Stoney and Haley's Conversion Story:
Muscle and a Shovel changed our lives, and we are so grateful for it!!! The minute we read the book, it answered every sing
le question we have ever had regarding being baptized and doing right as a Christian. The only problem was, we had done nothing right at all and havent been our entire lives! We were pretty sure what we had to next, we just needed someone to reassure us, and lead us in the right direction, and that person was Shane Otts!
We first received the book [Muscle and a Shovel] from Stoney's sister, Amber Glaze, who had received it from Shane when she visited Judsonia church of Christ. We read the book within a couple of days. Everything that was talked about, had a scripture to back up the comment. That made it extremely believable. How could you deny that?
Once we started reading it, we didn't want to put it down, because we kept learning more and more and couldn't believe how all of this time, someone had not come to us sooner to talk to us and lead us in the right direction, especially because Haley had grown up in Cloverdale Church of Christ until her parents divorced when she was 7 years old, and she always thought that you had to be this perfect person before you could even think about being baptized, so she never got baptized, because she thought that she wasn't ready, that her life was not near perfect enough to get baptized.
No one ever tried to talk to her about being baptized or even tell her that her way of thinking was way wrong. Stoney had grown up in a Baptist church and was baptized at a young age in the Baptist church, and he believed once saved always saved. We knew we needed to talk to Shane, because obviously he knew what he was doing when he would tell people to take time to read it. We were ready to start living our lives the right way!
We went to visit Judsonia Church of Christ the next Sunday after we had finished the book. The minute the service was over, Shane came right to us to introduce himself. The first questions he asked us, was are you baptized, and have you read Muscle and a Shovel? We made our way back home, and it wasn't long until we both received messages from Shane asking if we would like to come to the church in the next day or two to have bible study. We were so thrilled and shocked that he went out of his way to contact us. We had a feeling what it was about just by the questions he asked us after service the day we visited so we were more than excited to go!
We met him on April 7th, 2014. Shane jumped right into reading scriptures and answering any questions we had regarding anything that the Bible said, or Muscle and a Shovel, or baptism, and he had an answer and a scripture to back up EVERYTHING!!! When our study was done, there was this amazing feeling that we both had come over us, that we can't even put into words. Everything at that moment felt right. Shane was put in our lives for a reason, and we were exactly where we were supposed to be at that moment. Everything we had ever questioned was so clear and we knew exactly what we needed to do, and we needed to do it RIGHT
NOW! We looked at Shane with tears of joy and happiness and asked him to baptize us. There are no words to describe how we felt when we came up out of the water. We've never felt anything that compares to the joy and the weight that was lifted off of our chest! It was amazing and we knew then, it was completely right, and our REAL journey could finally begin!
Shane truly changed our entire lives the day he handed Amber Muscle and a Shovel. We are forever grateful for the opportunity to read Muscle and a Shovel and for Shane taking time to speak with us. If it wasn't for the book explaining things so well, and for Shane going even more in depth and trying so hard to explain everything step by step, we would still be where we were. We wouldn't be going to church, my children would have no idea what church was, and we would still be completely lost!
