The Secrets to my Success!

         How arrogant can one man be? Here I am telling anyone who wants to read it about how I forgave my wife. This was the woman that God gave me, to protect, lead, and most of all love. But here I was bragging in a sense about how hard it was for ME, like she owed me something. Who was I to do such a thing? I had forgotten about the man I had been for the last 8 years. I had sat in the spiritual passenger seat while my wife tried to be the glue of my family and when it all broke down I blamed her. Well let me tell you about my wife:

     It was July 19th and I sat on a bench in the Grapevine Mills mall with three tickets to the Aquarium in my hand. I called my wife and asked her to pray for me. I was so scared I was shaking and my stomach started to hurt. I thought several times of changing my mind and running away. But as I prayed and thought of my wife praying for me I knew I had to trust in God and man up. It was admittedly awkward at first getting to meet Avery for the first time. She was grown and she just thought I was this random guy. I hadn’t spoken to her in person for her entire life and I can only imagine what was going on in that little head of hers. But at the end of that day I felt so relieved to have finally met her. It made me think of my girls back home and how much they were alike. It also made me ask myself why? Why did I run from this little girl who was funny, and beautiful and awesome to be around? I guess I would have to compare it to how we run from God. It is our own fear...

               Sometimes to get over the past and to move on you have to turn around and hit it head on instead of running from it. I had so much pain and anger built inside of me that had taken up so much of my heart that there was not much left to give. I’ve come to understand that Jesus can help you repair the wounds and heal the scars if you let him. But that is something easier said than done. I had to face my fears and address these issues that I had let secretly rule my life in one way or another if I was ever going to get through life. But like all things it had to start from the top down. The barriers I had built up between my wife and I had to come down. That was a wall that was going to take a lot of time and effort and still does to this day. But to love my wife I had to first love myself and to love myself I had to own up to my faults and fears by addressing the people who had caused me pain.

          I was hurting inside and angry at the world, I had lost my drive. I love my wife but I wasn’t respecting her, there were skeleton's in the closet that needed to come out. But like all things God wanted me to start somewhere that would give me some confidence again. I felt this overwhelming urge to get my life back on track, so I went full board and stepped up to the task. I felt a new motivation in life and I began to focus on my diet, my health and my body. I started hitting the gym and eating the right foods in a little over 6 weeks I had managed to drop almost 30 lbs and quit smoking. I was proud of myself and so was my wife, but as I started to change there were others around me who were not meeting my needs as friends and a good support group. All the changes were not enough to satisfy my heart’s emptiness.

         When I arrived in Afghanistan I was an outcast and didn't know how to make friends. I had denied God and just kind of wanted to survive on my own. My marriage got rough at first but my wife held on and tried to keep in touch. I started to shut her out and get caught up in the fact that I was lonely. I remember Christmas Eve and Christmas day, not knowing anyone, watching the entire season one of 24. That's almost twenty four hours straight of just sitting in a wooden "box" about 6 feet x 6 feet. I slowly began to get to know some folks but I also became the blunt of their jokes. The winter was cold and being there humbled me to a point of a weird mental state. Seeing a man kiss his son's feet in the hospital who was about to die of his wounds from an IED. Getting caught in a rut and left by a unit on a random field outing and truly fearing death is a bad feeling. I can remember watching a rocket fly overheard my guard station and land no more than 4...

    This is a series that will lay out what has transpired in my life for the last several years. I felt burdened to tell those the truth and not hold back.      I write this Testimony as someone who has failed and is yet to fail. A hypocrite and a sinner, yet I am redeemed and I am loved. My life before I turned 19 was interesting to say the least. I don't want to detail it out but I will say there were things that I did that I was not proud of. I was a lost soul and was doing my best to make it through life the only way I knew how, alone. Through a series of unfortunate events I found myself in a Church on Christmas Eve of 2002 thanks to the love of a very close friend. I was broken, lost and in pain. I never really knew what it was like to be inside a Church but it felt good and I got to know some people my age that I found to be very strange. I didn't understand why they never cussed, or never watched movies that had gratuitous sex or violence. I accept...