I Speak Life!

It's time to address a subject everyone avoids talking about because they don't want to offend anyone.  Religion. I will start with my background.  I was raised strict Catholic through my Junior year in high school when I was confirmed.  As the years went on, I began to distance myself from the church for a few different reasons.  I didn't believe in praying to the Virgin Mary, I didn't like the concept of reciting that I believed in one Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, and I didn't like how the religion I was raised believing spoke from a stance that they were right and everyone else was wrong.  For years I was exploring different churches in my area, and what I found was that each one had some of the same traits that turned me off of my original church.  Then the day came where a friend of mine said I should come to his church.  I went on that Sunday, and it started out with a peer group where we sat in rooms with people around the same age ...

There are only a few influential figures in the world I can personally say had a huge impact on my life in one way or another.  I will talk a bit about my top two in this Blog.  First, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, an English Writer, likely had the largest impact on my life. I didn't like to read as a child; in fact, I hated it.  There was a day school was called off for snow, and I was told by my Grandfather to read a book.  It was 'The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien.  At that young age it was a huge book to undertake, and I wasn't at all excited about reading it.  I thought it would be boring and a complete and utter waste of my time. Then I started reading it.  I will never forget the first paragraph of that book, because for some reason, and to this day I am not sure what that reason is, it grabbed me and didn't let me go.  It goes, "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.  Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and...