Week 7 | Life Chart | Alex

LIFE CHART

The Good

• 9th Grade- Joined the high school group at church and felt loved and included at church for the first time (Stepped out of my comfort zone for the first time)
• 12th Grade- Started going to church by myself and my faith was beginning to be my own
• Beginning of freshman year- starting going to Church while in college and began exploring what I wanted in a church
• Halfway through Freshman year- Visited InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and joined it, found community on campus. I really felt like God called me to a small fellowship to help develop and build it.
• End of freshman year- I was asked to reach out and teach the fellowship, it was the first time I had to really own my faith and be confident in Christ
• Freshman year- I learned how to open up to my friends and share the brokenness I have experienced for the first time in my life
• Sophomore Year- God broke my pride through failure in ministry and through a failed relationship, I realized how imperfect I am
• Junior Year- I began coming to Ekko
• Beginning of Junior year- Met Felice and began my second relationship, fell in love and found out what it means to make a relationship work and how to let God lead, learned how to depend on God rather than a woman, learned how to give up relationship struggled to God
• Beginning of Junior year- For the first time I saw myself as a leader and realized through affirmation others have felt led by me
• Junior year- I understood that God has power over my emotions and that he is stronger than any emotion I could possibly feel
• Junior Year- I am beginning to become the man I want to be in Christ. A man who worships God through word as well as discipline, through discipleship, reading the word and gaining wisdom.

The Bad

• Age 15- My parents were having problems and my Dad moved out of the house to live forty minutes away but still came home on the weekends. 
• Age 16- I began to resent my father because whenever he came home it would be to make us do chores and work around the house, I began to associate his coming home with work and I resented him.
• Age 16 to 17- My Dad lost his job and had to find a new one in Los Angeles so he moved from NorCal to SoCal, I still saw him every other weekend on average, but over time he came home less and less.
• All of High School- I had nobody to talk to about all the things going on in my life except my Brothers and my Mom, so I became isolated and alone, which brought on an intense feeling of loneliness and the thinking that I could never be known, my friendships became very shallow and I began lying constantly to cover up what was happening between my parents.
• Age 17 to 18- My parents separated. My mother became very broken and I felt like I had to be there to console her because she had nobody else. The burden was too heavy for me to bear, but I had no choice.
• Sophomore Year- I slowly became very self righteous and like the pharisees. My heart became hardened and I believed I was serving the Lord wholly and completely, but I wasn't. 
• Sophomore year- I experienced my first break up and it was intense pain that led me to feeling worthless and dejected, but it also led to God breaking me.