Inspiration is Everywhere
Lance has been a fan and follower of WitnessLA.org from the very beginning. He offered to help out with graphics and social media and later hopped on board as an editor. He finally shares part of his testimony.
I didn’t grow up with religion. It was around but I spent my energy and focus on other things. My family didn’t practice religion, nor did most of my friends. I went to an episcopal elementary school but I always passed on the communion. I recited prayers and sang hymns but they didn’t mean anything to me. I had a bible but never had the desire to open it. I didn’t believe in God. I believed in sports and studying and family and friends. I was blessed throughout my childhood, young adult and college years, as well as my working years. I have had amazing support through family, surrounded by great people and presented with amazing opportunities. And none of it did I attribute to God. I didn’t thank him.
I started going to church a few years ago because my girlfriend went to church. At first I stayed home on Sundays while she attended. Then I started going just to support her. She volunteered with the greeting and ushering ministry so I started helping out too. I was still very skeptical and reluctant. As the weeks passed I would go more often and I also started meeting more people. The music began to captivate and move me. (Vaughn Thompson Jr. was our worship leader at the time). And soon I began to occasionally resonate with the sermon and I started listening more. Words and relationships grew stronger though I still did not have a relationship with God.
Earlier this year, I had just come back from a trip to Thailand where I married my wife. Returning to Los Angeles, I was unemployed and seeking direction in my life…[click “Read More” below to continue]
My wife took a job in Memphis for a month so I was on my own looking for jobs, and looking for purpose and inspiration. To keep myself occupied, I created a blog called “Take Nothing For Granted” and posted any story that I came across that inspired me. As I scoured the net for inspiring stories I kept being drawn towards testimonies and realized God was behind many of the stories that inspired me.
One Saturday night back in February, God reached out to me and pulled me to him. He had been speaking to me through everything that I loved…sports, music, design and inspiration. He had been speaking to me through the WitnessLA blog and a video testimony site called IamSecond.com. On this night before Super Bowl Sunday he spoke to me through Tony Dungy’s testimony. Tony talked about how his entire team constantly prayed together and that’s why the Colts won the Super Bowl a few years back. I stayed up all night watching testimony videos on IamSecond and reading testimonies on the blog and I couldn’t stop. I just wanted more. More inspiring transformations. More examples of God’s love. More stories of miracles and answered prayers. More stories of hope for the lost and the broken. For the first time in my life I was touched by the presence of God and his overwhelming love for me, and that night I felt convicted to start something new. As I watched Lifehouse’s “Everything” skit for the tenth time in a row, through tears and a heart yearning for purpose, I spoke out to Him…
“I am yours.”
After accepting Christ this year, I have become more involved in the WitnessLA blog and hope to inspire people to spread love to others. My motto used to be “inspiration is everywhere” but through everything that I have witnessed, I have realized that “God is everywhere”…and that is inspiring.
