Jeremy Graves
Jeremy Graves's Story
Parent's Divorce
Parent's Divorce
I remember sitting in my bedroom with my Dad; both of us were crying. He had come back home briefly while working out of town. Next thing I knew, my parents were getting divorced. I didn't find out until later many of the reasons for this, but apparently my Dad had begun a relationship with another woman while working away from home.
At first, I'm not sure I understood what was happening, but as I grew up a bit more, I began to be angry at God. If He couldn't even keep my parents together, what good was He?
Before long, I began transferring my feelings of anger to all the students and people I saw around me. I maintained a sense of morality because I saw the long term negative effects of living without any reserve. It seemed to me that nobody else thought about the fact that there were more important issues than how much fun they could have at whatever cost.
If I had remained angry at the world, I could see myself as the kind of person who would have gone to school with a gun and caused another Columbine. I certainly felt the kind of rejection that those kinds of students feel. I felt like an outcast, alone but unwilling to befriend people who lived in the world of sports and crude jokes, or material, temporal things that wouldn't be important to them in five or ten years.
Though I had been raised in a Christian family, my anger towards God had lead me to turn away from Him. Instead, I filled myself with philosophical ideas. Finally I read a book that described Christianity in its early spreading across the world as a plague, wiping out native religions and cultures. This brought me to a decision point. I realized I had to decide what I was going to believe. After spending hours reflecting on what I had learned growing up in church compared to what I had learned of certain philosophical systems, I realized that the doctrines of Christianity were much more cohesive, and dared to claim themselves as the only truth. I made my decision for Christ, and gave my life over to Him that day.
I spent the last three years of High School as a Christian, and sought growth at every opportunity. When I came to college, I knew I wanted to get involved with a Campus Ministry, though I didn't know which one. After several months of getting accustomed to the fact that I was in college, I got involved in a Campus Crusade for Christ Bible Study, and from there branched out to the rest of the group, beginning relationships that I will treasure for the rest of my life.
Because of this, God has continually taught me the importance of being part of a community of believers, and not going it alone, as I feel I did in High School. I still struggle with selfishness, and understanding that if I close myself off to the group, I am not loving them, nor allowing them the chance to love me. Most of all, through the scenario of my parent's divorce, I have seen God's sovereignty at work. Had I not come to the point of questioning the beliefs I had been raised with, I never would have chosen to believe in Christ. It would have been a religious duty inherited by my parents, and I probably would have rejected it by now. It truly was God leading me back to Him.