My Journey with God...
One of the opportunities I had at the end of my "Rooted" experience at Grace Church was to share my story with God by either writing it or I think the other option was to tell it in front of a camera. You probably guessed that I wrote it because I'm about to share it with you hence the title of this post, and that the writing option stuck with me since I'm not sure about what the other option was. Anyway, yeah, I'm about to share with you my journey with God to what I submitted to Grace Church. I'm not here to pursue non-believers about my beliefs, I'm just sharing my journey with Him. So enjoy!
"My name is Andrew Boughner and I was born and raised a Christian. My parents baptized me into the church when I was only about 3 months old and we attended St. Luke's United Methodist Church here in Indianapolis, Indiana. We, along with my two younger sisters, had some great times at St. Luke's from the late 90s to early 2000s. I was involved in Choir and Sunday School there as well. Then, in 2003, we made a big decision and moved to Florida.
This changed my life and there were things I had to say goodbye to, but I was interested in where my life would go from there. We found a church to attend to down in Florida and I was pretty nervous to join Sunday School for fear of rejection. It was at this point in my life that I became less interested in attending church, but after a while I joined a youth group in the 2005 to 2006 school year. This brought me back to God and I enjoyed my time with others my age as we studied the Bible. It was during that summer in 2006 that we vacationed to our hometown in Carmel, Indiana and I had the idea of moving back. I was surprised that my idea stuck so well with the rest of my family and we were able to move back to our hometown in just six weeks. Obviously God wanted this to happen and I'm pretty grateful for that because I had a rough school year starting middle school.
It was both great and interesting to be back in Carmel, Indiana and I was really nervous to go back to St. Luke's because I had the irrational fear of seeing everyone again. So after a while we found a great substitute and started attending Grace Community Church. There was something about this church that made us want to keep attending and I really found home here. My family and I participated in 'The Weekend of Service' a couple times and I got the courage to join 'Merge' during my last two years of high school.
My time in 'Merge' was by far the greatest time in my life to hang with other young men my age and to study God's Word with them. A funny thing I noticed as I listened to the messages at 'Merge' nights was that I felt like I knew the information presented already. It was like the Holy Spirit was always present in me giving me wisdom from God and it was a great feeling. I started developing an understanding and passion to be kind to others and help them however I can and I've stuck with this desire ever since. Once I graduated high school, another big change happened in my life.
Since having a blast in 'Merge', I didn't want anything to replace it so I didn't join any young adult groups after high school. College changed me as a person too because it didn't work out for me. I tried attending and living on a college campus twice and each time had really took a toll on me. This past decade even has really been my most challenging time in my life figuring out my purpose and what to do with my life. I wouldn't say I was separated from God, but I definitely had trouble reaching Him. Then I found God again and I'm very grateful to have had this happened. I started seeing a therapist in 2016 and it took a couple years for me to realize that God was working through my therapist, at least I believe so.
My therapist has really helped me through my depression this decade and giving me pointers to live a happy and grateful life. Once I got the courage from her to join any social groups, I decided to join Grace Church's 'Rooted'. This has been another great time in my life and I feel like my life is changing for the better. It's been wonderful to hang out with other men and study God's Word again with them. I feel more connected with God than ever and I truly feel like He has been working in my life to show me reasons to love Him and follow Him. So, I've made the decision to get baptized again, but on my own choice, to show my desire to love and follow God. I'm excited to see where God will take me afterwards."
So, yeah, that was taken from my own writing of my story with God that I submitted to Grace Church. After all that I've been through with God, I've been wondering, "why do non-believers not want to have a loving spiritual father who would do what He can to save us from our fate?" Anyway, I've really enjoyed God's presence in my life and like I mentioned in my story, I'm excited to see where He will take me. God bless!!!
-By Andrew Boughner
"My name is Andrew Boughner and I was born and raised a Christian. My parents baptized me into the church when I was only about 3 months old and we attended St. Luke's United Methodist Church here in Indianapolis, Indiana. We, along with my two younger sisters, had some great times at St. Luke's from the late 90s to early 2000s. I was involved in Choir and Sunday School there as well. Then, in 2003, we made a big decision and moved to Florida.
This changed my life and there were things I had to say goodbye to, but I was interested in where my life would go from there. We found a church to attend to down in Florida and I was pretty nervous to join Sunday School for fear of rejection. It was at this point in my life that I became less interested in attending church, but after a while I joined a youth group in the 2005 to 2006 school year. This brought me back to God and I enjoyed my time with others my age as we studied the Bible. It was during that summer in 2006 that we vacationed to our hometown in Carmel, Indiana and I had the idea of moving back. I was surprised that my idea stuck so well with the rest of my family and we were able to move back to our hometown in just six weeks. Obviously God wanted this to happen and I'm pretty grateful for that because I had a rough school year starting middle school.
It was both great and interesting to be back in Carmel, Indiana and I was really nervous to go back to St. Luke's because I had the irrational fear of seeing everyone again. So after a while we found a great substitute and started attending Grace Community Church. There was something about this church that made us want to keep attending and I really found home here. My family and I participated in 'The Weekend of Service' a couple times and I got the courage to join 'Merge' during my last two years of high school.
My time in 'Merge' was by far the greatest time in my life to hang with other young men my age and to study God's Word with them. A funny thing I noticed as I listened to the messages at 'Merge' nights was that I felt like I knew the information presented already. It was like the Holy Spirit was always present in me giving me wisdom from God and it was a great feeling. I started developing an understanding and passion to be kind to others and help them however I can and I've stuck with this desire ever since. Once I graduated high school, another big change happened in my life.
Since having a blast in 'Merge', I didn't want anything to replace it so I didn't join any young adult groups after high school. College changed me as a person too because it didn't work out for me. I tried attending and living on a college campus twice and each time had really took a toll on me. This past decade even has really been my most challenging time in my life figuring out my purpose and what to do with my life. I wouldn't say I was separated from God, but I definitely had trouble reaching Him. Then I found God again and I'm very grateful to have had this happened. I started seeing a therapist in 2016 and it took a couple years for me to realize that God was working through my therapist, at least I believe so.
My therapist has really helped me through my depression this decade and giving me pointers to live a happy and grateful life. Once I got the courage from her to join any social groups, I decided to join Grace Church's 'Rooted'. This has been another great time in my life and I feel like my life is changing for the better. It's been wonderful to hang out with other men and study God's Word again with them. I feel more connected with God than ever and I truly feel like He has been working in my life to show me reasons to love Him and follow Him. So, I've made the decision to get baptized again, but on my own choice, to show my desire to love and follow God. I'm excited to see where God will take me afterwards."
So, yeah, that was taken from my own writing of my story with God that I submitted to Grace Church. After all that I've been through with God, I've been wondering, "why do non-believers not want to have a loving spiritual father who would do what He can to save us from our fate?" Anyway, I've really enjoyed God's presence in my life and like I mentioned in my story, I'm excited to see where He will take me. God bless!!!
-By Andrew Boughner
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