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Like teens the world over, Phil struggled with image in his teenage years, but he found strength in God's promises, in the companionship of Christian friends and in music. When given the ultimatum, "Do your homework or get a job", He chose the latter and left school to become a hairdresser. At the same time, He spent every spare moment in his "off-time" as lead singer and guitarist in his band Drinkwater. Five years later, after being offered a position with Newsboys, Phil found himself in Nashville - his long lost home away from home. Knee deep in the music business, Phil met Heather, the girl of his dreams, in Kansas and married her a year later. All these experiences sharpened and matured him, but the questions he's always wrestled with, about himself and his place in life persisted.
The past two years, however, have been a revelation. Having learned more about his biological parents-his birth father is a London musician; his mother, a wigmaker from Perth, Australia-Phil had the opportunity to meet his birth mother. The reality, as you can only imagine, could never have matched the high expectation. But some major pieces of his life-puzzle came together during their visit. "For the first time in my entire 27 years," he says, "I realized that I had not become the person I am because of nature or nurture. While those things have their place, I realized that I had become who I am because of the commitment I made to Christ when I was eight and the continuing commitments I have made to God, to myself and to others in my life up to now." It's easy to forget, he says "that the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord. Not that I'm trying to say that I'm a good man, but my commitment to Christ has always been central.
Or to put it in the words of American essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, "What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." Such a revolutionary lesson is worth repeating. |
