Flaws: Drake Lewis

My name is Drake Lewis. I am a freshman here at Louisiana Tech pursuing a degree in Engineering. I’m still trying to figure out what engineering I need to pursue. I am from a small village called Lucky, which is about 30 minutes south of here in rural Louisiana. That area mainly consists of woods, farms, and that one random Dollar General that seems to pop up ten minutes away from the town itself.

I think that the rest of us can agree that when giving a testimony, it would take much longer than the few minutes we have to spare. But in those precious minutes, I’ll testify to this: Our flaws cannot stop the work of the Lord.

One flaw, is that I possess a stutter. I’ve had it ever since I was in elementary school. It was so bad that I had to go to speech therapy. It helped, but there’s only so much that a small, rural public school can do for a kid like that. They sent me on my way, and when I reached middle school, that’s when my insecurities came. While being a born-again Christian around this time, I still felt distant from God. I wasn’t actively pursuing him, and this let the strongholds build up in my mind. Around this time, my friends would pick on me about my stutter. So, in response, when I started to feel insecure about my stutter, I made fun of myself in hopes of wasting their ammo before they could shoot it. It didn’t work. I still got picked on.

Before I knew it, high school was approaching, along with one class that everyone loves: Public Speaking. A fun fact about this class is that the teacher was the same teacher that watched over me during in-school suspension, named Coach Colby Hough. Not a great way to start a public speaking class. Coming into this class I was now afraid of two things: one, my stutter and two, Coach Colby. But little did I know that those fears would be challenged.

The first couple of speeches in the class were short, but I still couldn’t get my words out. I was at the podium in front of the whole class where Coach Colby took notice of my stutter, and this is where the love of God started to break through. He would encourage me in front of the whole class. Sometimes he would pull me to the side and give me advice. But what he would show me was God’s love through acceptance and it ministered to me without me even realizing it. It wouldn’t be long after that I would realize that my stutter didn’t have the same control over me. It didn’t have the power to rule my life. I even found that, while scary, public speaking could be kind of fun and had the power to change someone’s life for the better. I would end the year with an A in Public Speaking.

With this new skill developing and with the help of a church I volunteered at in Bossier, I would find myself closer to God and more confident in myself. But even then, the insecurities remained. Four years later, I would find myself here at Louisiana Tech. It was then at the beginning of a new quarter where I would wander into a talent show called the 7:03 Show at a place called Awakening Collegiate Fellowship (or ACF). What I found there was a group of Christian Weirdos. I would fit right in. Through a small group called ACFresh, I found new friends and an opportunity to be a servant of Christ. It started small. I would hangout with people, help with the dishes, and then be a greeter during the dollar lunch called Laid Back Lunch. Eventually, I grew close to the people there and made strong friendships through Christ-like fellowship. Throughout all of this, my stutter and insecurities were present, but weakened through the love I received.

However, one thing persisted. My skill in speech. Recently I’ve had multiple opportunities to share the Word of God, and a calling became clear. That call is a calling to ministry to become a pastor. I don’t know what that looks like, but I know that whatever God has planned for me, it will be fruitful and a future that I can be proud of.

The moral of the story is this: The Lord can work with anything you give him. Your flaws don’t make you any less worthy of God’s love, for even the scriptures say that we are fearfully and wonderfully made in his eyes and that nothing, not even the powers of Hell, can separate us from his love.

Thank you.

Drake Lewis is a freshman from Lucky, LA majoring in Chemical Engineering. He enjoys tinkering with old cars and participating in sporting clays competitions. Since he entered our building this fall quarter, it has been such a joy to get to know him and to see him become more and more connected to the ACF community. We are excited to see the ways God will continue to move in his life!