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 2025 I stumbled onto Charlie Kirk, a Christian and political commentator known for going onto college campuses and taking questions from students about faith, God, and the Bible. I wasn't looking for anything. His videos would just appear in my YouTube feed, over and over.
Looking back on it now, maybe that was the first sign from God.
What got me was his courage. Someone would ask him the hardest question in the room, and he would answer it straight out of Scripture. Not his opinion. Not a debate tactic. The actual Word of God, quoted from memory, in the middle of an ordinary conversation. No anger. No backing down.
Something in me started stirring. I couldn't have told you what it was at the time.
Then that September he was assassinated. And whatever I had been holding at arm's length for 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.
Three things I know to be true.
Not because someone told me. Because I went looking, and this is what I found.
He paid for it
Jesus went to the cross to pay for our sins — every one of them. He was buried, and He rose. Because He did, we are forgiven, we are saved, and we are given eternal life in God's kingdom.
He didn't just teach love. He became it. He lived it. He died for it.
He is where peace comes from
The peace you keep chasing can't be bought, earned, or found out there. I know, because I looked everywhere else first.
It comes from one place only, and it doesn't run out. His name is Jesus.
He loved me first
Love is not a feeling. Love is not a word. Love is a person, and His name is Jesus.
He found me at my worst and loved me anyway. He will do the same for you.
