My brief testimony

It was the fall of 2002 and I had just graduated high school and began my first semester of college at Erie Community College.  I was debating on joining the military still and I had no desire whatsoever to be in college.  I remember I used to walk into class for attendance and then go home to play Madden for PlayStation 2 everyday.

Well needless to say my GPA was like a 1.10 and I joined the Marine Corps barley a month into school.  I had sort of reached this point in my life where I was devastated with the break up of my high school sweetheart and I was tired of washing dishes for $5.50 an hour.  I knew at that moment that if I stayed in Buffalo as I was, I would never amount to much more than an average Joe.

I had no discipline, I was weak and I had no desire to stay washing dishes or working in a restaurant the rest of my life.  Not that there is anything wrong with people that do that.  It just wasn't for me.

Though something amazing transpired and transformed my life forever in that failure of a semester in college.  I was in this math course and I saw this pretty cute girl everyday so I sat near her and we started to slowly chat.  I had noticed that she was bringing a book to class that wasn't like a math book.

So I asked her, What is that book you bring to class?  She opened it up and it was daily bible verses and I thought wow this girls cute and she loves church?  Who loves church at 18 years old? Haha..  I was so confused, but we spent a great deal of time one day on the subject of God and I was telling her my background and turns out she invites me on a Tuesday night to the youth group at her church.

So I'm thinking ok I'm devastated right now.  I need a little God in my life and it wouldn't hurt to hang out with a cute girl that's connected to God.  Well I sat outside of that church for like 30 minutes and I even think I went in late.  I was hesitating to go in because I couldn't understand who goes to church on a Tuesday night.  Definitely not me!

When I walked in finally.  I told the people it was my first time and my friend invited me and they all knew who she was and my God they were some of the nicest people in the world.  I was like what the heck is going on. Why are people my age so nice and again why are they at church on a Tuesday?

The Youth Pastor that night and the band would deliver an amazing message and by the end I was raising my hand to accept Christ into my life.  I had no clue what I was doing, yet I felt so alive.

I would spend the next few months before leaving to bootcamp at this group every Tuesday and church on Sundays and honestly she saved my life and there was no way I could've went through four years in the Marine Corps.. Iraq and Afghanistan without Jesus.

So many times I found myself talking to Jesus when I was absolutely scared to death.  My faith always told me, that it was all in his hands.  Psalm 23- Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.

My faith was what got me through the dark days and also led me to do some amazing things.  I did though spend a great deal of time running from God. I got into heavy drinking, blaming the world, mixed up with some wrong crowds etc... but long story short I'm not perfect and God was still there the whole entire time.

Currently I have returned back to the start.  It's so amazing to me that no matter how far I run, how much I hide, how badly I screw up.  God is still there.  And he makes all things new.  It's my hope for you that no matter where this message finds you today, that you find your way home or back home.

God has plans for you. Plans to restore you. Plans to give you hope and a great future. Jeremiah 29:11

What a journey. Lead on great leader.  Thank you Jesus.

A True Gift

Lately as I watch some things unfold in life,  all I can think about is, go to work on the man in the mirror. Shut off the noise and stay true to your heart...

It's what I've learned from one of the most important people to ever step foot in my life, and honestly it was because I chose to listen, it has made all the difference.

For about a year I was one on one mentoring with former NFL player and my good friend Caleb Campbell weekly.  We frequented Starbucks and Spot Coffee sometimes two to three times a week.  I couldn't understand for the life of me what he was doing with his life, and quite honestly I had no clue what I was doing with mine.  I knew I wanted more, but I didn't know how to start.  I couldn't figure out how a Texas boy went from the NFL to Buffalo, NY.

He had the makings of everything on the outside. I'm like dude you're verified on twitter. You are like texting someone on the Detroit Lions right now.  You have your own Wikipedia.  ESPN did this crazy special on you.  You have dressed and were drafted in the NFL.  You have this amazing ring from West Point.  Your story is unbelievable.  What are you doing in Buffalo? You came here for a church? Can I check your pulse?

It was crazy because when we both met I had returned to church to "get good again."  After all, that's why I thought you went to church.  There just so happened to be a guest pastor that week and he said something that day that has resignated with me ever since.

He said, "How many times is God going to put somebody in your life that is telling you to hit the brakes, like your mother used to stick her arm out at a stop light when she slammed on the brakes, and God is saying Stop! And you will continuously ignore him and wonder why your life is a mess.  Gods telling you to come home.  He has plans for you, to renew you and restore you.  It's time to stop relying on your ways and come home."

I just sat there stunned because I knew at the time he was talking about Caleb, but I began to think of all the other people he placed in my life that I blew off.  Everything in me at the time made me want to run again, but I knew I had to stay.  The opportunities to make different choices in life, the pride that I had listened to and bought into for so long was over.  I decided enough was enough.

I couldn't wait to get coffee with Caleb that week and explain to him the lesson.  He said, it's amazing isn't it.  He said the world is masked by a charade, chasing a rabbit they'll never catch.  I said, Can you explain that?  He said the NFL, West Point, I was driven by fear.  My entire identity was into Caleb succeeding for everyone else, but Caleb.

He said I love the game of football, but without it Who am I?  As he told me about a blown play on his part at Cowboys stadium with his whole family in attendance.  He said, I was suppose to be at the top of my life, I'm in front of 80,000 people, but I didn't know who I was.  I felt so empty.

He was coming from the NFL (Detroit Lions and Kansas City Chiefs) and a West Point graduate to sleeping on the floor of an apartment building in Buffalo, NY. He became a cleaning guy at his church, mopping the floor and shining the doors, taking out the trash.  He was a free agent, but was receiving offers from Canadian football and a few Arena Leagues as well.

Most of his friends told him he was committing career suicide.  He went on to tell me until you are willing to deny yourself, you'll never learn who you are and how he learned more about himself through a mop and a broom then he ever did through NFL cleats.

He taught me to be transformed in the image God created you to be, you have to deny yourself, put down all your stuff and pick up the cross and follow it.  I thought, Wow man, that's a lot to give up.  He said it's not giving it up.  To discover my true self is the greatest victory of all.

We often met during the work days and this made me feel tremendously like I was doing something wrong. After all I had a Masters Degree.  I had the dream career life ahead.  I was working my way up the ladders of life.  I said see Caleb I want to discover me, but if you ask people who all know me, they'd accept me more if I would just work at that bank over there, just to have a job title.

But something just did not feel right when I spent time in any corporate seminars, networking events or interviews... I was feeling empty inside.  I often felt the conversation to be a charade like Caleb explained.  I knew I did not completely know who I was and I was not going to find my true identity there.  I couldn't stand to be in an office environment where it felt like people talked about each other, more then worked on their future.  

As you can imagine when you turn from it all, drop your stuff and go to work on finding yourself by belonging to causes and purposes that have nothing to do with you, you are met with tremendous critics and people barking at you.  Let me explain.

Well let's see here are some big decisions I have made over the past year.  

-I sold my entire apartment and ended the lease.  
-I moved home with my parents.  
-I quit drinking. Almost a year on December 13th 
-I started reading and listening to way more books and personal development audios.  
-I began speaking more and I began writing more.  
-I decided to get more pro active in church. Volunteering.  
-I decided to take more chances, travel more, and be apart of some amazing things that I could never have honestly scripted better.  Times where the budget said no, but God said Yes.
-I released any strains on my budget as to all things that are related to health, church, fitness, service to others, and identifying and finding my true self.

I wanted God to drive the wheel, not Jeff.  For the first time in my life I began to feel a tremendous freedom.

Honestly a few people asked me if I was suicidal.  I would walk into some functions and I would get the looks, the lets just not talk about him thing going on. Exactly what happened to Caleb happened to me and he told me it would.  As soon as I sold my entire apartment and moved home critics were barking and raving "Oh if Jeff's life is so good why's he back at his parents."   

See people look at the outside, God looks at your heart. 

As soon as I quit drinking, half of my friends fell off.  I was disowned by plenty of people that I used to spend quite a bit of time with.  People I thought would forever be a part of my life were now gone.  But what this allowed me to do was greater then chasing that rabbit and charade Caleb taught me about.

I have been able to spend tremendous amounts of time around family.  I felt free from all clutter, all the stuff I pretty much owned that was suppose to make me look good.  I was able to spend my time developing my mind, reading, being around people sober who were praying over me and always sending blessings my way.

My speaking went to a whole different level.  My complexion started to change.  Noticeably people began asking me how I was so happy?  I became quite the guy to figure out.  Often asked, "What's next, What do you do with that, What are you really doing?  I don't understand.  It makes no sense to me."

I was transforming from the inside out.  I was free to take risks and take advantage of opportunities to which in my heart I know God was the provider of, not Jeff.  The decision to put your spiritual life first is a roller coaster.  Often times you are going to endure many tests, and things won't make sense, but in the end you'll figure out Gods intention.  Honestly, often time this is all so hard to explain.  You only learn by doing it.

So why do I tell you this story? It's been on my heart and this just may have been one of the best years of my life when I seemingly to the worlds eyes have nothing, but I feel like I have everything.

Here's my question to you:
What drives you currently and if it was taken from you, would you know who you are?

Life is the journey.  We all have a story that can change the world.  Your heart is capable of being renewed and if you learn to trust in God, all things are possible.  My prayer to you is that you find what it is your heart longs for and you pursue that.  Life's too short. God Bless.

Semper Fi. Stay True.

The Prolonged Decision To Go Sober

Almost every single time I visited the doctor, I dreaded the question coming my way.  So how much and how often do you drink alcohol? The scale they used to judge you, I perceived as unfair.  I was thinking, This is America doc. Everyone must fail this test because the doctor thinks more than six alcoholic drinks a week is failing.  However, for me that was an average night of just barley getting started possibly four, five or six days a week, depending on the week.  So, I'd cringe telling the doctor because I knew every single time I was going to be recommend to Substance Abuse therapy.

Having attended a brief stint of the therapy five or six years ago, I quickly ran away from it.  I didn't think I had a problem and I was really annoyed they even thought to send me there. After having to make a list of what life looked like sober versus with alcohol being in my daily to weekly habits, I decided this doctor obviously doesn't know me or reality. I am a Marine Corps Combat Veteran, I am German with a mix of Irish, and I am from one of the biggest drinking cities in America, Buffalo, NY. Marines, we drink. It's Buffalo- We drink to our sports teams, we drink and eat wings. It's just what we do.  It's just what I do.  Leave me alone. 
  
Throughout my time serving my country, I learned to booze like there was no tomorrow.  Well, because hell I spent 14 months total between Afghanistan and Iraq in the Infantry, so literally, there may never be a tomorrow.  I guess the more popular way people in their 20's describe it is YOLO-(You Only Live Once).  I remember when I was honorably discharged out of the military, I was only 22 years old.  I remember, people thinking I was just a normal average kid.  I was actually criticized by classmates as they found out I was older.  

In Iraq in November 2005 during Operation Steel Curtain

Why are you 25 and in college, Did you take time off and party?  That was a question I got, and more often then not I was frustrated because although I looked like everyone else, they had no clue what was going on inside of me or where I had been, so drinking became a way of life.  A bottle of beer, and I had the solution.  This was a struggle and a struggle that stayed with me throughout my college days post military, all the way up until recently.

Here is a personal quote I came up with that is going to set up the rest of what I'm about to tell you:  

"Unless you're willing to get to the root of the issue, you'll spend your whole life treating symptoms.  You can only put so many band aids on something that needs surgery."

I started blaming the doctor about this issue.  The doctor just doesn't understand.  She would never understand my story.  I started condemning the doctor and everyone I knew, saying in my head "Tell me if you didn't go through what I went through, that you wouldn't be a huge boozer as well."  I thought too myself, I turned 20 in Afghanistan and 21 in Iraq.  There were no limo parties for me.  In fact, I was on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan on my birthday and I was on a twenty four hour shift on my birthday in Iraq.  Happy Birthday to me.  I risked getting killed for this country, so who are they to tell me how to live.  I don't have to explain myself anymore or to any of these people aka- Pride which can be deadly.  The- I know better mentality, which can sometimes also be deadly. If drinking is what I want to do, that's what I'm going to do.  Period.

Well after prolonged years of this and a few attempts too drastically cut back drinking, where I got it down to special occasions, only to return to full fledged drinking again; I realized that I thought I was in control, but I wasn't at all.  Basically I was negotiating with myself, treating the symptoms over and over, without ever getting to the root of the issue.  

Over this past summer I was in church on a Sunday, and we had a guest Pastor in town talking about how many times is God going to want you to hit the brakes on an addiction or an issue, and you have the right people around you trying to help you, and there you are saying, Nope I know better.

I immediately thought of the doctor amongst some others that I chose to ignore every single time.  It took one of my mentors sticking his arm out like your mother probably did when she slammed on the brakes at a red light when you were growing up, and saying Brother you are an amazing man, but we have to go to the root of the issue.  I seriously wanted to run away right there.  That was terrifying to me, to go all the way back and think about where this started.  Yikes!

I drastically didn't want to sit down with him, because I knew I was going to be vulnerable, and much like my doctor, it was going to be a repeated conversation of me concluding that he just doesn't understand.  The important thing is: I dropped my guard, and opened my ears and my mind. Don't we seem to have a hard time doing this in life?  I welcomed being broken down, because I knew alcohol consistently kept leading me on the road to no where.  

Well, he sat down with me and started asking questions, which I cringed to answer.  I actually think my palms were sweating and I wanted a drink right there.  He eventually pointed out that any addiction, negative or bad reaction human beings have is like a bad weed in a garden, the seed started long ago and it is a bad root that is continuing to grow inside you.  And that until I dug to the root of the issue, these weeds were only going to get worse and worse, unless I made a decision to do something about it.

In 2007 upon returning home from the Military

 In order for things in your life to change, you have to change the things in your life.  To get something different, you have to do something different.

That hit me hard because I knew I had to stop doing what was comfortable, and seek solutions.  I stopped pointing fingers at everyone and everything else, and I actually had to point the finger at myself. Ouch.  That hurt.

I started to dig deep to the root of the issue.  I didn't understand, until I did some self reflecting. I returned from Afghanistan in 2004 and Iraq in 2006, one of the first things you want to do is drink it up and have a good time with family, friends and loved ones.  You're home, you made it back. You deserve it.  Lets party!  It's an amazing feeling.  The thing is the high of you serving your country wears off to almost everyone, accept you and many of your buddies that wore the nations uniform as well.  After all, 1% of the nation serves in the military, and fewer then that actually go into war, and fight on the front lines.  You are left fighting an internal battle that could control the rest of your life if you let it.  The important part is: If you let it.  So what do you start to do, without you knowing it, you negotiate your way into a life of percieved comfort, and alcohol can easily become the choice to mask the wounds.  

It took me some time too realize that yes I was drinking with crowds of people, family, friends etc, but when they stopped, I carried on.  Everyday of the week had a reason to drink for me.  I was drinking for a different reason.  I wasn't out to experience my first keg stand, to socially have a night out, or too impress people at the club.  It was my way of feeling normal.  In fact, I often found myself drinking in places that weren't the most uppity clubs or bars in the world because it was relaxed.  I more often then not, chose to hang out with people way older than me, because I knew they would just drink and chill, while people my age or in the 20's, in my opinion were out to make a show of their drinking.  It always seemed like four drinks in, I was feeling normal and they were ready to start something with someone, which I hated.

After about five of six years of this on and off... Man, I don't know how better to say it then I hit a wall.  The comfort of alcohol was a lie.  It was destroying my life.  My life was falling apart.  The alcohol was draining my bank account.  I was at an all time high for anxiety.  More days then not, I'd actually schedule a whole day or two in my week to recover. I just couldn't recover anymore.  I actually had a few full fledged panic attacks while going through withdrawals.  I couldn't concentrate anywhere and I was ruining myself.  Drinking just wasn't funny anymore or fun.  

The question still remained what did life look like sober?  I was scared to see it.  Yet, I made the decision too see it. I went to the root of the issue, as I was done treating symptoms.  I was mainly scared to see it because I relied upon it, it was my outlet.  It was my comfort zone.  I didn't want friends or family to think I was trying to become the perfect person, like I was putting myself up on a pedestal.  I didn't want to be criticized.  You name it, I was feeling it. It felt like the world was crashing down.  Man, I was vulnerable, but I chose to see it through.

"It's during the moments of perceived darkness, where you're actually introduced to the light." (Tweet That)

I didn't realize that on the other side of this issue was a life awaiting me.  It's where my themed movement I've started came from: "Back In The Fight"... It was time to get back up and get Back in the fight of life, and I've found this has resignated with people fighting their own battles.  I am now in control, I am now able to dive into my dreams whole heartedly, without distraction.  It was like I was ousted out of the darkness and into the light.  By pointing the finger at myself, I was able to take that lesson into so many other things in my life.  

Recently in Crossfit Training at Athletes Unleashed

God will take you out of the darkness and into the light if you make the decision.  I recognized, I was the only one that could.  I've had so many revelations sober, where I've seen my old self to where I'd normally be drunk, versus where I actually am sober.

If you're out there reading this.  Don't think I'm condemning drinking or your life.  This is a brief part of my story and my testimony.  Maybe you're struggling like I was.  I just want to let you know if you are going through a transition or change see it through.  You are stronger then you think.  On the other side is a reward.  Trust me.  I feel like my life is only just beginning, now that I can see and think clearly.  

God Bless.  Semper Fi 

What about you? Do you struggle with anything similar or have you over came an addiction?