Greg Deitz

The way I found God is not the typical story about a church going boy

who one day knew of the presence of a higher power and asked Him to work

within me and shape me to be the man that He wanted me to be.  My

walk with Christ was a struggle and battle to find Him for myself. 

Although I always knew He existed and was looking over me, the decision

to finally accept Him and His will for me was based on many varying situations.

In the early years of my life I went to church on Sunday and said my

prayers before I went to bed, but other than that I could have cared less. 

To me, God seemed to be a place to ask for things that I never really hoped

to get.  I would pray that my family would get more money or that

people would stop picking on me at school, but these things never happened,

so I quit asking for these things.  Then my brother was born.

He was a four month preemie and the doctors told us that we should pick

a name that was special because he was probably never going to see the

inside of our house.  He would never see his room.  During these

nights we would pray for hours and hours.  We would pray until midnight

and then continue to pray that somehow my brother would be able to come

home to us.  My brother is twelve now and has more energy than my

family and I combined, but this still did not open my eyes to the power

and endless love that God has for me.  You see after that my brother

was born that is when the fighting began.  It was at this time that

my father left our house and moved away.

The divorce did not really bother me because he was very seldom home. 

He always seemed to be off on a business trip and only visited us for the

weekend.  I hated to think that God wanted me to go through this. 

I hated the fact that I had to sneak out of my house in the morning to

go to school because if I didn’t then I might get trapped in the middle

of one of my parents’ fights.  Why was I the one that had to explain

to my brother why they were mad at each other.  I was ten years old

and already had to be a caretaker.  At the age of ten I spent more

time shielding my brother from seeing and hearing the fighting than I did

running outside and spending time with my friends.  Where was this

God that promised happiness?

As time passed by I grew farther and farther away from God, but every

once in a while I would say a prayer or ask Him to look out for me, but

I never expected anything to come of it.  Nothing did come of it either. 

Every time I went and visited my dad, I came home feeling worthless and

like a failure.  He never said he was proud of me.  He never

took the time to say I was doing well; instead, he always told me where

I screwed up and where I needed to be doing better.  He felt that

it was too late to have a relationship with me because I knew the truth

behind the divorce.  I knew that he failed to fulfill his vows to

my mother.  I knew and that made it impossible for us to have a positive

relationship.  I used my job to stay away from visits and over time

we grew apart.  I lived a life without a father.  This is when

I felt the emptiness in my life.  It was on this day I went to the

local bookstore and picked up the book that pulled my life into focus.

There was nothing special about this book.  It just told of the

life of Jesus and how every time he faced a challenge he did not have to

call on God to solve his problem.  It talked about how Jesus remained

sinless by using his powers of faith.  Although he always had the

ability to ask God to solve all of his struggles, he used the powers of

the ordinary man to resolve the conflicts he faced.  He acted in a

way that I could for the remainder of my life and then I too could have

and eternal place with God in heaven.  Although I made this realization,

I still hesitated to ask God to begin working within me.  I hesitated

to turn my life over to Him.

I did, however, start to turn my life around.  I said that no matter

what I need to have a father.  I quit my job and started to visit

him more and more often.  He still never seemed to be able to say

that he was proud of me, but I did not care.  I needed him to be a

part of my life and see what I was doing because somehow I was going to

make sure that he noticed how hard I was trying to forget the past and

start a new life with him as my dad.  It was at this time that I read

another book about the endless love that God has for His children. 

How no matter what they do He will always take them back into His love. 

I figured that this was how I should be.  No matter what someone does

to me, I should always be able to accept him or her for the good things

they bring to my life.

Things did not get better though and I really did start to doubt my

decision to quit work and try to let my dad back into my life.  I

would get jealous because every time I went up to his house I would be

an outsider, watching the perfect family of a mother, a father, and one

son, but I was not allowed to be a part of this place.  That weekend

I returned to my house and climbed into bed for the night and just said

I give up.  I looked up into the sky and asked God “Why?”  Then

as if out of the blue I looked back over to my bookshelf and saw the two

books sitting there on the shelf.  I thought for a while and then

went downstairs and pulled out the bible from the shelf it was on. 

I read from it for hours and everything slowly cleared up.  It was

at this time that I finally asked God to step in and help me.  I told

Him that I wanted to hand my life over to Him.  I wanted Him to be

the father that I turned to when my life was troublesome because I knew

that somehow I could never fail Him if I followed His rules.  He would

always be proud of me and I could always trust Him to take care of my family

and me.

My story does not end there though.  A week after turning my life

over to Christ I got a phone call.   It was my dad.  I picked

up the receiver and said Hello.  The voice on the other end surprised

me because he never called to talk to me.  I waited for his reply

and he said these words to me?

“I just called to say I am proud of you”