My name is Aaron L. Matthews!

This page is about the journey of a man who is imperfect, human and often a mess, but who is doing his best to follow Jesus, love his family and love the "one anothers" he has the joy to cross paths with. Keep reading to see where all of this started and how this journey has evolved to this point.

I grew up in a family where faith was a cornerstone of our lives. It shaped much of my early experiences and laid the foundation for my values, love for family  and perspective on the world. Most of my extended family lived in the same town throughout my childhood, which created a strong sense of closeness and connection.

This close-knit environment was both a blessing and a challenge! When things were good, it felt like a warm and supportive community. But when difficulties arose within the family, those same connections became sources of pain and conflict, making it hard to find peace.

Despite the hardships caused by living so close during times of conflict, I learned to persevere. Through the pain, I grew in ways I could not have grown otherwise, gaining a deeper understanding of resilience and relationships. However, this environment also shaped a limited worldview for me. For much of my early life, I believed it would be best to stay in the same town surrounded by family. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered the freedom and growth that came with stepping away from that environment and learning to forge my own path beyond the boundaries of my hometown.

The summer after my senior year of high school, I had my heart set on becoming an engineer. My dream was to attend Texas Tech University and earn both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees. However, that summer, everything changed. While attending a youth conference, I experienced a powerful moment where I felt God placing a call to ministry on my life. For a while, I tried bargaining with God, trying to convince God that if I became an engineer, I could spend my vacations, building quality buildings on the mission field and serve him that way. God didn't buy into my plan.

During the conference, my youth sponsors were incredibly supportive, encouraging me as I wrestled with this new direction. But when I returned home, my pastor at the time wasn’t as supportive. This created some uncertainty, but I held onto the conviction that this was the path God had set before me.

In time, I earned my first pastoral license and moved to the Oklahoma City metro area to study for the ministry. During my time there, I met my wife, and together we embarked on the journey of serving in ministry. After graduating and getting married, we accepted our first opportunity to lead—a small church on the plains of Oklahoma. We were confident in our call to this church and excited for what the future held.

An then it happened, out of no where my world came crashing down. Just three months in we closed the doors of that little church and no one was more surprised than I. For me, the world changed that Sunday… nothing made sense anymore. I fell in a deep funk of depression and began to question everything I thought I knew and had been taught in school. Here are a few things I learned…

⁃ Not everyone is who they say they are...
⁃ Doing the right thing is often hard…
⁃ Serving as a pastor and having a plan does not keep you from facing a crisis of 
faith or protect you from wondering if the whole faith thing is worth it…
⁃ We are all broken and at times this causes people to really suck (including me)...
⁃ I cannot control other people’s narrative, even when part of their narrative involves me and those I care about...
⁃ Some battles are not worth fighting ...
⁃ Faith is not as simple as some pretend it is…
⁃ I often have more questions than I have answers…

The months that followed what I consider my biggest collapse left me raw, unwilling to venture out or be around others. It was easier to stay in bed, wonder if life was worth living, cry and scream and tell God how bad I thought he had treated me (and this was on the nicer side of some of the things I said to God). There were times my heart cried, but my eyes simply had no more tears to wet my face with. In the end I wanted to give up and at one point seriously considered throwing in the towel on everything I knew and loved.
Somewhere in there, I found a temporary job and started to make sense of my life again. I avoided church for a while, wanted nothing to do with faith, despised being in environments where I felt out of control and generally found my on guard all of the time. I became so grumpy and irritable that not only did people hate being around me, I hated being around myself. Like many who find themselves in similar situations, I wanted a quick fix and I wanted it yesterday, but more than anything I wanted to feel normal again and feel like I could take my next step without waiting for the next shoe to drop and the next horrible experience to come kick my rear again.

One Degree of Change,
A World of Difference