Aaron-Convicted

As a kid growing up, my family attended a Catholic Church. I didn’t really know much about God, nor did I like going to church. The only thing I knew about Jesus was that, “He died on the cross for my sins”. I found community in playing sports, namely football. That’s where I found most of my friends growing up as a kid all the way into high school.

My identity was firmly entrenched in football, but I wasn’t really having fun playing during my sophomore year. I played at a position I didn’t enjoy and I wasn’t getting much playing time. During spring of my sophomore year I tore my LCL and my hamstring during a practice. When I found out the severity of my injury I was actually kind of happy. This meant I didn’t have to practice and be miserable. The following summer I decided I wanted to quit, so I went to the coaches’ office to do just that. The head coach questioned why I was deciding to quit. He asked me, “do you have a plan if you quit football?” I didn’t, so I told him I would play, only if it were at another position, and he said it was fine.

 My whole junior year I worked hard to get back in the best shape I could possibly be in to help the team out. My hard work paid off and I became the starting defensive end. Three weeks into the season, the team was undefeated, I was playing well, and I had a girlfriend at the time. To me, life was good. The following week during practice I injured my knee in a drill. The pain was terrible, but I walked it off to give myself false hope that everything was going to be ok. The next week I learned that I completely tore my ACL. My football career was over, my identity was gone.

 I became really bitter and depressed and found my identity in a lustful and broken relationship with my girlfriend at the time. After I broke up with her I got really into partying and found my identity now in that. When I came to UTSA, Jesus was the last thing on my mind. I just wanted to make it to the University of Texas. I went to a frat party the first weekend of fall semester and had a weird experience. The next week I was sitting somewhere on main campus and some guy came up to me and was being really nice to me for some reason. He became my small group leader and he invited me to come to Chi Alpha service. For some reason, I said yes. So I went to service the following Thursday and for the first time of my life felt the presence of God. The people around me were so loving and kind even though I didn’t know them. There was something different about them. I kept hanging out with my small group leader and attended his small group learning more about Jesus and growing deeper in relationship with Him.

I went to Breakaway with him and I knew he was going to ask me if I wanted to get baptized. He asked me and I said no, because I didn’t feel like I was ready to commit my whole life to Jesus yet. I saw a bunch of people lining up to get baptized and I felt convicted. The Lord told me, “Aaron get over yourself, get over your pride, get over the temporary things in your life, you see the way these people love you and it’s because of Me”. So I decided to get baptized that day and I have been living my life completely for Jesus,

and been completely sober since. Praise God!