Testimony

I would have to say that it started, for me, around 6^th grade.  This new notion of “cool” slowly but surely made itself prevalent in this new atmosphere of middle school. Everything began to revolve around who you hung out with, what clothes you wore, which girls were interested in you, what kind of music you liked and how much could you stand out among the sea of other kids trying to quickly find their “image”.

By the time high school rolled around, popularity seemed to have grown immensely more important then it was in middle school.  I never really had a strong urge to be the most popular kid in school, but it seemed that being on varsity sports from freshman year onward certainly threw me into that crowd.  You get invited to all the “parties with the older kids”, your clothes begin to conform to the group you’re associated with (jocks, skaters, goths..etc), new girls begin to like you.  It was almost like middle school all over again, just a different atmosphere (and with booze).

Needless to say, I followed the same pattern of choosing who I associated with, chasing girls, and drinking frequently into my college career.  Nowhere else could you go kill 30 racks 5 nights a week, still make it to class, and have time for girls on the side.  By every definition of Hollywood’s “College” scene you see depicted in movies such as American Pie, Animal House, and Van Wilder, I was not only doing everything right…..I was doing it exactly right! Right?

God tries to warn people with little unpleasant nudges here and there throughout their life when He knows they’re heading down the wrong path.  Looking back I can easily count 10 clear indications of such off the top of my head.  The greatest thing is, however, that He will not give up on you.  And for people as prideful as I was….sometimes we won’t give in until He shows us how low we have sunk.  Blurred vision, alcohol radiating from my sweat, in handcuffs, with no shirt, vehicle on the tow-truck, balling my eyes out in the back of a police car was that point.

I can look back now and understand that this was all His plan from the start….it would take a massive blow to my sinfully, comfortable, irresponsible life to wake me up. Some people can accept His love easily, others need to be shown how to the hard way.  I will forever be haunted by the ghost of a person I had let myself become prior to accepting Christ into my life.  However, even though it may take ME half a lifetime to forgive myself for my actions, I know that in the eyes of Christ…I’m forgiven.

I pray that it wouldn’t take a life altering experience for whoever is reading this to come to know Christ…but then again…..It has been more beautifully life altering then I could have ever hoped for.

When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.

Jimi Hendrix

Thank you! I owe you this and whatever else you need in life.

At two o clock in the morning, after I had been hitting the bars pretty hard, I found myself looking at my steering wheel of an old broken down Chevy Blazer in a parking garage downtown wondering if I was going to risk lives just so I could get to a warm bed and knowing that without a drivers license I would go to prison if I was lucky enough to not injure anyone but rather get pulled over. Thankfully, you both were there staring at a strange kid trying to drive a car and you both paid it forward by giving that kid a ride home without asking for anything except a letter about my life, for this I am forever grateful and for that here is your letter and may thousands follow so that the rest of the world can share their life stories and pay it forward. 

Who am I is such a hard question in today’s modern world; we pride people on individuality such as women wearing meat dresses, yet there is hardly any diversity in this world thanks to pop culture and the media. As you walk down the road of life you see thousands of people doing anything they can to get as skinny as the fashion models who devote their life to looking as they do, this for the average individual leads to anorexia and bulimia and turning your back on anyone who wants to help you be who you are even if it means you aren’t wearing size quadruple zero jeans.  People growing their hair out to look exactly like teenage sex icons or people buying a thousand dollar shirt only because a musician wore it; this is what this country is turning into which is why I think it is so hard to say who a person is, all of us are a mixture of nature and nurture, where we grow up, who are friends are and what TV we are allowed to watch as children depicts who we will be when we grow into our twenties and thirties. Underneath all of this however; is a person and we are all individuals.

This is my life in a nutshell, peanut shell if you want to get technical.

I am a twenty two year old male who is Caucasian, I make average income and hope to improve upon this shortly but I have everything I need I have a roof above my head, shoes under my bed and meals when I’m hungry and need to be fed. My family consists of my mom and my dad who are for whatever reasons no longer married. Besides me they were able to bear two other children, both boys, one is Mr. America who can play any sport there is and be good at it, the other one is an amazing musician with God given talents for any instrument on the planet. With my parents being separated, I have lived all over Colorado and in Baltimore, MD and Sandy, UT. I have seen every single mainland state in the union with California being my favorite due to the Pacific Ocean and Colorado coming in a close second due to the people and laid back attitude. I have also been in three different “states” in Mexico.  I have been on an airplane, cruise ship, helicopter, horse, camel, elephant, automobile, semi truck and even rode on the back fin of a dolphin. With this traveling around and having different adventures I have seen both good and evil in this world anything from people pulling guns and carjacking to miracles happening and people giving things they couldn’t afford to give because some one needed it more than they did. With all this traveling about I have learned two different languages, American Sign Language and Spanish and have also met people from thousands of different cultures and backgrounds, each one with their own story to tell. I would love to live on every single continent including Antarctica; I also have learned that none of this traveling means anything without good friends and a good mate by your side whether that person be male or female, in my case, my girlfriend is my beacon of light on the stormy sea we call life. My goals in life, besides living on every continent, are to be able to have my boating and pilots license, to have my MBA and law degree, and to be able to speak seven different languages. Eventually my goal is to get my own bed and breakfast/ huts and settle down on the coast of my own island with a good dog and an awesome wife and relationship. Other than that I can only offer advice, for those of you younger than me I say live in the moment, life is now so let the little things be appreciated and not cause you to be upset. For those who are older than me I can only ask it for I realize I have a lot of growing up to do and my whole life with many memories left to make. And for everyone out there reading this whether you be man, woman or transgender, children or adults, black, white or multicolored the advice I have for you is lets all grab the bull by the horns and pay it forward so we can build a better and richer tomorrow. 

Sincerely,

Drew Mac