My name is Ryan Graves, growing up a child of divorce from 1 year old church was varied and separated for me. My mom’s side of the family was Assembly of God or Pentecostal and my dads was a very loosely regimented Presbyterian. I wouldn’t say I was confused as I was mostly indifferent but searching. As I became a teenager I even went through a confirmation class at Northminster Presbyterian but declined to walk as I was still not sure about everything and didn’t want to be hypocritical of what I was doing. I started self-medicating due to pretty severe OCD and soon became a full-blown alcoholic. I forgot about God and went on down the road feeding my addiction and giving in to very compulsive behavior. I moved all over the country drinking and having a good time to the tune of about 20 different places in 8 states or so. Somehow I survived extremely risky behavior. I got sick about 5 years ago with chronic pancreatitis due to alcohol abuse and managed to put together a few sober months here and there still not following or understanding a relationship with God and Jesus. A little over a year ago I wound up in the hospital again still carrying around pancreatitis but now with end stage liver disease, gallstones and a potentially deadly bacterial infection. As I laid in bed over the last year things with God began to make sense and become much clearer to me and every time I was giving a death sentence by the doctors somehow I knew He was there and I wasn’t going anywhere. I didn’t know what to tell the doctors and they were blown away by what they perceived my survival as my resilience and strength when it was becoming clear that it was God’s will that I stay here. I remember waking up from a particularly horrible low point and hearing a voice asking me why I would want to stay. I said, “I need to stay for them”. And stay I have. I developed a GI bleed and basically bled to death internally twice as they did emergency surgery on me when I had almost no blood left. This was a 5 months ago. When I woke up the last time things had become much more clear. Ministry is my calling and I had to go through every single thing I did throughout my life to prepare me for it leaving nothing out. I became ordained with a testimony similar to this and bible knowledge that I didn’t know I had. I’m a certified Christian Life Coach and Mental Health Coach with a specialty in addiction and recovery.