Church has been a part of my life since the day I was born, but Jesus didn’t become real to me until I was 15. Growing up in a big family wasn’t always the easiest thing in the world, but a lot of peace and assurance rested in knowing I could trust and rely on these people. My faith, I inherited, but really never understood. So there came a crossroads in my life when faith became a choice.

At the age of 12 my family stopped going to church. Faith was present, yet our roots were shallow, we lacked the depth needed to grow into the people God wanted us to be. My father’s alcoholism had come to the point of being unbearable. It was during this season that I became bitter at the church, assuming it was merely a place of judgment. So I became a functional atheist, antagonizing those with belief, and living as if God did not exist.

It was in a greenhouse class in high school that I started to ponder the idea of a God. During my sophomore year, I had a classmate who was passionate about her faith. I would ask condescending questions and she would plant proverbial seeds. These seeds would later grow into faith in a loving God I could trust. The truth and hope she talked about surrounded a man names Jesus. Jesus was what this young woman lived for, and as she shared about Jesus and how He lived a perfect life, knowing we could not be perfect, to die a death on behalf of us, something woke up inside me.

The beauty of God’s plan is that it is always better than our own. Following Christ has been such a sweet adventure! I came to WSU in 2009, joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity, and starting playing my guitar more. Little did I know, four years later I would be leading worship in a venue on campus. I so desperately want the students of this campus to meet a man named Jesus - the same man who changed my life seven short years ago.

Contact Luis: luis@resonate.net

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