Ian - United Kingdom

Nickname: led_snapper

As the song goes ‘I’m not the man I used to be’, is what can surely be said concerning what has happened to me in the last 17 years.

Like so many people I am fortunate to have been brought up by loving parents in a stable family situation. I wasn’t brought up by Christian parents but I did have a good moral grounding. However, also like a good many people I did suffer at the hands of bullies at school and I probably developed into something of a victim. Academically bright and able, but an extrovert held behind walls of fear.

I learned to develop a thick skin, but even into my first year at university I still managed to be the butt of peoples jokes. I became increasingly paranoid and although my college work didn’t suffer very much, my social life and in particular my interaction with girls did.

With this backdrop it is hard to imagine what happened from then to the present day were it not for the intervention of God who loves me more than anyone else could. I say intervention since although, yes I did go searching, He found me, in a pretty pathetic state of spirit. He used various people to get my attention: A friend who was a ‘jack the lad’ who suddenly came to faith; a girl who I was attracted to who was also a Christian - which ensured I went to Christian Union social meetings.

Finally at the baptismal service of one of them, a call came from a minister who seemed to be speaking directly to me (although I know there was a whole room full of people there who I knew) to come forward to the front of the church if I wanted to give my life to Christ. He said ‘don’t put it off’, and I am one who was prone to doing that with just about anything, and other words which thoroughly convinced me for some unknowing reason. Then there was me agonizing about getting out of the pew being tugged one way by thoughts of ‘you’re not going to do that in front of all THOSE people’ and ‘Go on, Go For It, get up and walk.’ The pull to the front was stronger (or was it a push?) and the side of the Holy Spirit won that contest.

Some weeks later I made a full commitment and some time after that I was baptized. The old life was over, a new one had begun. God has taken me on a journey of faith that has seen me go many places, both geographically, also mentally and spiritually. The walls that once held me back have been broken down brick-by-brick. I now work in a very people-centred job as a photographer but I am still aware God has yet to finish this work as I go about mine. ‘Put on the new man’ I certainly have but the credit goes to Jesus.