He loves me like no other

Tim, Brian, Joel, Morton
Waypoint Graduation 01-25-2009

March 3, 2008.....
for 6 years to the date.....
for 2,190 days.....
for 312 weeks, I have been sober minded and living a life focused on Christ!

March 3, 2008 my dad took me for an interview at Waypoint Center in Dahlonega, GA. I was at the end of my rope. I had been involved with drugs and alcohol most of my life and I had enough. I was ready for a change. I needed a change. I had lost everything I had. My job, my family, my life, my dignity. Lying, cheating, stealing...divorce, debt, jail...it had all consumed me. I was broken...and worst of all, I did not know how to stay sober.
I sat through the interview. I thought to myself "how am I going to do this for 12 months? I'll stay for 30 days and see how it goes but 12 months is impossible." However, what I found was something I had been looking for my whole life. Through all the confrontation and through all the guidelines and structure I found truth! I was finally finding out just how much God loved me and I came to a place in my heart where I had a strong desire to repent and turn from my old ways, my old habits, my destruction and chaos. I had a desire to finally step into the calling, the destiny, the life God had planned for me and rest in His eternal love, experience His mercy and feel His amazing grace and walk in salvation.
Joel 2:12 says "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, with mourning." God wanted all of my heart and I had a mess to hand over to Him. Through all of my fear and my shame and my guilt and all the emotions that are attached, God met me there! He had been there all along but I was too busy wrapped up in my self to see Him. I fasted from myself and from the world. I would definitely say no TV and no cell phone or internet for a year is fasting! (although I did not know it at the time). And I wept...I wept for the pain I had caused others and the pain I had caused myself and the pain I had caused God. I mourned for the old life that I was in the process of leaving behind. I mourned for all the dreams and aspirations I had had...all the expectations that I could never meet. I handed my heart, my life over to God. And being who He is...He gave me a new life!
Joel 2:25,26 says "I will restore to the years the locust ate....you will eat in plenty and be satisfied." I stayed for the full 12 months and graduated. I also stayed another year for the SLT program. Waypoint had given me a safe place to fast and mourn and weep and now God was restoring my life. God was replacing all my pain and all my woundedness and all my shortcomings with....Himself. Through His word and through His son Jesus Christ I had life restored back to me and all I had to do was surrender and hand it all over to Him. So today I just want to praise His name. I want to shout from the rooftops what He has done for me! He took a broken messed up kid and changed his life. Today I celebrate six years of my journey with Jesus. My journey with God....my journey of restoration and recovery and my journey of finding the one and only thing that can truly satisfy my soul.....my relationship with my creator who loves me like no other.

I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying His voice, and cleaving to Him; for that means life to you.-Deuteronomy 30:19,20

33 days....till we leave for Kenya!
Praise Jesus!