Bernie

Like Joseph, God gave me a dream as a young man. If I had known how long and painful this journey was going to be, I would have given him back his dream, and said: "No thanks!" I had no idea how many lessons were ahead of me. Man, did God have to do alot of loving on me. He also had to humble me. I can't count how many times I had to start over again. I remember one night sitting at a bar and God came in and sat next to me and started to talk to me about my future. I said: "I can't  believe you haven't gotten it by now!  It's too late! I won't and can't do it, now just leave me alone!" I tried to get drunk that night but I couldn't. No matter how much I drank the alcohol had no effect on me. I finely gave up and went home.

As a young teenage, I had never been able to sing or write. I was watching a Christian rock show on television, when I first heard God speak to me about my future. I hadn't even become a Christian yet and he said. "I have given you the gift of music and you will write and sing songs for me and lead others to true salvation."

When I finely gave my life to the Lord I was 16. I woke up the next morning and told my mother by faith, “You have to buy me a guitar, because God said I was going to write songs and sing for him.” You have to understand I couldn’t sing nor write before I came to Christ. But from the moment I picked up my new guitar, though I only knew one chord for years,  music and songs kept flowing from me.

Nearly one hundreds songs later, music is still flowing from within me bringing healing and cleansing me in my darkest hours.

In December of 1999 I was living in Nashville working for the Grand Ole Opry as a supervisor of a photography crew. We took pictures of tourist in front of the Opry Barn. One day I got the bad news. I had to fly back home to Bakersfield, because my sister Linda, 36, was dying of cancer.

The chain of events that followed her death blew my mind and never allowed me to go back to Nashville, because after my sister Linda died of cancer, I lost another sister, Jeanette 40, than my Dad 71 all in 11 months. I could never leave Bakersfield now and leave my mother alone. I just couldn't do it. 

In the years that followed, I was broken and hurting and numbed my pain in a sea of alcohol and drugs. My dreams of being a song writer in Nashville and going to Bible school were ripped right out of my heart.

Now, in retrospect, it was all part of a higher plan thought of in the mind of a Heavenly Father before time began, whose love I will never completely understand in this life, nor why he has allowed so much pain in my life and family.

It was in these troubled times of my life God led me to VBF through an old friend. While visiting VBF I received a rhema word from Pastor Ron "You are woundering why everything has happened the way it has, it has happened for this moment, so God could lead you to this Church. It was here the Lord told me to stay until he finished the work he started in me long ago as a young teenager. I wished I could say I obeyed him, but I tried to leave VBF a number of times.

Broken and humbled, with three DUI’s in less than two years, I finely surrendered vowing to God: “Come hell or high water I will never leave VBF again until you say.”

Now I am a Singles Leader and love to lead Worship and teach the Word. I am currently working on my first worship CD with songs God has given me since I’ve been going to Valley; songs about God’s never-ending love and mercy that never leaves us even when we are at our worst. “There is nothing like a Father’s Love/ it’s deeper than the ocean/it’s higher than the mountains/it’s stronger than the mighty wind…