Praise God; that was the phrase I uttered here every morning when my father took me to school. Although my family has gone through many difficult times, they have come to know Christ and have wanted to share Him with their children. I grew up in the kind of family where if you said “shut up” you would get spanked multiple times. I knew one thing on Sunday morning and Wednesday night; Do you go to church. Church became a hobby for me, I don't hate going but that's just what you did. I thought all families were like that too, I didn't realize until I was a teenager that not everyone goes to church every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. But as I grew up and started really listening to what my friends at school talked about, I saw that life wasn't just about going to church and being Christian for some people. During my seventh grade year, my church went to a youth rally at a local church on the weekend. Because of this event and the message it sent, I understood and wanted to give my life to Jesus through baptism. It was amazing, I came home as a teenager and talked to my mom about what it really means to be a Christian and take up your cross and follow Him. So, the very next weekend, my father baptized me in front of the whole church on Sunday morning. It was a wonderful feeling to know that, through the grace and mercy of Jesus, I will one day be with him and spend eternity with him. Even though I was on top of the world at this point, I still didn't fully know what I had gotten myself into. So for the next few years I am living the typical Christian life. I was trying to be the perfect person by doing the right things, I tried not to swear, I tried to wear as many WWJD bracelets as I could so I didn't have to tell them about Christ and they could just see it on my wrist, I wouldn't engage in conversations with my friends that I knew weren't right, I was just living life on cruise control.