew this was a different type of prayer than anything I had ever done. I prayed it willingly and joyfully, asking Jesus to forgive me of my sins and come live in my heart. After the prayer, the speaker asked that any of us who prayed it should stick around after the imminent dismissal of the service and one of our youth leaders would come and talk to us. I knew I had prayed the prayer, but was not yet bold enough to stick my neck out on my own, so I decided that I would stay if Mike stayed as well. When the service ended Mike immediately turned to me and asked “Are you staying?” I assumed that he was staying and wanted me to stay with him, so I told him I was staying. He said “Good,” and turned around and walked away.

I figured that I was stuck there at that point, and since I had made the decision anyway, I might as well talk to one of our youth leaders. Paul Hampton found me almost immediately. I think I told him something to the effect of “You guys finally roped me in,” as though they had won and I had lost. I think the next few moments were some of the most important of my entire life, as he explained to me what my decision meant and how I had, in fact, won. I cried a lot that evening, as God began to fill the void inside me. They were mostly tears of joy, relief & wonder, but I think also tears of every other emotion available to a 14 year old. I like to think of them as my spiritual water breaking so that I could be born again.

I hate to stop at this point in the story. After all, life only begins at birth- it is not the end of the story. There is much more to tell, but I suppose that is the point of this series…