Hey guys, thanks for visiting my website. My name's Rusty. I just wanted to jump on here and give you a rundown on the almost 39-year journey, the really abbreviated version, of how this even came to be.

When I was young, my grandmother was an ordained minister who had her own church. So, I was not the preacher's son, but I was the preacher's grandson. Religion was a pretty important part of our life when I was young, off and on over the years. I think maybe because my father was the preacher's son, he kind of rebelled against it, and as a result, we didn't attend church very regularly.

I met the love of my life in 1986, and we got married in a Methodist church in 1987. We had a few years of just being the two of us, trying to get ourselves established, and then in 1992, God blessed us with a little girl. When she was 11 months old, my wife went in to wake her up from a nap, and she was blue and not breathing. My wife was screaming. I was in the garage, and I raced in and took Brittany from her. At that point, I was a paramedic. I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I also knew that what I was looking at was probably not going to be a great thing.

My wife was screaming. I was in the garage, and I raced in and took Brittany from her. At that point, I was a paramedic. I knew exactly what I needed to do, but I also knew that what I was looking at was probably not going to be a great thing.

I tried as hard as I could to save her, unsuccessfully. At that point, it could have either split us up or made our lives together stronger, which it did. But I also resented God at that point and blamed Him for taking Brittany from us, and what it did to our marriage and our life. I just couldn't seem to reconcile it; I couldn't understand it.

Like the good father that He is, and I didn't even come to this conclusion until like the last year or so, He didn't turn His back on me, even though I turned my back on Him. He blessed us with three more children. From that point on, I had 35 amazing years. My wife and I had what I would argue with anybody was the perfect marriage. We were best friends, soulmates. We had the kind of relationship where you know each other's thoughts and finish each other's sentences, kind of like identical twins say they have.

Then, on Thanksgiving morning of 2022, all the kids were home from school. We were in our kitchen, and Michelle had a ruptured brain aneurysm right in front of us. Luckily, because we witnessed it and reacted quickly, we lived near a rescue station and just a few miles from a stroke hospital. I'm told that 95% of people who have the kind of rupture she had don't make it to the hospital, let alone survive. But because all those things came into play, and it just wasn't her time, God wasn't ready to bring her home, she went into intensive care.

Over those 35 years, we would go to church on Christmas and Easter. When the kids were young, we did attend pretty regularly because I felt it was important for them to have that, but over time, because of everybody's schedules, we became a family that just went on the holidays. There's no excuse for it, but with Michelle's aneurysm, I was done. I was furious with God. I just completely was there. I knew there couldn't possibly be a God that would take my 11-month-old and now my best friend.

Those first couple of days in intensive care, there were a couple of times where she passed and they got her back. For two days, I was being inundated with friends, family, and everybody reaching out once they heard the story. Everybody was sending their condolences, prayers, and well-wishes. At that point, I was feeling really guilty that everybody else was praying for her and I wasn't. On the second night, I came home after they kicked me out of intensive care for the evening. When I left, they kind of insinuated that given her status at that point, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think she might not be there when I came back in the morning.

I got home that night and was sitting on the couch, I think drinking a beer, when there was a knock at the front door. I opened the door, and there was Charlie. We lived in an old golf course community, and we had a night watchman who would drive around and patrol the neighborhood every night while everybody was asleep. He was probably in his early 80s at that point and didn't move very well, so it was kind of shocking to see him actually standing at my front door. When I opened it, he had tears in his eyes. He loved Michelle because she would cook extra food for him, and we would call or text him to stop by so I could race food out to him. Anytime he was passing by, I would stop and chat with him.

He asked if he could pray for me. He backed up to one of the columns by our front door and rested against it. I walked over next to him, knelt down on the ground beside him, and he put his hand on my shoulder. I just felt something. Then he started to pray, and I'm telling you, it was the most eloquent thing I'd ever heard in my life. I felt this rush inside of me, like the words coming out of his mouth were coming directly from God. He prayed, and I cried, and he cried. I hugged him and got him back in his car.

I felt this rush inside of me, like the words coming out of his mouth were coming directly from God. He prayed, and I cried, and he cried. I hugged him and got him back in his car.

Then I went back in the house, got my childhood Bible that my grandmother gave me, went into our room, got in bed, held the Bible, and just cried and prayed all night. The next morning, when I went back first thing, Michelle was still with us. Basically, from that moment on, I haven't stopped praying for her.

It's been over three and a half years now. At first, praying to me was very difficult. I didn't know how to do it and I felt awkward, but I just kept going back every day. It was a lot of silence and just a very tough time. She was in the hospital for about three months ultimately, and then she came home and had to learn how to walk, talk, and eat. It's been a long, long road.

About six months ago, my prayer time became different. Over the past three years, I've read through the Bible cover to cover twice, and this year I'm doing just the New Testament. I usually get up at 4:30 in the morning and have an hour or an hour and a half with God. It's not really prayer time; it's more like a conversation. I just talk to Him. I've learned that I have to be obedient to what He wants and to be honest with Him. It makes no sense to lie to Him and tell Him what you think He wants to hear, because He knows our hearts. You've just got to be honest. He's your father. I didn't have the greatest relationship with my own father, but I took that as a blessing because it caused me to overcompensate. I knew that when I had kids, I was always going to be the kind of father who would be there for them, play with them, and stop what I was doing. To this day, if any of them call me, I will stop what I'm doing and listen to them, even though they don't need me as much as they used to.

One morning about six months ago during my prayer time, I was spending a lot of time praying about the concept of a moral compass. I was having a difficult time with all the unrest in politics, how it affects families, and trying to find some reason. I kind of resigned myself to the fact that, no matter what the Old Testament said, I believe that God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are all one thing, and when Jesus came to Earth, it was God in human form. So, anything that Jesus said that came out of His mouth, that's how I'm going to live my life. I think that overrides the way anybody twists things in the Old Testament to make the Bible sound like something they happen to believe in. If Jesus said it, then I believe it. If Jesus was against it, then I'm against it.

If Jesus said it, then I believe it. If Jesus was against it, then I'm against it.

I'm not the smartest person in the world, and I need things to be as simple as possible. That's how I'm conducting myself and living out the rest of my life.

That being said, He put this concept into my heart of "Christ, My Compass." I made up my mind that my personal moral compass was going to be Jesus, and He put it on my heart to be bold. Before Michelle had the aneurysm, I rarely would wear a shirt in public that said "Jesus" on it. The main reason was that I felt like I would be fronting myself out to be something I wasn't. I was always fearful that if somebody saw me wearing a t-shirt with Jesus on it, they would come up and want to start talking about the Bible, and I would look like a fraud. Even now, after being in the Bible for three and a half years, I'm still not good at quoting Bible verses. It's just not me.

But anyway, I felt like I needed to start an Instagram page and put it out there. Then one day, He put it on my heart to just make a video to post about Michelle and where I was with it. Everything I do is unscripted; this is all just a stream of consciousness.

Shortly after I came up with the concept, I was having a conversation with my daughter about silk-screening. I did silk-screening back in high school in the late '70s and early '80s in a graphic arts class. I always loved it, and I loved photography. I knew that I had saved the paper prints of the silk-screening I had done. We packed them when we moved to Tallahassee about a year and a half ago, so I knew they were in the house and went searching for them.

In the process of looking for those pictures, I found something else in the box. It was a compass that my great-grandmother gave to me when I was a little child. She was from Belgium and didn't speak English really well, she had a very heavy Belgian-German accent, but I saved it, and it's in pristine, mint condition. Here I am, making up this thing that He put on my heart for "Christ, My Compass," and then while looking for something else, I find this old childhood compass. I know that's a sign from God that this is what He wanted me to do.

I previously had some success with a t-shirt concept for my old business, Drawer Dude. I had a situation where I gave t-shirts away for free and shipped them to China, Canada, and all over the world. People would send pictures back wearing them, and if you look up the hashtag #findthedrawerdude, they're still on the internet. I thought maybe I could recreate that concept with Christ, My Compass.

So, that's where this whole thing is going. He put this on my heart. I went out on Facebook Marketplace and bought an old six-color silk-screen press and started to set it up. Right in the middle of it, in my conversations with God, He told me I was rushing through it too quickly and it wasn't what He wanted. He started giving me visions of what you're starting to see created behind me. I hit the pause button and started completely from scratch.

Now, I'm setting up this place I call a "t-shirt shop sanctuary." It's just a place where I'm going to come out here to create, start making t-shirts, and have t-shirt contests every week to see if people will start to post pictures. This is all in its infancy and I don't know where it's going; I'm just being obedient to Him, and this is where we're at with it.

So, stay tuned. If you've watched this video to the very end, I know it's long, but I appreciate you. I appreciate the support that everybody's been giving me on Instagram so far. Who knows where this will end up, but I love you guys, I appreciate you, and have a very blessed day. I'll see you in another video. Peace.