How I got here

If you know me, you know I am not very religious, or really at all. That's a strange thing to admit on the website of a prayer app. But it's the truth, so here's the long version, for anyone who is wondering how this app came about.

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My parents

My dad went to Catholic school and got kicked out for challenging the priests. His own father beat him, and he ran away from home at sixteen. He called himself agnostic. It's not that he didn't believe in God, he just said God can't be proven. He believed religion and churches were cults. That was mentioned several times in our house. At eighteen he joined the Air Force and got stationed in Okinawa.

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My mom came from a completely different world. Her family was royal. Her father was a calligraphy artist who hand wrote the Emperor's official messages during WWII, the ones communicated to his military and sent to other world leaders. The three daughters went to upper class private schools. The oldest went to Tokyo University, where my dad taught English as an Air Force officer. He met my aunt there, saw a picture of her family, and was very interested in meeting my mom.

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At the time her family was trying to arrange a marriage for her. She wasn't interested. She wasn't attracted to Japanese men and she was rebellious. She loved Elvis and everything western. When her sister told her about my dad, she jumped at the chance to meet him. They fell in love fast and she moved to the US when he returned home.

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Texas, 1969

I was born in Texas on Friday, June 13th, 1969. I have the Life Magazine from that day. The cover is a crosscut embryo, and the issue is about science and reproduction. At the time it was just a coincidence. It reads differently to me now.

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My mom was Buddhist. My dad had no religion, so Buddhism was loosely accepted but never practiced. My parents also made a decision that I didn't understand until much later. They didn't teach me Japanese and they didn't raise me in the culture. They steered me as far from it as possible because they were worried about racism. They westernized me completely.

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No roots

We moved constantly. I went to six different elementary schools. Every year I started over, sometimes in the middle of a school year. New town, new school, new kids. Whatever friends I made lasted less than a school year. For most of my childhood it was just the family. My brother was born in 1973 in Ohio. We lived all over the country.

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We ended up in Orange County CA when I started seventh grade. That was the first place that stuck. I made a few friends and started swimming competitively, so most of my time before and after school was at private swim clubs instead of with school friends.

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None of my friends were religious. A few went to church on Easter and Christmas. That was it. This was also a time when religion was in the news for all the wrong reasons, so my dad saying it was a cult made sense to me.

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Born again at seventeen

In high school I started dating, and the girl I was with most came from a religious family. I went with her to Harvest Crusade at the big stadiums. I was born again. I remember it being a big deal to her and her family. I remember going down onto the field at Anaheim Stadium for one of the crusade events. I started going to church and Bible study and that's where it really fell apart.

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I was raised on science. Things you can prove or at least build a decent hypothesis around. I was great at math, didn't like English. In math you're right or wrong. Every teacher I ever had in a subjective class, graded based on their own beliefs and opinions. My mom taught me to play the game, figure out what the teacher wanted to hear, and say it to get the grade.

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So, Bible study was confusing. The leaders did not like me. I got asked not to come back to several of them because I couldn't accept the answer, you just have to have faith. My biggest question was about my mom. She grew up Buddhist. So, when she dies she goes to hell because she doesn't believe in Jesus? And if that's true, then most of Japan, China and Korea are going to hell unless they convert? The answer was always fear of God, if you don't believe you're going to hell. So every pastor, priest, bible study teacher uninvited me and told me my amazing mother and her family in Japan are all going to hell.  At the time, the people running churches and bible studies were the voices of God, and so my experience with religion was terrible. 

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Early career

Years later, I started working for Saban, Fox Family, Fox Kids, and I was in acquisitions. I had lunch with Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla as they were pitching an idea for their Cabbison's skit to be a claymation show on Fox Kids. With that I was able to get through to a comedy bit on KROQ, Ask Mr. Birchum, where a caller could ask Adam Carolla anything and he would know the answer. On-air I asked him why the Pope, who is supposed to be the closest soul to God and trusts God's plan for him, rides in a bulletproof limo with bodyguards, always being protected from death and spending eternity with God.​ He said the Vatican was a front for the biggest drug ring in the world. It was a comedy bit and it got a laugh. Even though this was comedy, it was accepted to make fun of religion, that was what I was surrounded by and raised with. I was heavily in the media world for over 10 years as a marketing executive for Saban, Fox Family/Kids, and my contract was transfered over to Disney-ABC when they bought Fox Family. There's very little presence of religion in that world. 

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My family

Right after high school I met my best friend, my partner, my soul mate. She was raised Pentecostal and had some bad experiences with her church. So, we came at it from two directions and landed in the same place. We raised two boys, and religion wasn't part of our family. We weren't against it. We just didn't have it.

Funny story. Our son was around twelve or thirteen when our neighbors invited him to church. It was a Catholic church that threw a big fair every year with rides and games, and that's the only experience he had there, so that's what he thought he was going to. He came back from a Sunday sermon completely disappointed and asked why people do that every week. He thought it was the weirdest thing.

Our family was, and still is very close, not like many others. When most families are excited about separating once the kid turns eighteen, we were moving to Colorado to be closer to our son in the Air Force Academy.

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Scared to death

I would lay down to sleep and my ADHD brain would just go off the hinges with tragic thoughts, worries about my wife and boys, laying in fetal position crying and just not comprehending and accepting death. It wasn't every night, but it was often. I would lay there while my wife, bless her heart, could easily fall into a deep sleep while I watched her, walked over to the boys rooms to make sure they were still breathing, then lay back down and just think and think about the world, universe, life, how did it all start, is it real that there will be a time that it's just all going to be gone, done, no more. I had many spiraling sleepless nights.

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What changed

Last year, our older son married our incredible daughter-in-law. Her family is religious and they are super cool, wonderful people. After that we started noticing how many people around us were religious and we had just never noticed. Some of the cadets we sponsored, our family realtor and great friend, and people I was doing business with. Our son really dove in. He started reading the Bible and doing research, and we started having family Bible study. That's when I found Wes Huff. I started watching his videos and reading about Bible stories and the evidence behind them.

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The Miracle

There's a story we barely ever talk about because it's so crazy and was completely unexplainable until now.

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We were at a family and friends barbecue at our neighbors' place. There was a pool with a safety fence. My wife and I were sitting on the ground at one end of the yard with our backs against that fence. There were about 30 or so people there. The kids were about fifteen yards away at the other end doing a slip and slide. My seven and four year old boys were over there. Teenagers were watching them. Everything was fine.

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In the middle of me telling a story to our friends, I was taken over by a force. A feeling. I didn't know what it was, but it was strong. I stood up, turned around, and started trying to open the gate to the pool, then almost breaking it yelling, how does this open.

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My wife and our friends were shocked. They were baffled,  trying to help me and asking why, and I couldn't answer. The owner was telling me to chill out and not to break his gate. Something was happening that I had to address. I was about to break the gate when I looked up and saw our four year old run back from the slip and slide line, past the teenager watching them, and jump into the pool without his floaties. He couldn't swim. He sank to the bottom.

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I was the only one who saw it. I started yelling at the teenager that my kid was in the pool. He turned around, looked, saw him, dove in and pulled him up, coughing a little and laughing, completely oblivious. My wife and the few parents and kids who saw it were completlety stunned.

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If I hadn't gotten that feeling and reacted, nobody would have seen our boy jump in and he would not be with us now. We've talked about it a few times over the years and we couldn’t explain how I reacted before he even jumped.

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Putting it together

That stayed unexplainable to me until I started reading about quantum physics, entanglement, and energy. Then other unexplainable things in my life started resurfacing, and new experiences, especially after my mom passed away a few years ago. Then I started reading about miracles. And I realized something. If I told the pool story at a church, or to any of my faithful friends, they would call it a miracle of God. No hesitation. That's when I put it all together.

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I kinda heard that the two aren't always accepted together. But this is my truth and I do relate them. I believe there are forces, energies, miracles, and I'm convinced it's based on human energy, entangled particles, and connected souls. I believe there's a higher source, and I believe that higher source is God. Science doesn't disprove God, it explains it and supports the stories and miracles.

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Where the app came from

A few times in my life people have asked me to say a prayer. At a dinner, at an event. Every time I was mortified because I had no idea how to pray, let alone say one out loud in front of people. I usually got out of it. The only prayer I knew is the baby Jesus prayer in Talladega Nights.

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A few years ago, I was asked again. This time I asked AI to write a prayer for me. What came back was well written and heartfelt. The people who heard it were blown away when they found out how it was made. That gave me the idea. An app where AI helps people write prayers. The problem was timing. AI wasn't at the point where it could code for the average person yet. So, I sat on it and kept working on the idea.

 

The name came from research. I wanted to know how the religious community felt about technology entering something that's supposed to be spiritual. The Bible doesn't use words like software or AI, but it consistently frames human tools and craftsmanship as gifts. When technology is approached with discernment, used to build up community, streamline work, and spread good, it acts as a powerful asset to faith rather than a compromise. Exodus 31 has God filling a craftsman with wisdom to design and build. Paul in 1 Corinthians 9 adapts his methods to reach whoever he's talking to. Proverbs says iron sharpens iron, and that the wise go looking for knowledge. The pattern was consistent. Tools and craftsmanship are gifts, and faith isn't threatened by discovery.

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The word that kept coming to mind was embrace. Then personalize it, and add faith, which is the ultimate factor of belief: Embrace My Faith. I'm an acronym guy so of course, EMF, and funny, that's the 90's band, their song Unbelievable, and, EMF is electromagnetic field. Kinda crazy right. ​

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Peace and faith

I still have a lot to learn, and for now I accept a true, personal faith that I'm comfortable with, and I am convinced that the timing of this app idea at the point of my founding faith is valid. 

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The most amazing thing for me, is that I no longer have a fear of death as I believe that my soul is connected to the ones I love and will feel forever. 

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I will continue to work and add value to Embrace My Faith. I do wish that it serves many. 

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Thank you,

Eric