We all have stories and mine is no different than others.
I was raised in church as a kid, Methodist specifically, until I was 13. At that time my family moved to the Baptist church in our small home town of Godley(yes). I came to know the Lord shortly after that in a more personal way than I ever knew possible. At 17, I responded to the call to the ministry. I went to Howard Payne Univ. and graduated in '90 with a degree in Theology. Straight to Southwestern with many of my friends. Within 2 semesters I flunked out.
I began to take a slide, spiritually speaking. I had been making excuses for not going to church regularly during college. Substituting chapel for church, theology class for personal bible study, etc., caused my heart to get easily influenced. By the time I got to seminary, I was burned out from doing it all on my own strength. This became evident when I went to a small church and was asked to be the pastor. I turned it down, and blamed God. Why? I don't know.
I started to become a bar fly. There was no limit on what I wanted to do. I became bitter toward church and Christian faith. If you would have said anything to me about Jesus, I probly would have punched ya. Even though I still felt something tell me in the back of my mind that what I was doing was not right.
After about 12 years of doing things totally separate from God, I was on vacation, in my apartment, when I decided to clean my storage room out. In there I found my old bible. I started to throw it away, but decided not to and thew it into the living room.
Later, when I had finished cleaning, I picked it up and figured I didn't have anything else to do so I started reading. I started in Luke, don't know why, never really read it all the way through before. Well, I got through chapter 15 and the story of the prodigal. It was then that I realized that I was the prodigal.
I began to just weep. I never finished Luke. It was a couple of hours of just letting God have it and telling Him how he had blown it when...and just made a list of things. But it was then that I realized (He showed me) where I was the one who was to blame.
Since then, 3 years later, He has called me into ministry again. I have a new hope for the future and the present that rests in His un-fettered Grace.
All glory be to Him who was, is, and is to come

Soli Deo Gloria,
Aaron "Tree" Landis