Fake It Till You Make It

ONE GUY’S TRUE STORY

I was born to a Christian family. Baptized a little bit after that. Growing up I attended a church with my family. Everyone I knew went to church: friends, family, family-friends. It made sense to me, and I was about as devout as a 7-year old gets, saying my prayers, going to Sunday school, the whole nine yards. Things changed in second grade; my Dad was accused of sexual assault. Before the trial started, we were kicked out of our church. As a kid I was pretty confused. I didn’t think Christians should act that way. 

My dad ended up going to prison and wasn’t going to get out until my senior year of high school. I began to struggle with the idea of there being a God out there. I mean, I had prayed every night (sometimes for the whole night) that my innocent father wouldn’t go to prison. Why would God let that happen? Some nights I would leave my room and see my mom in the kitchen crying and praying. It scared me. Christians didn’t make sense to me, and God didn’t either. 

So I figured the most obvious, or at least the easiest answer, was simply that God didn’t exist. Christians were wrong, they were wrong about my dad, why couldn’t they be wrong about God as well? As a kid that was my conclusion. Yet my mom kept looking for churches, and when she finally found one I decided to keep going with her. It was strange to me, silly even, after what we went through, why would we go back? I knew it was important to her though, and she had been through enough. I could fake being a Christian. 

I was like, what’s the worst that could happen, if I die and God isn’t real “who cares?” and if I die and He is, “well it’s a good thing I called myself a Christian!” (A little side note – it doesn’t work like that.) As I grew up I noticed this hole growing in me. I was growing more and more depressed, anxious, and suicidal. I had this immense weight on my chest any time I did anything, and I felt like I was wasting my time and my life.  

By the start of high school I was at a point where I no longer felt the need to go to church for my mom. I didn’t really feel the need to do much of anything. However, I had found a new reason to go – service work. Going to my church had opened up opportunities for me to volunteer, and I did all sorts of things: went on mission trips, worked at food pantries and soup kitchens, and I’ve even sorted shoes for hours. I loved it. It soon became the only thing in my life that didn’t make me feel like I was wasting my time. While working at these places I was surrounded by Christians who wore their love of God on their sleeves. Not that it changed my mind. 

Entering college, I was finally free! I still felt empty though. Lucky for me college had so many things to try and fill that hole, and I tried them. I didn’t feel any better though, unsurprisingly, I felt even worse. I started hanging out with bad influences, doing bad things. From the outside I was still a great student, and it looked like I had everything together, yet I was falling apart.  

My second year I took a look at my life. I wasn’t doing so good. I wasn’t happy with how I was acting, or what I was doing, and the direction my life was heading. So I decided to clean up my act. Which I did! It didn’t help though. I was overwhelmed with anxiety and depression, I was scared it would get to a point where I wouldn’t be able to keep up the act I had been performing. As a final desperate attempt, I went back to my childhood. I remembered my church and the people I volunteered with. It had been a bit so I decided to pray. I mean I knew how to, but this was my first time really praying, you know, giving it the ‘ol college try. It began to catch on, and I first found myself praying once in a while, then almost every day, then actually every day. My anxiety and depression faded, the hole inside of me began to fill. Sooner or later I came to the truth. God was real, and I had been lying to Him my entire life. It crushed me, I knew God forgave, but I was scared. Had I gone too far? God might forgive me, but would other Christians? I knew I should start going to church, but I was too scared to get started. 

The start of the summer, before my third year, I was heading up to Menomonie. I had begun renting a house near campus and all my stuff was in the car with me. I was making the long journey from my hometown to my house when a car ran me off the freeway. I bounced back and forth between the two medians like a pinball before settling to a stop on the side of the road. An ambulance arrived and a paramedic comes out and grabs me. “How are you alive?” 

I knew. I had been stubborn, and God had to knock me around a bit, yet He was telling me, “I forgive you, here is your second chance.” 

I went to sleep that night and woke up in some of the worst pain I’ve experienced. With a splitting headache, my entire body on fire, I headed right to the emergency room. The doctor looked at me with shock when I told him why I was there, “You are lucky you ever woke up.” Thank God, I got it the first time. 

With the help of my mom, my heavily concussed and damaged self moved into my house. I don’t remember much of that week – in fact for the following months, I was constantly wondering where I had put stuff. But there is one thing I remember. I was walking into my house and I hear a voice across the street, “Hey Austin.” I turned around and see a classmate of mine from a project I had worked on six months prior. He is walking into a house shaped as a church. I think nothing of it and go inside. 

There was a church about a half a block away from my house, it was nice and close, the easiest place for me to attend. I began to have restless nights. Every time I would try to sleep I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about church. I had been going to that church here in Menomonie, but it didn’t feel like it was where God wanted me to be. I was so confused, aren’t I doing the right thing? Does it matter where I go to church? I still had my view that going to church was something you did to be good and make others happy. This thinking was a relic from my childhood. Then I began thinking about something else, does that classmate go to church? Eventually it got so bad that I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I mean he’s a good dude, but keep him out of my dreams. So I decided, after weeks of stressing about it, to just send him a message, something along the lines of, “Are you Christian? Do you go to church? Can I come with you?” 

Now the Holy Spirit did not possess my classmate to move quickly as he took four very long days to get back to me. But when he did, he led me to Believers City Church and Street Level. 

I’ve found that faith has come pretty easy for me. Looking back at it I had been taught how to be faithful my whole life. I knew my dad didn’t commit the crime he was accused of, and God used my faith in my father to demonstrate how to have faith in Him. When I started coming to Street Level and going to church, that void I’d been carrying around for so many years was filled. I knew suddenly, and so obviously, why it felt like I had been wasting my life because quite simply I had been. Within a month I was already talking with the campus pastor about becoming a member. I told him, “I just don’t want to waste any more time, I know I can be doing more.”