Hi All,

My story, maybe boring, but I'm telling it anyway.

My parents joined the Toowoomba branch of the GRC when I was 10. So I really had no choice but to attend every service. Being quite young and impressionable, yet still quite intelligent, I was able to learn the right way to act and speak. And I towed the GRC line for quite a long time. It wasn't till I was 15 when I wanted to leave school and work at end of grade 10 but wasn't allowed to that I started rebelling against the rules of the church. And I spent most of grade 12 trying to get kicked out of school, until a good freind from Brisbane told me to stick it out till I was 21 (but dont stop having my fun on the side).

After school, I had a good 12 months of really towing the line, but was stepped out of fellowship because of a relationship with an "unbeleiver" if that's what you would call her. I got back in for my parents sake, which lasted about 6 months, had a few drinks (allowed someone to mix my drinks), and was stepped down for 3 months - which gave me a taste of freedom. But once again got back in for the sake of my parents.

After this, I really started praying the way that I thought we ought to pray (I do so again now). It was in this time that I was given to keys to open and lock the school where the meetings were being held. Then I was given charge of the music team, and also given the duty of hymn selection. All of which I did for the joy of serving God, and I beleive Holy Spirit really blessed me during that time.

But not long before my 21st, I was working in a timber manufacturing plant, and one of the machines got chocked with sawdust and a saftey mechanism got bypassed. Meaning my hand was dragged over the top of a fast spinning 23" docking blade. I received a compound fracture to my middle finger, and 2 little parrallel scratch marks on my little finger. After coming back from the hospital to check everything out (the middle finger was no longer broken, and the wound had almost healed over again), I checked the saw out, and both the blade and its 4" drive shaft were bent, and the saw had cut through the edge of a half inch cast iron steel plate. Needless to say, I should have lost at least 3 fingers of my left hand - which as a saxophonist (and future remedial massage therapist) I really could have done without losing.

So of course at the next Wednesday night meeting, up I get all excited and testify of God's great miracle. But on the drive home (my parent came with me for some reason) my dad accused me of making the whole story up, and to show him the proof! Which, by the way wasn't the first time I had been berated for a testimony I gave.

It was that point that made me question every thing that I believed, heard and respected from that organization. I stuck around, still doing and saying all the right things for the next 9 months until that years colo river camp, which I needed to leave on New Years day because of work. I chose to leave that day, because every year from age 13 I had played NYE, and thought that year no different. But I was wrong, I didn't even play that year! And adding to that insult (just a phrase) when I was getting ready to leave, nobody came to say good-bye, except one guy met me at the gate (I found out later he left the assembly about a month after me). And then I got in trouble when everybody else came home for leaving early, when I made sure everyone knew I was leaving early for work.

So when the first opportunity came along, I created a situation when I was asked to leave again, and gladly took this option. I will say though I made some very silly decisions after that point. But, by the grace of God, I have returned to loving God through grace and no longer through rules and oppression.