My name is Caleb Ekezie, and this is the story of how Jesus saved my life.

To understand me, you first have to understand my childhood. I was brought up by parents that loved God. My dad specifically, who grew up in Nigeria, is a man who knows the bible like the back of his hand, and has stories upon stories of God performing miracles and showing His faithfulness. Both of my parents made sure I started life on the right foot. As a result, my younger years were defined by innocence. Having no close friends in elementary school led to my only influences being my parents, which led to this innocence being maintained pretty easily.

As middle school rolled around, the tides changed. I made a few friends who encouraged small little acts of rebellion like dirty language and lying to my parents. I started going on a people-pleasing quest, and I didn’t find it satisfying enough to know that God loved me; I needed to make sure everyone else at school loved me too. Although my parents continued to pray with me and study the bible with me, I didn’t really think about God in my everyday life at all. A staunch double life between Caleb at school and Caleb at home began. I wasn’t exactly hiding the fact I was a Christian, which certainly confused onlookers considering I wasn’t exactly doing life as God commands of us. I was disrespecting Jesus by claiming to believe in Him but not act like Him.

Summer going into 8th grade, I went to a christian summer camp. I was loosely connected to our youth group, and I saw this as an opportunity to make new friends in church. But after the first night, I had a new mission for this camp: to hear from God. I pleaded with God every night to speak to me, and every night there was no answer. My youth pastor, who I didn’t know well at the time, found me on the last night during worship. He let me know that God spoke to him and said to tell me that He hears me, He loves me, and He has big plans for me to be a leader in this generation for Him. I honestly don’t know when exactly I was saved, but I’d imagine that when I ask Jesus one day, he’ll tell me it was at this moment. The love of Jesus became so clear to me, and I realized that my faith isn’t in a historic figure, it is in a living savior.

Those of you who are Christians can attest to the fact that it was not smooth sailing from here. One thing that I had developed before that moment at Spencer Lake that certainly stuck with me afterwards was lust and impure thoughts towards women, even sisters in Christ. Although I was now bolder in my faith and letting people know that Jesus changed my life, behind the covers of my phone I was objectifying those that God calls His beloved daughters. If middle school was about getting validation from everyone, high school started off on a quest to get validation from girls. As high school continued on, I became more and more shameful towards this sexual immorality that plagued my life.

But praise God for his persistent love. My junior year of high school marked a period where God spoke truth into my life to free me from the bondage that I couldn’t get free from on my own. Through prophetic words from many different people in my church, and from diving more into scripture on my own for the first time, God told me He wasn’t an angry dictator that was disgusted by me. Instead, He was pleading with me to seek Him earnestly so that He can reward me with the peace that comes from knowing Him. This realization spurred me on to live for Jesus in a new way. If He wanted to use me to reach my generation and be a warrior for His kingdom, I wasn’t going to let shame remove me from the battle. As overcoming shame arrived, acknowledging my freedom from impurity and sin quickly followed. Once I was defined by my sin, but now I am defined by my new identity as a favored son in the house of the Lord. I’ve seen God’s faithfulness to that moment at Spencer Lake in many different ways in the last four or so years, and I am continuing to see His grace and mercy in my life daily.