I came into this world on October 29, 1989. I was born in the beautiful city of Woodland Hills, California. Growing up, I was raised in a non-religious, Jewish home with 4 brothers. I am a middle child. I moved to Vegas at the end of 4th grade.
I was never really connected to religion; I just did what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it. When I was younger, my mom tried to kill herself. This affected me a lot. I was always hurting, and when I got into 7th grade, I drank with my friends on the weekends to take away the pain. I was always really angry towards my mom because of what she did. She would always blame my brothers and I for her choice, so you can imagine what that would do to a kid.
Until 9th grade I had never known who Jesus was and what he did. My older brother invited me to this thing called Young Life, which is a Christian group designed to reach out to kids who do not know God. I went to Young Life camp the summer after ninth grade, and heard about God’s love and what he did to show it. I kind of understood it, but did not want to make Jesus the leader of my life. I continued going to Young life, and it started to click more and more as I went to the Thursday night bible study.
I began to follow Jesus with all my heart. My life did not get perfect after that though, and it took time for me to become close to God. All my friends thought I was so weird to just stop partying. I stopped because I didn’t need to party to fill the void in my heart anymore. I had God in the center of my heart. It sounds weird, but its true ha. At camp, the summer after tenth grade, my Younglife leader, Omar brought his guitar. He played and I started to sing (before that day I had never tried to sing, and didn’t know that I was decent at it). I knew that God gave me this gift, and I later found out that gift is worship. I realized that God had designed me to sing, and to sing about things that matter. The summer after my Junior year, I served at a YL camp for a month because I wanted the kids that went to camp to have the same experience I did. I also became a leader of the junior high youth group, Wyldlife.
In December of 2009, my Mom tried to commit suicide again and was put in a coma from her attempt. For 2 weeks, my Mom was not responding to light, touch and could not hear voices. One day, my brother Adam, Omar and his wife Allie, and I were at the hospital and decided to pray for God to heal my mom. Her brain was functioning at 30%-40% and when we prayed over her it jumped up to 80%! After we stopped praying, her brain function went back down. A couple of days later my mom started to make some progress. She began to open up her eyes, and then began to breathe by herself. She was released a couple days before Christmas.
She had this amazing story that God talked to her when she was in her coma and told her everything is going to be okay and that she is healed. She was never expected to survive or come out of the coma normal. The doctor told me that if I did not wake up when I did and get to my mom and call 911 when I did, she would be dead. It is so amazing how God works. God told her to follow Him. Ever since my mom has been out of her coma, she has gone to church every weekend and reads God’s word on a regular basis. Turning to God does not make everything perfect though. You have to continuously seek him and it takes time, just like any relationship. God will only take the pain if you give it to him!
In Feb 2009, God put something major in my life. My all time dream has always been to sing for a living. Not only did he help me with that but he connected me with Drew Bodine, the Worship Leader at Central Christian Church. Drew and I went out for lunch to talk about the possibility of me joining their worship team. Not only did I get the chance to do that, but he decided to make me his intern. Until this point, I was working at a crappy job that I did not enjoy and did not feel like I was living for a purpose. On Wednesday, we decided that this was Gods plan. That Wednesday night Drew called me and asked, “Do you want to co-lead young adults youth group with me?”. My first reaction was that he had to be kidding. It is crazy how different Gods time is than my own. I was super excited and I said yes. That Thursday, I got to lead in worship and it changed my life and the way I look at God and worship. That weekend, the plan was for me to chill backstage and see how everything works. God had a different idea. One of the male vocalists did not show up. God had another curve ball he was going to throw at me. Laura, the person that chooses who is on the stage every weekend, came up to me and said “Do you think you can learn the songs and sing in 2 hours?”. I was so shocked but quickly said “yes”. I got to sing that weekend at Central and worship in front of thousands of people and it was amazing and life changing. God made it obvious to me that Central Christian Church is the place I belong. God gave me the gift of worship and he helped me get where I need to be to become a worship leader
The year of 2009 has been a struggle financially for my family. The economy has caused house sales to go down and my dad is a Loan Officer so that has forced him out of work. My dad for all of my life has been the one that would provide for my family. Since the economy has crashed he hasn’t been able to do that. For a little over a year we’ve had to live month to month waiting on my moms disability money. This has been a struggle for my family because in the past we were so used to everything being so easy. My family went from being upper class to losing our home, 3 cars and boat. I was put in a place where I was out of control of the situation. This has put all sorts of feelings in my body that I didn’t know I could feel. If I was to describe the feeling in one word it would be STUCK. Stuck in a place where I was vulnerable and uncomfortable. The way I responded to this feeling was with trust, and faith. Trust and faith that God would take this situation and be the one who would provide for my family. I surrendered everything to God because he is in full control. Since I have surrendered everything I have realized that God has provided my family with everything we need. We have a place to sleep, food, a car, and amazing friends. I even added a moped on that list in October 2009. God is in control.
(to be continued..)
