My name is Joe, and I have been wrecked and rejuvenated by the person I read about in the Bible named, Jesus. Although I grew up in a Christian home, and even spent part of my childhood living on a Christian college campus, I didn’t always feel this way about Jesus. Most of my early life I believed in cold, dead, religion. In my teenage years I rebelled against (what I thought was) a dead moral system, while still putting on faces of morality to appeal to friends and family. It got worse in college, until I transferred half-way through my freshman year to Slippery Rock University in Western PA. That’s where God changed my life. I met my wife (who was my RA at the time) who introduced me to a Christian organization active on the campus. Through the people I met, I began to learn about a different kind of Christianity–one in which God was a loving individual who desired relationships with the people He created. Then I started reading the Bible. That changed everything. I realized that the God I learned about in childhood was much more personal and patient than the angry, distant, father figure I grew up hearing about. Since then, I have been on a journey to get to know the God I met in the Bible and to live my life, not for myself, but for Him. I know that goal sounds super sacrificial and noble, but honestly, it’s much more fulfilling than anything else I’ve tried, so it’s probably a little selfish too.

I currently live in a small city in Eastern PA and am married to an incredibly patient woman. We have a young daughter, and are doing are best to raise her in a loving knowledge of God.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m really not anything out of the ordinary. The only thing extraordinary about me is that God loves me.