How the quiet guy in the corner got into radio (Part 1)

When my wife (Tracey) and I met in 1992, we quickly realized that we had actually met briefly on a previous occasion. When she told me where she lived, I remembered that I had been in her house before. I recalled the summer of 1990, when my girlfriend at the time had taken me to a party at Tracey's house. Who woulda knew at the time that I'd end up marrying Tracey! The reason I bring all this up is because of the way Tracey remembered me at that party. She said, "you were that quiet guy with the long hair sitting in the corner drinking your beer!"

Yep, that was me. Well... I did get rowdy with my close friends and I wasn't a complete recluse, but for the most part I was "soft-spoken" (as someone else once called me) and I've generally shied away from the spotlight. In 1993, about a year after beginning my walk with the Lord, I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life but I made a short list of some things that I might want to do. True to form, my list included things that would keep me out of the spotlight. One of the things I wrote was "behind-the-scenes work in TV or radio" (camera man, etc). It NEVER, EVER, NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER, NEVER would have crossed my mind to actually be in front of the camera or the mic.

I absolutely hated Speech class in high school. I dreaded getting up there and speaking in front of the whole class. I also had to take a Speech class in college, and I remember shaking terribly because I was so nervous! Being in the public eye in any way never appealed to me.

But the Lord has changed that. I believe He's called me to be a writer and a speaker. Speaking in public, that is. In front of real live people! In my early Christian days I never could have pictured this. It would have sounded absolutely crazy to me. So, just how did the Lord take this quiet beer drinking guy in the corner, who had panic attacks and who dreaded a crowd of more than five people... and give him dreams to speak about Christ in front of any given amount of people?

He did it one step at a time. And He did it solely by grace. I haven't quite formulated how I'm going to share my story, but I do hope God's powerful and all-sufficient grace will be fully evident as I share the various stages I've been through and as I share my hopes for the future that have not yet been realized!

(Whole series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4)