Hello my name is Orion Welling. My journey really first started with my grandmother. She prayed with me to introduce me to Jesus and accept him as my savior. I was very young at the time so I didn’t fully understand what this entailed but I went along with it. I continued to go to church and Sunday school as a kid, really enjoying singing along to the songs, listening to the parables and stories we were taught. As I grew up, I had more of an interest in science and mathematics. Learning and calculating how things worked through physics which helped me understand more of the world worked around me. However, I started to question the validity of faith in a modern society. I had many questions about culture, technology and science and how it could work with religion and the Sunday school wasn't answering those questions. Like how the Big Bang event created the universe so quickly but in Genesis, it is stated that God created the universe in seven days, to me at the time it seemed like different time frames. So I never asked these questions for fear of standing out and being weird but also being ostracized by my friends and elders, therefore I kept quiet well into my teenage years.

This unknowingly at the time caused me to drift away from the church and I started to resent it as well. I stopped going to Sunday school because the lessons felt childish and repetitive, I yearned for more complex topics to actually have a dialogue about. So the resentment kept growing since no one answered the questions in the sermons either, thus my attendance at church stopped. The stresses from high school and mental illnesses also didn’t help any of this either, I became much angrier and cynical towards everything including my family. All of this came to a tipping point when some of my actions caused me to be involved with the authorities.It was a very dark time in my life, I felt very alone and very hopeless. I didn’t turn to Jesus at this time, in the back of my mind I knew I should have reached out in prayer but I felt incredibly unworthy of His time. But there was this particular moment in the garage that urged me back towards Him. It was an incredibly powerful and miraculous moment that had left me in tears. Which led me to spend that same night in prayer. Just confessing all of my sins and realizing I can’t solve anything and get out of my situation without Jesus. I still had to work on my outlook and attitude on life but everything after that started to work itself out one after another. The timing of everything was just perfect and it couldn’t be explained logically. It was Jesus working in my life, saving me even though I still felt very unworthy.

I knew I had to turn my life back to faith, I worked on my attitude and patience. Going back to church and trying to be engaged through sermons, and I’ve tried to sing more but I’m still reserved about that. I’ve been trying to take steps to reintegrate faith back into my life with plans to return to Sunday school, helping out during service, and getting into a life group (but that one is gonna take a little more time). My mom, grandmother, and grandfather have really helped me through this, sticking by my side no matter what happened and constantly reminding me that Jesus is in my corner supporting me too. My stepfather also offered lots of advice and solace that helped me feel less alone.

At first I couldn’t find a favorite verse as I wanted one that would give me strength to continue but also resonated with my story. The song Amazing grace fit really well thus leading on a search for passages about redemption. I stumbled across Jeremiah 29 verse 11-14. “11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.[a] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.” These verses really help me overcome my feelings of unworthiness through this time, knowing that God will have a good plan for me and that He will help me as long as I come back to Him.