My Testimony- My Love Story, Age 19

June 24, 2008

(This is the sixth in a series of posts detailing my testimony as I trace the faithfulness of God from my birth until the present day)

“Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” -1 Corinthians 13:4-7

“An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. . . . Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” -Proverbs 31:10, 30

Smack in the middle of my first venture into serial dating, God hit me with the death blow (though I was soon to find out that this was the most welcome death blow imaginable). As I have said prior, my reputation as a skirt-chaser at this point had kept me from being able to actually date any of the girls from my church that I should be pursuing. Yet, as my second year of college came to a close, I found myself suddenly enamored with one of these girls anyways. She was a little older than me, very mature in her walk with the Lord, and yet completely down to earth. We had quickly become friends, even though my early attempts at conversation had been met with more trepidation than openness, and she was certainly someone I knew I could connect with on a deeper level than anyone else in the group.

I continued at the same pace as before, dating whoever I could find on a Friday night, though as time went on my affections for this girl grew and grew. I would stop by her workplace just to see her for a few minutes. We would hangout with everyone out to dinner, and then afterwards the two of us would linger on, talking and sharing more intimate aspects of our person with one another. Yet, through all of this, she appeared to show no particular feelings for me.

Finally, after months of waiting, and much searching through prayer, I made the decision that I should take the risk and let her know that I liked her. The next day I spoke with one of my friends and asked for him to pray for me in this venture as well. Then suddenly, opposition. I received a phone call from one of the girls I was close to outside of church. She sounded depressed and proceeded to inform me that her boyfriend of the past eight months had dumped her. Uh-oh. This was a girl I had had a crush on for years, and though she wasn’t a Christian, there was always a part of me that wanted to date her. So, against my better judgment, that night I went over to her house to console her.

The next 45 days were insane. I began to see my friend from school casually, going to movies and talking on the phone, while still inside I was burning with affection for the girl at church. Everyday felt like a tightrope, walking between the present reality of a girl I had always wanted but wasn’t the right one or the chance of a future reality with a girl who I had recently become enamored with and who was much more in line with God’s desires. Finally, one night, after going to the movies (with a guy for a change), I realized what I must do. Driving away from the theater I called my friend and told her that I couldn’t be with her anymore. I explained that I really liked her, had always liked her, but that I knew that it was God’s will for me to be with someone else. With that decision, for the first time denying myself an easy relationship in favor of the one God wanted, I set a collision course with destiny.

The next weekend I went to see the same movie at the same theater, only this time a larger group went with me; a group which contained the girl from church. We sat next to each other, though nothing really implied there, and after the movie we did our usual thing of lingering around at the cars long after everyone had left. Only this night I went for it. I told her how I felt about her, that I would like to date her, and asked her how she felt. Her response, however, was less than I had imagined. She said that she was not interested at this point, though she really enjoyed me as a friend, she was not looking to go any further right now. This hurt.

A little sad at being rejected, I headed home. However, something inside me told me not to give up. So, once I got home, I wrote her a letter telling her how I was willing to wait for her if that’s what it took and that I wanted to keep our friendship going, regardless of where we were at relationship-wise. I then put this note on her car window the next day while she was at work. Apparently it was worth it as the following morning at church she expressed to me how much hearing this meant and that she was glad that her rejection of me would not get in the way of our intimacy as friends.

For a month we continued in this way, growing closer and closer, spending more and more time together, until finally one night it boiled over. Sitting, then standing in her living room one evening after a movie night with the people from church, we shared our first kiss. A few days later this led to even more kisses as we snuggled close to each other, standing beside her car for 4 hours outside of a Wendy’s. We hadn’t decided to date yet, but we made plans to get together for a movie later that week to further see where we were at. But, two days later, she crushed me again, this time having me meet her at a McDonald’s on campus in order to tell me that she was still not ready to be in a relationship. Injured once more, I found the resolve in my spirit to stay the course, fully sold out to the fact that this was the direction God was taking me.

Another month went by and once again my impatience started to creep in. This time it was with another girl from church that I began spending time with, even though my heart still belonged solely to the first one. Nothing really ever developed here, but after about a week, something clicked in the original girl, and she called me one afternoon saying she wanted to get together to talk. That we did, and for the next couple of days we moved around in a sort of limbo, unsure what was going to happen.

Then it was Halloween. Following another evening of going out to eat with our friends, me, her, and another guy from church all headed back to my house to watch TV. This we did for a while and then we talked in the darkened living room, until finally, around 3am, people started dozing off. Sitting on the opposite end of the couch from me the girl fell asleep first, followed by the guy laying in the floor. About half an hour later though, the girl woke up and snuggled up next to me on the couch. We whispered to each other, hugged, and eventually started kissing. After a few minutes of this I looked her in the eyes and said what I knew God had shown me through all of this: “You’re going to marry me.” “Probably” was her response, and a few days later we finally began dating, knowing exactly where we would end up.

2 Comments | Testimony | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Todd Burus

My Testimony- Controlled Chaos, Age 17-19

June 23, 2008

(This is the fifth in a series of posts detailing my testimony as I trace the faithfulness of God from my birth until the present day)

“Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” - 1 Corinthians 6:18

My last week of high school, though the end of a truly transformational period of my life, was actually the beginning of something even better. This was the week of the first court hearing over custody of my daughter. Though the court was a little harsh on my motivations as a father (in what I came to realize was the typical posture of courts to be more lenient towards moms than dads) I still left the courthouse that day with an equal share in all rights as they pertained to my little girl.

This was wonderful. Working, preparing for college in the fall, I now had the legal standing to spend time with and care for my daughter equally alongside (and unfortunately, often times opposed to) her mother. I began being able to spend days at a time with her, getting to know her, raise her, and incorporate her into all of my life. By God’s wonderful grace I was now in a situation where I had the support of my family to help me in making sure my daughter had the best possible life. And, further by God’s grace, I was able to have a majority of the time that summer with her, while in the other home her mother slipped farther and farther down a road of elicit behaviors. At this point she was pregnant with the child of another man who had started to live with her.

In the fall I began college, and to my surprise, I loved it. Immediately I was hooked into the academic atmosphere of college life. The ability to take whatever classes I wanted, to learn whatever interested me. It was amazing. The apathy towards school which I had cultivated during high school was gone and I had become completely sold out to my scholastic pursuits. This truly was a testament to God, who through his providence had brought me here, when I was prepared to make a decision which would have sent me the total opposite direction.

However, my love for school and my acknowledgment of God’s bringing me there, as well as his wonderful guidance in the situation with my daughter, still did not keep me from pursuing certain sinful activities. At this time I was completely overcome with lust. Between my uncontrollably flirtatious behavior towards the girls at school and at work, my continuing physical relationship with my girlfriend, and my constant succumbing to the temptations of pornography, my life was certainly not adhering to the cry of Paul to “flee from sexual immorality.” As well I was dealing with continual temptations towards greed and materialism, as for the first time in my life I found my self with a sufficient amount of money to spend on most anything I wanted. Though I always saw myself as being far removed from the actions of a few years prior, this was still a dark period of spiritual famine in my life.

Back in the custody hearings, things had started to work my way, though it was not always a very comfortable thing to endure. Through a series of missteps and neglects, including seeing my ex-girlfriend have her second child taken away by the State and the constant fear of what might happen to my daughter while being in that house, the Lord answered my prayer. From the beginning I had prayed that God would either see to it that my ex-girlfriend played a beneficial role in our daughter’s life in cooperation with me or that she would be taken completely out of the picture. And, though it was aided by her deepened depravity, of which to this day I don’t know that I have ever been broken about in the manner I should be, the Lord answered by making it so my little girl’s mother was removed permanently from her life. This result was as a great burden being lifted from my life, giving me the freedom now to raise my daughter without the fear of losing control of her to someone else.

As the next fall rolled around I found myself in a position which I had not been in for two and a half years: I was single. Once again, accompanying this singleness I found myself being recommitted to following Christ deeper than I had been before. This time it was through my getting involved with the college group at my church. God was truly at work in this group, specifically as can be evidenced now through the number of people there who he has called out into full-time vocational ministry. Here I began to really deepen my relationship with God for the first time, being challenged by the people around me to study and evangelize in a way that I had never experienced. They also provided something which I had missed in churches prior, that being a total acceptance of my daughter. She became just as much a part of the group as I was, both of us going out to eat with everybody each Sunday and Wednesday night following church. It would be inconceivable for me to underestimate the impact that this period has had on my life (as will become apparent later).

This was also a time of great chaos in my life. I was all over the place. Not in a bad way, just in a way that I was constantly on the go, taking more and more on, trying to feed the intense appetites I had at the time. I was in the stride of my college career, taking 20+ hours each semester, heading quickly towards my eventual end of graduating in three years with two degrees and 150 hours of accumulated credit. Plus, most every night, with my daughter asleep and my grandmother at home with her, I would go out. Either to the bookstore or to a movie or just to hang out with friends. Of course, though things were much better on the sexual immorality front, I still had a strong desire for flirting and female companionship, and because of this I found myself bouncing around, going out on dates with about any girl who would show interest. After a total of almost 4 years spent between two relationships, I was ready to just date without making any serious attachments. This worked well as it kept me away from the temptations of doing things physically which I knew were contrary God’s design (promiscuity was never an issue for me), but it also garnered for me a reputation of “chasing any thing with a skirt” (as my wife so poignantly reminds me). Because of this I had trouble getting any of the girls at church, the ones I should have been trying to date, to actually give me a chance, and so most of the ladies I went out with were not girls that I should have even been wasting my time on. Nevertheless, following my testosterone driven desires outside of what I knew I should be pursuing, I continued serial dating throughout my second year of college.

Then, as that year drew to an end, a girl at church caught my eye. I don’t recall why, as she never really showed any particular interest in me herself outside of just being my friend, but whatever it was that started it, I was quickly going under in my desire to date her. Little did I know at the time that that desire would lead me to things much further than I had yet experienced and would completely change the course of my life.

No Comments » | Testimony | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by Todd Burus

My Testimony- Growing and Gaining Direction, Age 15-17

June 20, 2008

(This is the fourth in a series of posts detailing my testimony as I trace the faithfulness of God from my birth until the present day)

“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” -Romans 8:28

To pick up where we left off last, I was in my junior year of high school, 5 months into my recommittal to Christ, when all of a sudden I am hit with the announcement that the girlfriend I had put away so thoroughly a half a year ago is pregnant with my child. But, as I said, through the power of Christ I was resolved to go at this new challenge full strength.

The child was born, February 2, 2001, a little girl, and at this point it was necessary for us to go into legal issues of paternity which I will deal with later. Elsewhere in my life, however, I was starting to get back into dating, this time with a freshman girl I had met through Campus Life. This turned out to be more difficult to start than I expected, since my reputation among the teachers coupled with her mother working in the school system resulted in a number of precautionary emails warning her mother that I was trouble. Thankfully her parents were more trusting of their experience with me than other peoples opinions and we began a relationship which lasted for 2 and 1/2 years.

Things started out well for us, but within a few months we began pushing boundaries physically that we should have avoided. We never got to the point of having sex, but that doesn’t mean that we were fleeing from sexual immorality the way we should have been, nor was I very restrained in my own personal lusts either, all of this leading to a life under the surface which was still less sanctified than it appeared.

Outside of the physical issues though, this relationship provided me with something which I desperately needed at the time, that being acceptance. I had burned a lot of bridges in the previous year, so to have a new relationship with a girl whose family invited me in so warmly was a welcome feeling. At that point I was struggling especially with my youth group where the leadership took issue with my likely-newfound fatherhood and made things very uncomfortable for me being there. Thus, I decided to leave that church, and, searching alongside my girlfriend’s family, I eventually made my way to Porter Memorial Baptist Church. Of all the things that I can look back on from that relationship, the fact that God used it to bring me to Porter is probably the most life-changing.

Going into my senior year of high school I had a lot of expectations. I had marching band and wrestling, both of which I was legitimately chasing state championships in, along with the necessary decision of what would come next after graduating. Then it happened. September 11th. I didn’t lose anyone in the tragedies, nevertheless, this event had a major effect on my life. The fear of terrorism awakened that day still finds its way into my dreams occasionally. But more than that, my patriotism, which had always been a virtue I had treasured, was excited higher than ever and I began looking into entering the Armed Forces. This pursuit led to the eventual presence of the Army recruiters at my kitchen table the night I turned 17, talking with my parents and seeking permission for me to join the Army while still a minor. From here I went up to the entrance processing to take a physical and sign up officially. But while there, the weirdest thing happened. I passed all of the actual physical parts of the examination, but, for the first time in my life, my blood pressure measured high. Real high. Higher than the Army could allow for me to sign up with, it turns out. This wasn’t the end however, as all I had to do was go home, have normal readings recorded for 10 days by my doctor, and send the waiver back to MEPS to allow my certification to be complete. This I did and I was prepared to head back and sign on, but first, and fatefully, I was leaving for a week at Cocoa Beach on Spring Break. Looking back now, I know that this was all part of God’s providence in my life.

In the time between the start of my senior year and going to enlist I had received the results which showed conclusively that I was indeed the father of my ex-girlfriend’s child. Following this I moved into an agreement to pay child support, began spending regular time with my daughter, and started the process of trying to get some level of legal custody over my daughter. I had also, almost compulsively, applied to college at the University of Kentucky, which I learned I was accepted to on the same day I met with the military. Taking all of this with me to Cocoa Beach that week, God began to work on my heart and plans. Finally, after spending several hours in prayer, standing knee-deep in the ocean one night, I came to the understanding that God was leading me to stay home, go to college instead of the army, and raise my daughter. So, arriving back in town the next week, I called the recruiters and told them my decision. They tried to convince me otherwise, but when it was over I stood to my conviction and began heading down the road to get custody of my little girl and start college, both of which God blessed me in far beyond what I could have expected at that moment.

One other thing happened that year worth noting, that being the death of my papaw. As I have already mentioned, my papaw was the man who most influenced my life growing up, and I truly loved him as much as any person I have ever known. In stories he had always been described to me as a man of great strength, who did all that he could to protect his integrity and to provide for his family. Personally, I got to spend countless hours with him, playing cards, watching Westerns, and learning from the years of experience he had accumulated. He was far from perfect, but he was certainly a model of true manhood that was seriously lacking in my own father and step dad, and as such was the model to me of what a father is supposed to be.

Yet, with that said, through the irony that often strikes great men, I watched him spend the last years of his life handicapped and increasingly dependent on the care of others. But being in that house, watching him fade away, struck me with a certain conviction on my life. Standing by his bed, holding his hand and praying as he passed on, God conveyed to me that it was my turn now. That from that moment I needed to be the man who people could turn to. To be the man who would care for his wife and children and family and be a picture of strength for them to look to. I can’t say as I have perfected this, particularly with my own parents and siblings, but I have known ever since that day that I needed to be a man, God’s man, who would stand as the rock for others, pointing them to Christ through my love and faith and commitment. And this is part of the challenge on my life everyday.

No Comments » | Testimony | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Todd Burus