I was a drug baby. I was drug to church every Sunday morning, whether I liked it or not. Going to church was normal for me, because I didn't know anything different. We lived in a small town where everyone went to church, and didn't have a say about it.
When I was 10 years old, I started golfing. Now if you ask any golfer, the best friends you'll ever make are on the golf course, and for me this was true. The manager of the golf course had a grandson who was about my age, and we hit it off immediately. If you have ever been to a golf course, then you learned quickly it's not the godliest place to be, or the most child friendly. At that age, we didn't talk politics or religion like the old men. We talked about how far Parker or Bradley hit their drive last week or about the legend panther on the golf course. We spent many summers running around on golf carts, running from the witch lady (every golf course has a witch lady story; ours just shot at us one day) or creeping around the hidden cemetery.
Every afternoon, our parents would pick us up at about 4 p.m., and we'd meet back there the next week at 9 a.m. There was one day when he told me he was having a rough time. His mom had been sick and in the hospital. I told him just to pray on it, and God would take care of it. He looked at me and said he didn't believe in God. I was in shock — was that a thing? To not believe in something that I had always believed seemed just crazy. He then asked me a question that would honestly change my life, "Why do you believe in God?"
To be honest, I had never asked myself this. I mean I was only 12, the most important thing I was thinking about was if I was going to get a date to the fall dance. I looked at him and said, "Well, I just do." The next few weeks we dropped the subject. One day I brought it up again, because I mean who doesn't believe in God?! I don't remember what exactly was said, but we didn't speak the rest of the round. From that day on, we had an unspoken truce never to talk about religion ever again.
Years went by, and eventually, we didn't have time to golf every day, and we quit speaking as much. We got into high school, and we were both pushing for college golf scholarships, through which we found our way back together on the golf course. Most days we were out there it was news topics or gossip, and we sometimes talked about the good old days when golf was just something we did to get away from our parents.
By this time, I had also grown more in my faith. One day right before school, and our final season of golf was about to start back up, we hit the course for a last round. We were out shooting the bull and hitting some balls when I brought up our forbidden topic. Just out of the blue I said, "I just do." He looked up at me like I was crazy. I told him how over the years I had always kept his question about why I believed in the back of my head and how much it bothered me.
He chuckled and said, "Well that's what you said last time." I explained that my favorite Bible verse was 2 Corinthians 5:7, "I walk by faith, not by sight," and how I didn't realize what that really meant until that moment. He tried to pull his "science this and science that" and "how do you believe something that there is no proof behind?" And my answer was the same — I just do. Me telling him this wasn't me trying to convert him. It was my moment in becoming a true follower of Christ and not just a Christian.
