Laurie described these Christians as “fanatical,” adding that “it seemed too obvious.”
“Are you kidding me?” Laurie said. “Are you telling me that after my search into all these things, thinking maybe it’s in astrology, maybe it’s in eastern religion, maybe it’s in drugs, maybe it’s in this or it’s that, that it’s literally Jesus Christ—that portrait that’s hanging on my grandmother’s wall?
“[But] there it was in plain sight,” he added. Laurie said that he had grown up with these kids, even partied with some of them, and he “saw they were changed.”
“So I couldn’t dismiss them as all being crazy people, because I knew them before and I saw transformation had happened in their life,” Laurie said.
Laurie said that he prayed that if he was going to give his life to God, God had to “make himself real” to Laurie. Laurie said that he was full of “cynicism” and “doubt” at the time, adding that while he was only 17 years old, he felt much older because of his tumultuous upbringing.
Laurie eventually committed his life to Jesus after hearing a sermon from evangelist Lonnie Frisbee.
Laurie went on to describe the influence of father figures, particularly one of his stepfathers, Oscar Laurie.
“He adopted me. He gave me his last name and treated me as a father should treat his son,” Laurie said. However, after Oscar and Laurie’s mother divorced, Laurie did not see Oscar again for the rest of his childhood.
Nevertheless, Laurie has always thought of Oscar as his dad, and he was able to reconnect with Oscar later in life. Laurie eventually even led him to faith in Jesus.
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“So here’s the cool thing: Even if you’re raised in a broken home and you don’t have a biological father, I think a man can step in and be a father figure,” Laurie said. “It could be a pastor, it could be a coach, it could be an uncle, it could be a friend.”
