My name is Michael Wilson.  I am from Sarasota, Florida.  I have been a Christian since February 2002.  I was raised up in a Christian home when I was little.  During this time, I never had a relationship with Jesus.  When I was about 13 years old, I stayed at my brother’s house for about a month.  During this time I learned how to have a relationship with God.  This lasted until I turned about 15 years old.  During this time, I felt like life was too hard so I gave up on God.  My parents were going to a church I felt like I couldn’t grow in because I never had anyone to disciple me, or to lead me the right direction.  My relationship with God turned into acquaintance with God, then my acquaintance turned to me hearing of God, hearing of God turned to me asking myself, “Who is God?” 

During this time when I was about 15 my parents had an argument with my brother, and my parents didn’t like any of the family, so I never really knew them.  In middle school I never had a lot of friends, I was picked on a little, and I was quiet.  I never was involved in any activities, and after school I spent a lot of time inside my room.  During this time I never had a life.  When I started High School, I decided to do something with my life.  So I tried out for baseball.  When I decided to do this, I told people I knew that I was going to play baseball, they told me I wouldn’t make it.  I didn’t let this discourage me, so I kept going to tryouts.  When tryouts were done, I found out that I made the team and I was surprised. 

From my freshman year to my sophomore year in High School, I lived for baseball and nothing else.  During this time, I realized people looked up to the ones in sports, so I tried to fit in.  Everything about me changed, my clothes, talk, personality, everything.  My freshman year I started to cuss, listen to secular music that changed the way believed, and I wanted to fit in.  At the end of this year I received the most improved player award for baseball, this caused me to get big headed.  My sophomore year of High School, I got a job at a pizza place during the summer.  My position was washing dishes and passing out flyers.  From this job, I was able to get new clothes and anything I wanted or needed.  This year my dress changed from dressing poor to dressing good.  Everything I owned was named brand, if it was anything else, I didn’t wear it.  My attitude also changed, from being quiet to becoming cocky.  My junior year of High School, I didn’t care about anything but music, and the way I looked.  My main focus was making money at my job.  My senior year, I worked a lot and I decided to try out cross-country.  After this, I decided to work a lot again.  When I did I realized that there was someone that I worked with that sold marijuana.  We were always sent to pass out flyers together and he would smoke on the way.  When he did he asked me if I wanted to try it, so I did.  This is when I started to smoke pot, and black and mild cigars.  I didn’t like cigarettes.  I did this for about three months.  I stopped because I felt like I wanted pot one time during class and I yelled at a girl and cussed her out, because I was upset because I couldn’t have marijuana.  During the last week of my senior year, I bought a car from one of my friends.  When I bought this, I felt like I had freedom.  Times after work, I would go a friend’s house that I worked with and drink alcoholic beverages.  I did this for about six months and quit because I wanted to start working out again. 

After graduation, I didn’t know what to do with my life so I just started to work full time at my job.  During this time, I was sick of life, and I wanted to die.  I didn’t want to kill myself because I didn’t want to go to hell; I knew that I was going to go there the way I was going.  I just wanted someone to come up to me and kill me, I would daydream about how glamorous that would be.  Soon after graduation, I called a friend and realized that he was avoiding me for some reason, and a lot of my friends were doing the same, I didn’t understand it, so I quit calling them.  After that I tried to spend as much time as I could at work.  The more I worked there, the more I hated it, the more I hated it, the more I wanted to die.  I was sick of everything and everybody. 

When I came to my lowest point in life, there was something inside me asking me if I remembered when I was a Christian, I would answer, “yes.”  Then it would ask if I remembered how happy I was, and I said, “yes.”  This same voice kept coming to me for about three months then I asked God to forgive me, but I wasn’t serious, so life seemed the same.  Then one day I started to think about where I was going and I realized I was going nowhere, so I asked God to forgive me, this time I was serious.  All of a sudden something came over me to find a college.  For some reason I was looking in Ohio, I didn’t know why, then I applied and they accepted me at Clark State Community College, in Springfield Ohio.  I could have stayed in Florida and went to a school there, but for some reason, I wanted to get away.  So during a visit with my parents to Ohio, to spend Christmas with my mom’s family, I decided to stay.