I am blessed to be at a church with a Pastor, Larry Enriquez, that I have known since he was one of the assistant coaches of my little league team the Dodgers when I was a little boy.  On more than one occasion he has encouraged me to use my athletic ability to spread the Word of God.  And that always stuck with me throughout my life.  Even when I took a break from sports for a few years.  Recently, through his sermons I have felt the Lord calling me to action.  This is my platform and my place is not to convince anyone that the Lord is real but rather to share my story or testimony with others and let God do the work in them.  So here is my story which you can find in The Athlete’s New Testament at http://www.Faithrxd.org.

No matter your background or upbringing we all must make an individual choice to believe and accept Christ as our Lord and Savior.  Jesus said, “I am the and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me” (JOHN 14:6).

I was blessed to have grown up with a big and loving family with two parents who loved the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (see MATTHEW 22:34-40).  By their examples, I learned what the Love of Christ was like and accepted Jesus into my heart at a young age.  But I don’t believe I fully understood what that completely meant.

It wasn’t until July 26, 2007, that my life was completely turned around.  That was the morning I received a call at work telling me my father had passed away from a heart attack at age fifty-two while on vacation.  My dad and I were extremely close and this hit me really hard.  I was devastated and spent hours each day sobbing and “praying without ceasing,” crying out to my Father in Heaven asking for comfort and some way to understand why all this happened.

Looking back I realize I had hit rock bottom and the Lord rescued me.  He completely turned me into a new person.  To this day I still have a hard time thinking about, let alone talking about, my dad;  but my heavenly Father is there for me everyday and in every instance that I need Him.

Sometimes life hurts, but I have complete faith in the plan the Lord has for my life.  Through the pain of losing my dad I discovered a deeper understanding of God’s love, faithfulness and comfort.  Now that he has enabled me to excel at CrossFit I see this as my opportunity to meet new people and encourage others in the community to know Christ and the spending eternity in heaven worshipping the Lord who will wipe away every tear from their eyes (REVELATION 21:4).

One of my favorite verses:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” – MATTHEW 22:37