(Written August 27, 2000)

Although I have believed all my life in God and in His Son Jesus, I really had 
little to no familiarity with the Word of God, and I was afraid to call myself 
Christian, because at the time, I did not view myself as being that "hardcore" 
about God.  That all changed following my freshman year in college, where the 
influence of a friend (Taharee Webb) helped me grow more in God, and on June 8, 
1997, I decided to have a personal relationship with God in all aspects of my 
life.  The week after that decision, God blessed me so much in my following 
endeavor.  Because of Him, I won the 1997 U.S. Junior Open in chess, even though 
I was near lost or losing in just about every game I played.  Throughout that 
year, I began to rely on God more, and He miraculously brought me through organic 
chemistry during my sophomore year.  However, I still did not go to church or 
read the Word of God at all.  

     Then, in the summer of 1999, God really got a hold of me.  He first revealed 
to me my anger and bitter spirit, which up to that point I had not fully grasped 
the destructive influence it was having on my life, both openly and subtly.  
Until then, I had been regularly using anger and bitterness as motivational fuel 
to propel me through the challenges of my life.  Next, He revealed to me the 
immorality of pre-marital sex, b/c up to that point, I had been asking people 
"Where does it say in the Word of God that pre-marital sex is sinful?" He showed 
me, through Tahareeês godly counsel, how fornication is not simply any sort of 
sex, but how it is sex between any two people who are not married.  At that 
point, I was very proud to still be a virgin, and I vowed not to lose my 
virginity until I got married.   A week later, on August 17, 1999, Taharee took 
me to a Christian bookstore, where I bought two devotionals.  Beginning on that 
day, I resolved to read one in the morning and the other in the evening (My 
Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers in the morning, and Time Alone With God 
by Tom Hufty in the evening), and have been doing so everyday since up to the 
present time.  

     However, God was not through with me, because I was still not reading His 
Word. To deal with that, He brought me to a great church in Cambridge 
(Pentecostal Tabernacle), and from the influences of that church, and my 
devotionals (all three of which were telling me to start reading Godês Word), I 
began to start taking seriously the idea of reading His Word.  I finally decided 
to read Godês Word daily in January 2000, when on a bus ride, a woman I was 
talking to advised me that she read the Bible by reading a chapter a day.  I 
started doing that, until one time at church, my pastor (Brian C. Greene) gave a 
sermon rooted in the book of Joshua, regarding meditating on His Word day and 
night.  I then thought, "I wonder if God is telling me to read a chapter each 
morning and a chapter each night?"  I quickly thought, "Nah" and ignored that 
thought, until the next Sunday, Pastor Greene sermonized from the same part of 
Joshua.  That night I began reading a chapter in the morning and at night, which 
I have been doing every day since.