Did I Find God or Did God Find Me

This autobiography doesn’t tell the story of my entire life, just the portion showing how God can insert Himself into our lives in ways we can never even fathom.
There were several other facets in my life that I’m sure influenced those formative years, and choosing to please God was an important part of my life—I guess my mom taught me well.
For example, the “do onto others” philosophy I took very seriously. So, for that reason, I’d never intentionally hurt anyone or cheat on a girlfriend since I knew how rejection felt.
Another thing I remember doing, I’d often allow my so-called friends to take advantage of me so I could actually tell who my true friends were and who I could trust. I wondered if they thought of me as stupid or naïve. It wasn’t a concern to me, but knowing who I could actually trust was extremely important. This was the method I used to find out.
There were other life decisions I experienced, such as, when I allowed God to enter my life only when I was ready to enter His.
Maybe, it’s the same for most of us growing up, especially during those early years.
Here is one story I’ve shared many times over the years with many people. I guess because I figured if I experienced this, others did too. My aunt Angie, also my godmother, just happened to live next door. Was this God’s doing too? Absolutely!
I would often go to visit her to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, and just talk.
One day, when I was maybe sixteen or seventeen, I went to her to talk about some troubles I was dealing with in my life at the time—teenage things.
After listening to me rant all my problems, she calmly but intently asked, “Is that all?”
“What? Wasn’t that enough?” I exclaimed.
Then she uttered those now famous words, “You are just dealing with growing pains! Everybody has those. So, just relax.”
Being able to put a name to it, to be able to call my difficulties growing pains, actually helped me immensely!
Just to be able to chill and put these feelings in their proper place and not worry about those things that are beyond my control. It was like a sickness.
When we don’t know what’s wrong with us, we worry more about it, but once the doctor can tell us what it is we have, it becomes less of a mystery and consequently becomes manageable.
Keep in mind I am no professional writer, so if you choose, I have little doubt you will find grammatically incorrect wording.
On the other hand, if you choose, you just may see and understand how God impacted my Life, not in a forceful way, but in a very subtle one.
I had to look, ask, then look again at what I was supposed to learn from whatever experience I had. This inquisitiveness of mine kept God in my thoughts, which after all, in my opinion, is all He asks of us—to keep Him close at all times.
So, in appreciation to Him, and in an attempt to be remembered by my family after I’m gone, I write this book.