This page is about that which has been the most crucial aspect of my life. I am an adult convert to Jesus Christ, meaning I didn’t become a believer and follower until I was 37. The story of how God changed my life is not a down-and-out story of someone who is crushed by life’s circumstances and finally turns to God. On the contrary, my conversion story comes amid accomplishment and satisfaction with life in our Mount Vernon community.
I didn’t come from a traditional Christian home, although my mother did take my brother and me to church, and I was baptized in a Lutheran Church in Yakima, probably about the second or third grade. I had no genuine interest in faith, religion, or church, so I just ignored the topic and avoided such discussions. In college, my indifference would twist into thinly disguised hostility toward evangelists on campus; we used to call them Jesus Freaks or Jesus People. I wanted to be left alone and saw no reason to make a decision about the historical person named Jesus. I was more tolerant of those I considered cultural Christians who did not seem to intrude into my world, did not demand anything, or challenged my beliefs. I remained unreceptive to the good seeds of faith tossed on the rocky soil along the path of my life.
Life was good in the early 1980s, as I enjoyed personal and political success in a community full of promise for me and my family. I was Skagit County Prosecuting Attorney, Debbie was an RN at a local medical clinic, and we had a growing family and a home in a lovely neighborhood in Mount Vernon. We had accumulated things that went with the lifestyle we were living: two vehicles, a sailboat (OK, a small one), a motorhome, and a workshop full of tools in the basement. And most importantly, we had two beautiful, healthy daughters.
The question of whether these worldly markers of success were making me a better person never came to the forefront of my mind.
Click here to read about my faith journey.