I was always brought up in a Christian family. Regular, weekly church visits and annual kids camp made me think I knew God and what he was about. My parents were great and always supportive of my spiritual choices and always believed that I had to make the choice and that they couldn’t do it for me. I experienced the Holy Spirit twice before I was a 'Christian'. The first time was through a healing when I was 9 and I had fallen off a swing, the second was when I was 13 at a conference in Lucan (Eire) and went up for prayer. I never really understood these events but they will always stay in my mind.

When I started secondary school I started with the best of intentions. I went to the CU every now and again because I thought I had to. In second year things began to slip and I started to live for myself, I realized that it was my life and that I was able to do with it what I wanted, for me at the time that involved drink and drugs. For the first while I never divided the two, my Christian life and my Normal life, but I became aware of my ability to switch God on and off like a TV as it suited me, and never really saw a problem with it because I didn’t know any better way. At the start of second year I went to a service in my church, I looked around me and saw so many content people who seemed so happy and I got angry. I walked home and started crying and I told God that I was finished with him, not because I didn’t believe in him, but because I wanted to hurt him and I knew it would. I broke my bible reading routine and only went to church with my parents when I had to. This continued for 1½ years.

During this time God was still working in my life and looking back now I can see it. I was still attending SU camps and he gave me great friends, we were all going through similar problems and talked about it often. Once, when we were sitting together the Spirit came over us and we all began to cry. This was the start of my realization and on that camp I got prayer and confessed to an older leader, not for anything specific, I just had to.

When I was 15 I went to Africa at Easter. I went to visit an old friend of my parents who worked in shanty towns in Nairobi and for a few days visited different areas with him. The horror and awful things I saw made me realize that life wasn’t just about fairy tales and fiction. It was a game of definite choices and black and white realities. This made me think again about my life. I gave God a choice and asked him to show himself to me. He did.

Two months later I attended the Summer Madness Conference in Ireland, and there I completely gave my life to God and he sorted me out. It was very difficult and involved me to break habits and friendships but I was determined to get on track. Since then the Lord has blessed me. I have not always been perfect but the Lord has continually brought me closer to him. My involvement on SU camps increased and I became a leader. I helped for a year with pathfinders, a youth club in my old church. I led the Christian Union in school and God gave me Christian friends who supported me.

In 1999 I moved to my current church CORE as I felt the Lord calling me there after attending a Downpour Conference. There I was very unhappy for the first 6 months as again I felt like I was loosing out but I realized that, "The lord has hands to hurt and hands to heal" - Job. But that all things happen for a purpose, he was just calling me closer to him.

I took a year out in between school and collage and I am currently doing Tribal Training, a ministry and leadership course which is connected with my church. This has been a big commitment for me as I am the kind of person who doesn’t like to be tied down. The Lord however has been faithful as always and I am currently enjoying the year immensely and have found true excitement in Him. It hasn’t always been easy, sometimes it just feels like a big roller coaster ride with lots of up’s and lots of down’s but very little flat ground but I am learning and I can feel God beside me tutoring me and encouraging me.

Everything in my life has shaped me into who I am today, I believe in an ultimate plan in which we all have a part. Sometimes we have to go through pain to be molded in to how God wants us. My life has often been painful and heart rendering but that has made me and I like me. I am continually growing, sometimes stumbling but always being caught.