Greetings, fellow church members and website visitors!

Since this is my very first blog entry, I'd like to take the opportunity to give an introduction and my testimony. Future entries here will cover my daily walk, and whatever inspiration may have hit me over the head on that particular day (or week).

If you're a registered user and/or church member reading this very first blog on the system, remember that you do have your own blog here as well. So if inspiration strikes you to write about your own walk with our Lord, then please don't hesitate. A good place to start would be our online instruction manual, which as always accessible via the "Help" button up above on the right.

Okay, enough of the technical assistance. On to the story. I'll see if I can try to keep it from approaching epic length. At least this first time. Once I've got a captive audience eager for the next chapter of the adventure, I'm not making any promises. {smile}

It all started in Munich, Germany, in 1963, where I was born Klaus Gunther Herzog.

Mom got divorced shortly after I was born, and struggled to work and raise a boy for about 6 years, when she met my soon-to-be step-dad, who was a Texan living and attending church in New Jersey at the time. They met through a childhood friend of Mom's who married an American. We were all members of the Church of Christ - Grandpa (on Mom's side) was a preacher for the Church of Christ in Munich. Anyway, Mom's friend in the States introduced her to a widower in her congregation, and they became pen-pals for about a year, before John Brune arrived in Germany and the wedding bells sounded.

I suddenly found myself with an older sister Heidi (five years) and a younger brother Hans (one year). I was legally adopted by my step-dad, and became Klaus Gunther Brune.

We were a church-going family, twice on Sunday, the midweek service, all the social events, and when I was old enough, every Friday-night youth group meeting. Daddy John was a deacon in the church (in charge of the building & grounds).

I was baptized at the age of 12. Although I don't question the validity or significance, sometimes I wonder if kids that grow up in church sometimes make the decision for baptism more out of peer pressure than a call from the Lord. I suspect that quite a lot of the time it's a bit of both. For example, in our church in Monmouth County, NJ (the Monmouth Church of Christ), the typical age for baptism in our youth group was somewhere between the ages of eight and ten. And so here I was, sitting with the rest of the youth group in our usual spot, the first two pews on the right, and everyone else is taking communion except me and my brother - who, by the way, was baptized the very Sunday after I made my own decision to come forward.

But back to the tale. Comments and observations can come later (that's why we have this great Add New Comment feature at the bottom of all our web pages.

I attended church regularly throughout the high school years, and also during college.

Then I fell away.

I never became an atheist, rejecting religion completely. I never lost this sense of a Higher Power, or that there is most definitely evidence of a design to the universe and our world. I suppose it's the search for knowledge that led me astray. I read the Koran. I read about Taoism and Buddhism and Zen. I practiced Yoga (the spiritual aspects as well as the physical exercises). I read the book of Mormon (and disregarded it out of hand when I learned that the writer was trying to convince me that Native Americans are actually the lost thirteenth tribe of Israel).

Eventually I settled on Wicca ... nature worship complete with spells and rituals, Tarot cards, spirit summoning, and all sorts of things. In the long run, THAT experience has led me to a perspective that might be of use to fellow Christians. I'll follow up with the dangerous allure of magic (both stage shows and in our fictional movies and books). If you don't see it soon as another blog entry, feel free to remind me. It's significant.

Anyway, where was I?

Ah yes, practicing Wicca, thinking that maybe on some level I had found The Answer... only all around me, my life kept going downhill. By the time I was thirty-seven...

• I had been unable to hold any job for any significant length of time, and was unemployed.
• My credit rating was so bad that I could not even get a bank to give me a savings account.
• I had lost all my vehicles (motorcycle and car). Which was just as well, because...
• My driver's license was suspended, and probably permanently revoked.
• I was living in an apartment with my Mom, after her divorce. Our relationship was strained to say the least.
• I had no social life whatsoever. No friends. No dating. Nothing. Zero. Zip. Which was just as well, really. The two "romantic" relationships I had ended so disastrously that I was beginning to think that the idea of entering a monastery and living a whole life of celibacy sounded really appealing.

Then things became worse. I started to become plagued on both a physical and spiritual level. Physically sick to the point where I spent every night wondering whether or not I was going to die before morning. I seriously did not expect to ever see the year 2000.

And something unusual and amazing happened... no philosophy, and alternative religion gave me any comfort. I turned back to the words of Jesus, reading all the Gospels eagerly. I had not yet reached the stage of attending church again. And yet, the month after month went by, and my symptoms seemed to subside.

The real epiphany came later in 2000, in October. I was taking stock of my life, and my overall situation, and I began to realize that I could not take responsibility for my own life, that I needed to give up control to someone far better at handling my wants and needs and dreams and purpose. My prayer on that day went something like this...

Lord, you know my situation, and you know my loneliness and my need. I'm going to do as you say and become as a child. I believe you at face value. You felt Adam's need and created a woman from scratch. If you can do that, then I know that for you, finding a mate for me will be easy. And yet, Father, I ask for your will in this, not mine. If your desire for my life is that YOU be my closest companion and partner, then I accept that eagerly. Help me to have the right relationship with You. Make me like David, a man after your own heart.

When I prayed that prayer, I felt a change in my attitude. Like a weight had been lifted. All my desire and frustration was released. I think like so many of the truths in scripture, the way that God designed things to really work seems like a paradox to the mind of man. Certainly it isn't scientific or logical. In this prayer, and in any prayer when I've asked for something and received it, I've noticed a pattern. I have to give up. Give up intellectually. Give up emotionally. Release my desire completely. Only then do I get results.

Speaking of which... without looking, without even having it in my mind, by seeming complete one-in-a-million random chance, I met soon-to-be bride. I prayed that prayer in the morning. I met her that very afternoon. I'm convinced that when we have a very real need and God wants to fill it for us, the only thing keeping us from His help is asking, with the right attitude.

Ask and you shall receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door will be opened.
- Jesus (Matthew 7:7-11)

I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.
- Jesus (Matthew 21:21-23)

You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
- James (James 4:2-3)

The pattern goes on and on....

• The very day that I went to the Division of Motor Vehicles to face my problem with my driver's license was the very day that my driving privileges would have been revoked permanently if I had not acted
• I asked God to help me be a provider for my new family. Again this was a challenge, Yes, I'd attended college, but had never graduated. And so, even though by this time I already had quite a bit of computer knowledge, most of the short-term jobs I had up until that point were very low-pay retail clerk and stockroom type of jobs. My prayer went something like this...

  Father, you know my abilities and talents. Grand me a position that will allow me to be the provider for my family, the way you intended. Help me find a position that makes the most use of the gifts you've given me.

  That very week, an employer contacted me, not the other way around. Three interviews later, I had a job better than anything I could have imagined, earning more than I had ever earned, using the precise set of skills that would earn me the most, a skill that is a very specialized form of programming (Borland Delphi)

• The day that I went to tackle the challenge of getting a bank account (it helps to actually have a place to deposit those paychecks), Pam and the preacher's wife were in the car praying as I went into the bank lobby. All the account managers were out to lunch, and the only person who had the capability to override a bad credit report and open an account anyway was the very person who assisted me - the bank president. And she was in a very good mood, because the very moment I walked in the bank, so did an FTD florist with a dozen roses from her husband - he had remembered her birthday.

This sort of thing just keeps happening. Sure, the skeptics will point to coincidence. How many times can one shrug this sort of thing off to random chance before believing that there is some other power at work? Really!

So in a nutshell, here I was, less than a year after turning my life over to God, with an amazing loving wife, a wonderful new daughter (Monette, who is currently studying nursing in the Philippines), a great job, a car, a bank account, and fellowship with many new friends at church, which I started attending again with Pam.

Well, this is already MUCH longer than any ONE typical blog entry should be. So I'll stop here for now and continue the story next time.

If there are any particular gaps or items you'd like me to expand on, please leave your comment by clicking the link below. Feedback is MOST welcome. I look forward to reading YOUR stories too!