It seems we live in an age where identity is very important. As a child, I would have identified as scared of my abusive father. Growing into my adolescence, I would have identified as shy and insecure. Into my teens I would have identified as angry and rebellious. There were, to be sure, many moments of happiness and fun even through the abuse, alcoholism, violence, tears, and pain. Spiritually, not coming from any religious upbringing, I would have identified as anti-religious.

One of my earliest memories is my older brother introducing me to heavy metal music. By age 5, I had a large vocabulary of bands I could identify, and by 12, I was fully engulfed in punk rock and its subculture. I started playing the guitar at 12 with single-minded obsession, and, by 16, punk rock was a lifestyle that completely defined who I was. From 12 to 33, I identified as a punk rocker. Music was my savior. It comforted me when I hid in my room from my father. It identified with me when the lyrics described the pain and anger I was experiencing. Music never abandoned me and never let me down. It was always there when I needed it.

I moved to Japan in early 2000 and became heavily involved in the punk rock music scene in Tokyo. Within a few months, I was doing this full time, touring all over Japan and Europe. Punk rock had now raised me from a scared little boy into a fierce and angry musician. Music had brought me, not only out of the dead-end town I lived in, but also to different countries and continents. It paid well and facilitated every sinful desire I could dream of. Whatever I wanted, I could easily have. And punk rock did not judge me, even when I surprised myself with the evil things I said and did. I saw, and I did, and I knew all kinds of horrible wickedness, and I didn’t care because I was blind to it.

In 2010, a single YouTube video changed everything. In my boredom, I randomly clicked on a video, which I had guessed was probably a short clip of stand-up comedy. A timid and square-looking man with Dockers pulled up to his armpits started talking. Just his appearance made me laugh. But his message did not. It made me angry. It was the gospel. It made me angry because it exposed my sin to the light. Although I quickly turned it off, this man’s message haunted me for days. I became so infatuated with the things he said that I went back to watch it again.

For about two weeks, I watched preaching videos for up to five hours a day. Growing increasingly un-settled, my whole world and identity crumbled under the message of sin and grace, and I knew that everything I had ever thought and believed was wrong. I realized suddenly that I did not have an identity anymore. I didn’t know who I was.

I didn’t know a single Christian. I didn’t even own a Bible. All I could do was keep watching those videos, hoping—and now inwardly praying—to find the answers to questions I didn’t know how to ex-press.

Instead of finding the relief and closure I had initially desired, my depraved and troubled conscience became increasingly anxious. As the Holy Spirit brought the truth to my mind through the faithful preaching of the gospel, my anger toward the men who preached those messages began to backfire on me, and I felt an increasing sense of fear for my own soul. I had a very real and very true sense of the depths of my sinfulness coupled with an equally true realization of the righteousness and holiness of God. I distinctly remember my soul crying, “What must I do to be saved?”

As time passed, it was apparent that things were very rapidly, and very drastically, changing in me. The things I once loved, I now hated. And all I really wanted, more than anything I had ever wanted before, was to hear the Word of God. I didn’t know what a Presbyterian was. I didn’t know who John Calvin was. I didn’t know who the Apostle Paul was. I didn’t know there was a church at Antioch. I didn’t know about a man named Abraham who received such great promises and a covenant. I didn’t know anything. But I had heard enough of the simple gospel to repent and believe, and I was convinced that the Lord Jesus Christ, who once was dead, was risen indeed and that His resurrection meant so much to me.

My evenings were no longer spent in loud music and drunken parties, but in quiet walks in prayer and in sober meditation, sitting at the feet of Jesus to hear His Word. Before long, I suffered the loss of every friend I had. I became ostracized from the only family I knew: my fellow punks. But for the first time in my life, I didn’t identify as a punk anymore. I will forever remember the day when I first read 2 Corinthians 5:17: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

That was in 2010. This passage still resonates with me, every time I read it, like it did that first time. By the grace of God, I am not a punk anymore. By the grace of God, I am adopted into His family, brought out of darkness and into the kingdom of His Son. By the grace of God, I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives within me. By the grace of God, my identity is in Christ. I am a Christian.

In 2011, God very graciously gave me an incredibly strong, supportive, and godly wife. We became members of the Presbyterian Church in Japan (PCJ) and remained there as members in good standing for three years, until we moved out of Tokyo further north to Fukushima in 2015. Our continued growth and maturity in theology had led us, by God’s hand, to the RPCNA and to Pastor Shigeru Takiura in Kobe. He was a huge help to us in bringing us into the RPCNA and in discipling me further and helping me discover my gifts for service in Christ’s kingdom. Although Kobe is quite a distance from Fukushima, Pastor Takiura would often travel to visit our home. His faithful love and prayers for our family had an impact on our lives, which we can never fully express.

In early 2016, our firstborn son, Micah, was taken very suddenly and unexpectedly by the Lord when he was nine months old from SIDS. We prayed earnestly that the Lord would give us another son, and He answered our prayers by giving us a very special little guy (whom we named Samuel) who has some very special needs. Samuel was born with a host of developmental issues, which we have dis-covered stem from autism. Through these, and other difficult and sometimes extremely painful providences, we have experienced and known the love of God in ways we would not have experienced otherwise.

The old Scottish Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford once wrote, “Believe God’s love and power more than you believe your own feelings and experiences. Your rock is Christ, and it is not the rock that ebbs and flows but your sea.” Our identity in Christ was never shaken because Christ is not shaken. The pruning effects of sanctification can sometimes be painful. But the tender hand of God prunes the branches He loves so that they may bear more fruit and bring glory to the Vine, who is the source and root of their life and their joy.

Through the help, encouragement, and guidance of Pastor Takiura, I was brought under care of the Japan Presbytery and enrolled as a student in the master of divinity program at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in spring 2017. I continued to work full time in Japan as a forest worker while studying as a part-time distance student for two years. I was able to move to Pittsburgh, Pa., with my family to begin classes onsite in fall 2019.

Since then, God has blessed us with another beautiful little boy named Daniel. We have transferred our membership into the Midwest Presbytery, and I am now in my final academic year at RPTS. We hope to remain in the United States after graduation so I may pursue a call into pastoral ministry in the RPCNA.

I identify as many things now: husband, father, student, disciple, servant, etc. But all of these identifying labels have their subservient place under the one identifying marker. I am a Christian.