A man who drifted for years — and the Jesus who waited.
I was raised in the Catholic church. My mom and dad had us in church and catechism from the time we were young. When they divorced, my father kept us there — he is a faithful man, and he made sure we were in the pews every Sunday.
My grandmother Anita was the most devout woman I ever knew. She prayed and said her rosary every single day. Whenever I was around her, her Bible was never far away. She was quiet about all of it — she never made a show of her faith, never pushed it on me, and never once asked when I was going to get serious about God.
I understand that differently now. She wasn't being passive — she was trusting Him with me. She never debated me into anything. She just lived in a way that made me wonder what she had. Deep down she must have known that one day I would go looking for it myself.
Even with all of that in front of me, somewhere along the way it became routine. As an adult, faith turned into something I did on Christmas and Easter — going through the motions without ever knowing who I was going through them for.
"For years I knew about Jesus.
I just didn't know Him."
In September 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated. He was a Christian commentator whose videos had been showing up in my YouTube feed — students asking him the hardest questions about faith, and him answering straight from Scripture. No anger. No backing down.
I wasn't his follower. I wasn't looking for anything. But a man was killed for speaking what he believed, and I couldn't shake it. Whatever I had been holding at arm's length all those years finally gave way. For the first time in my life, I didn't want to know about Jesus.
I wanted to know Him.
Three · The SearchSo I went looking for Him. I downloaded the Bible app on my phone and opened the New Testament — the second half of the Bible, the part that tells what Jesus said and did. I had never actually read it. Not as an obligation. Not as a tradition. This time I opened it because I wanted to know who He was.
That is where the evidence started for me. Not with a video or a documentary. With His own words, written down by the people who walked with Him. I read what He said, what He did, how He treated people, and what He went to the cross for. Everything else I found after that only confirmed what I was already reading.
I never doubted He existed. That was never my question. My question was whether He was who He said He was — the Son of God. Did He really rise from the dead?
So I dug into the evidence. Roman and Jewish writers documented Jesus outside the Bible, with no reason to help His cause. His own followers scattered in fear on Friday, then would not stop preaching by Sunday — and went to their deaths refusing to take it back.
Along the way I found Cliffe Knechtle, a Christian apologist who takes the hardest questions people ask about God and answers them straight from Scripture. He gave me something I badly needed — permission to ask, and real answers when I did.
Then came The Chosen, a television series about Jesus and the people who followed Him. The man I had been reading about came off the page. He laughed and got tired. He healed the sick and forgave people nobody else would. He spoke with an authority no one could explain.
Last was The Passion of the Christ, the film about His final hours. I saw what He endured. And I understood what it actually cost Him. He went through every bit of it knowing exactly what was coming — and He did it for me.
"I always believed He existed.
I found out He is the Son of God."
I gave my life to Jesus Christ.
But I want to be transparent about what happened next, because I think people expect the wrong thing. It did not happen overnight. There was no lightning bolt. No moment where everything I struggled with fell away at once.
It was a relationship, and relationships take time. I gave Him a little more of myself, and He gave me a little more peace. I spent time in His Word, and I understood a little more. Some days I got it right. Plenty of days I did not. But I kept showing up, and He kept meeting me there.
And slowly, things started to change. The sins I used to repeat without even thinking about it began to lose their grip on me. Not because I white-knuckled my way out of them. Because the more I loved Him, the less I wanted them.
Today I am less stressed than I have ever been. I have a peace I cannot explain to you — you have to experience it. I forgive faster. I judge no one. I treat people differently, and it is not because I am trying harder. It is because He is changing me from the inside out.
I am not finished. I still get it wrong. But I am not the man I was, and I am not going back.
That is what Saved & Shining is about. Not religion. Not perfection.
I'm not here to convince you of anything. I'm here because someone should tell you what I found. If you're where I was — going through the motions, knowing about Him but not knowing Him — He's been waiting on you the same way He waited on me.
