Its the end of my first year at Azusa Paciffic university. I cant believe it is already over... so much has happened since I started attending APU. I believe my walk with the lord has moved onto a new platform of transformation. Where do I start? There is so much!
I joined the Mens Choir on campus where I am surrounded by 100 strong christian brothers, who are all so great to be in the presence of. This semester we toured a few churches up north, south, really all over California. Now, we are going on our BIG tour in three days - where we will be singing for the national day of prayer in Washington DC and a 9/11 memorial in NewYork, along with more church concerts. These tours, and these brothers have given me a new outlook on my faith. They trust God so I can trust God and the result has been a huge shift in my faith walk. God has taken me into deep communion. Instead of rushing to humans for help, God has become the one I talk to most. It is sometimes hard because talking with someone in the flesh can feel more real. But I have realized people have no power and can really do nothing for me. They can do no more for me then I can do for them - which is only what God grants me. God does everything for everyone. We are only here as a collective mass for the sake of company and socializing, for service, for fun, for worship.
I am running to God for my assistance and sustenance! Its so wonderful! Socializing has moved to being secondary and faith has been moved to the top. Through this transition God has brought me so many amazing encounters. I believe he is literally by me now all the time, that he is like a invisible cloud which hovers over me that I can talk to out loud at any time. Sometimes it is easier to realize this, other times it can be hard. But I believe he is always there walking with me, watching me, waiting for me as he also sometimes makes me wait for him. This is so true with a special experience I had this semester. I was sitting with my two small group leaders at panda express. A homeless man came up to me and asked if he saw me before, if we talked before about faith, and why he abandoned Christianity. I then unfortunately said no, because really, I hadn't seen or talked to him before. However, then we talked. We talked about God, about his interests, his entire life story! We talked with him for over two hours. I felt the presence of God for most of our conversation. We found out what happened to him, why he is who he is.
We wanted to help him so bad, even though he didn't want any of our help. After bombarding him without hesitation he finally gave in. We decided to raise some money for him, then he asked us to give him a ride to Union Station the next morning. But the most mind blowing part was what happened that night. He called me and explained that someone from APU (actually someone I knew from my choir group) gave him money earlier the same day. It was literally an hour before we arrived, so this is why he refused our help. He really wanted to just be up front with me and say that all of this stuff we are doing really inst necessary. He wanted to make sure he didn't give any impression of scamming us, so it wouldn't stop us from helping other people. He asked me what I thought, and I said "we are still giving it to ya, we found out before you called me via facebook, the person you talked to earlier is in my choir". He was blown away.
I was blown away too. It was amazing seeing a man living on the go, so alone, with such character as to be fully honest and open about why he refused our help, he was so humble, he knew what he needed and what was given to him was "enough". He was such a good fellow, and I am so overjoyed that God gave us this privilege to truly serve him and be a real friend. The next day we woke up around 5:00 and picked him up at a 7/11 just a few blocks away from where he found us. It was where he asked us to pick him up. On the car ride to union station we talked about a ton of stuff, the guy was so knowledgeable. We talked about current events, politics, and the economy. It was more of a lesson then a conversation because he knew more about it then any of us! He also shared with us all the library cards and public transit cards he collected over the years. He had like 30 library cards and 25 trans cards, and a ton of other stuff from all over the country. It was something I will never forget, God moved so much that day.
None of this just fell out of the sky for me though. Its been rough with other portions of my spiritual walk. In the beginning of the year church was very difficult, because of certain expectations I started to grow in my spiritual walk. Thankfully though, over the course of this semester those expectations have been scaled back with the power of patience and council from a few divine appointments, such as meeting that homeless man and a few others. In turn though, this has almost made my church going practice come to a complete halt. It used to be a discipline I exercised fanatically and now it is quiet the opposite. My small group has been a journey too. During the middle of this semester I was having a very hard time. Mostly because of the paradigms and expectations I was hitched to, not because of anyone in the group. It seemed like nothing was moving progressively in a better direction - according to what I deemed "better". In actually on a spiritual level God was moving.
These periods of confusion were used to move me into quiet time. I started going to the prayer chapel at school because I was in such a unstable and stressed out state spiritually and "biologically". I lacked the water of life so much because I couldn't get enough of it. I was also hormonally imbalanced so God pulled me away from friends to just spend alone time with Him. Even though God wasn't feeding me per say, through that life group, it has been such a wonderful experiences to see everyone else growing closer. For awhile we were disconnected. The level of community in our group has increased tremendously compared to a year ago where we only saw or really talked to each other in church related activities. Now we group text message everyone all the time, anything we do we try to do together. We also txt prayer requests and encouragement more often, we talk and joke, we even hold group conversations via txt message on occasion. These things bring such joy to my heart!
I believe this summer is going to be wild. I have tour starting in three days where I will be all over the east coast for two weeks - on a giant man adventure with 100 other men! Then when I get back I have to start fund raising constantly, fanatically, crazily, because I still need $2600 for my mission trip. Wow, forgot to mention that - I will be leaving in June for Zimbabwe Africa for a mission trip which is like another three pages of writing (A story in itself!). Then in July or August my family will be going up to shaver lake for vacation. Somehow I need to find a job that will allow me to work with all these different events scheduled on my calendar... God has blessed me inexplicably. This brings me to the most amazing and holy, crazy, loving, genuine, amazing, divine, incredible thing I have EVER had happen in my life. The thing God gave to me as a Jewl which will never perish!
--- The miracle of miracles!! This is why I want to share all of this today.
At age 15 my parents and friends noted I wasn't starting puberty so I went to my doctor. He said to wait until I turned 16 so that's what we did. My birthday came around, I turned 16, but there were still no changes - my body and face still represented one of a 12 year old. Later that month I visited an endocrinologist and he ran some blood work. After two weeks the results came back and my testosterone level was 50, (the average is 450). He issued an MRI to scan for tumors, nothing in my head was found. He ran more tests and eventually I was diagnosed with a pituitary problem (Hypogonadotropic hypogonadism). Two weeks later I started a replacement therapy through injection. After the first year my body started to represent its correct age, it had a testosterone level of 457 and puberty was in full swing.
I continued these injections and was told I had to take them for the rest of my life. So I had to make a choice, a life long commitment or stay looking 12. If I stopped the injections at any time my body would begin to atrophy, my bones would become brittle, a long list of things would start to go wrong. I choose to go with the injections, but with that came side effects - like a over exuded metabolism. Some side effects were emasculating, like the inability to produce fertile sperm. I wondered if I would ever get married, or be damned to celibacy. No body except my parents really knew about this condition. Then when I came back to the Lord three years ago I started praying for healing. As time passed I wanted healing more and more. When I started APU and saw the opportunity to start dating, I really prayed for healing, it was constantly in the back of my mind. This semester I opened up and shared it with my mission leader and small group. I also started seeking prayer on prayer night at church from the elders.
Four months ago I was having some problems and went to a urologist. He took my blood and measured my testosterone level it was at 1100 which is dangerously high. We then measured my prolactin levels (which regulate testosterone secretion) and they were elevated too. But I didn't increase the dosage at home!! So my urologists wondered if my body started producing testosterone on its own along with my injections. It was supposed to be completely impossible. Even though I had been taking the same dosage for over six years we decided to conduct an experiment. He told me to stop taking my injections and I agreed to stop. Then, we ran blood work four weeks later in March after stopping the injections and my testosterone level was at 247 (which is a little low) but he said to wait. We measured my testosterone level just a week ago and, I got the results yesterday, its now at 355 (completely normal) with being off my shots four months. Impossibly it bounced back without injections!!! God healed me.
Its going to be so exhilarating to see what unfolds from this, what God decides to use it for, where he takes me with it. My next appointment is on the 21st when I get back from tour. Its going to be very interesting hearing what the doctor has to say. I hope I can get a copy of all the lab results. I also want to get a copy of my old labs done in 2006 when I was first diagnosed, as proof. I really hope they are still in my medical record... they should be right?
The conclusion, This year has been unexplainable.
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