God has never wasted a single minute of my life.

                                   Pastor Ed Seeley Testimony of

                                       A Work of God in my life.

This is the truth that I’ve discovered since I found Christ in August of 1987 at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Grover, Pennsylvania.  Much of my early life had some involvement with a church setting.  I was an acolyte from age 6 until I was in my early teen years.  I knew the liturgy, and the motions but could never really figure out why people went to church other than it was the right thing to do on Sunday.  We had the normal Christmas and Easter services but still Christ was never really the focus it was more social than anything else.  I attended a confirmation class when I was 15 and found myself fascinated with the Old Testament accounts of Moses, David and more.  I couldn’t figure out why but I was drawn to them.  I felt something when I was reading them that was pushing me somewhere.  I was frightened by it.  I realize now it was the Holy Spirit.  Yet there was no one to explain that to me at the time so began a long journey away from God and towards trying to meet the worldly standards of success.  I had people trying to reach time and again but my 15 year old stubbornness and bitterness at the world around me kept me from listening.  I graduated from Canton Jr. Sr. High School and then went to Mansfield University.  My life at this time centered around becoming a teacher and doing what I needed to do to graduate.  Alcohol had become a big part of my life at that time.   I found a family there that I didn’t have anywhere else.  I became a bartender on the weekends and vacation time away from school to make money.  It was here that I learned to listen and council others.  God didn’t waste a minute of my life.  I have always liked hard work and through this God also taught me about commitment.  As I went through life never really going anywhere and realizing that success wasn’t coming,  that I began to question if perhaps this was going to be my life.  I thought there has to be something more than this.  My life was as far from God as it could be and yet he was still teaching me.  I substituted for the local school districts and it was there that God taught me to never look at someone through the eyes of others but rely on my own eyes to see the real person.  As a case in point:  There was a young man who refused to sit at a desk in school, the teachers has labeled him a trouble maker.  Finally one day in study hall I asked him why he wouldn’t sit at a desk?  He simply stated they are too small for me and I get stuck in them.  What a lesson. Never be afraid to ask and learn more about a person you are trying to help.  You see I always have cared for others perhaps to a fault but I felt that it was the right thing to do.  Little did I know that God was caring for me at the same time.  At this time in my life I was drinking regularly.  Get up go to work, hit the bar around 7pm and come home around two or three am and do the same thing over and over again.  I was heading for destruction.  I was about to get the surprise of my life.  The Canton Fair was going on and I went down to get some pizza before going to the bar I frequented.  It was there that I heard someone singing about a person who saves others.  It wasn’t the music though that caught my attention.  It was a young lady running the sound board that had caught my eye.  Her name was Lisa.   We had dated in high school then bass season came in and that ended the relationship.  She claims I didn’t call her for three months.  I had but she wouldn’t talk to me so I went back to bass fishing.  We spoke and I asked her if she would like to go out sometime.  To my surprise she said yes.  It was that night that God literally saved me from my own self destruction with alcohol.  I went home having no desire to drink.  When I arrived home early mom asked me why I was home so early I told her I didn’t know.  Lisa and I went out for the first time to Passeri’s a local pizza place and it was there that she told me that if I wanted to date her I needed to go to church with her.  I thought ok if that is what she wanted I’ll go along with it.   Lisa ran the sound board at St. Johns UMC and I could sneak in the side door without anybody seeing me.  One day she handed the ear phones to me so I could listen to the sermon.  It was there that I heard about Christ and salvation for the first time.  It was enlightening to me that someone could care this much about me to die so that I could have a place in Heaven.  I was adopted by the people at St. Johns, they put up with a great deal from me but their love and caring eventually led me to accept Christ that August evening at St. John’s.  My life hasn’t been the same since.  I have been a pastor now for almost 19 years and I still constantly and amazed at how God prepared me for his purpose for my life.  I pray that I never quit seeing how God never wasted a minute of my life.