Mark Reiter - learning about life

Mark Reiter used to play covers by Van Halen and Hank Williams Jr. for a living. That was when he had what he wanted and knew where he was headed. He married his childhood sweetheart, and they had three children – two boys and a girl. He turned in his guitar for a respectable career. He went to church occasionally and all was well.

Then his marriage hit what he considered a rocky time that would eventually right itself. Instead, he found himself in the middle of a divorce that he had never seen coming.

“It was an extraordinarily traumatic event,” Mark said. “I was extremely depressed.”

Mark didn’t know what to do or how to cope, and if it weren’t for the faith he had grown up with, this could be a far different story. He chose to talk to his pastor, and to come to worship on Sunday morning.

“I came helpless,” Mark said. “I was emotionally naked. People had told me that the time will come in life when you can’t fix it, you can’t hold on to it.” That time had come for Mark. All he could do was cry out for help, but he directed his pleas to God.

During this time, Mark found joy in his children, and he is admittedly nuts about them. And he continued to come to worship. Eventually he realized he didn’t feel so alone, and even though few people at Holy Cross knew his story, they inadvertently lifted him up in ways that helped.



Mark Reiter

Little did Mark know that his days as a pew sitter were quickly coming to an end. He mentioned on Facebook that he had a guitar, Pastor Mike picked right up on that, and then on Thanksgiving Eve came the call from Anthony Badell, our Contemporary Worship Coordinator, asking Mark if he could play in the band that weekend.

Yikes! Mark hadn’t picked up his electric guitar in 25 years, and the last stuff he played was covers of Huey Lewis and the News, the Judds, Ronnie Milsap. He was more comfortable playing mountain music by Alabama than anything that mentioned God.

“I asked Anthony what I could do to prepare, and he told me to start with listening to K-Love,” Mark said, referring to the Christian radio station. “I had never listened to that before. I thought it was for Bible-toting, certified whacko Jesus freaks.”

Mark wanted to say no, there was no way he could or would play. But the no turned to yes as the words came out of his mouth, so he dusted off his guitar, replaced the rusted strings, and started practicing. It was time to pay his dues, to be that 10^th leper who goes back to say thanks.

“I kept saying to myself that God’ll come knocking,” Mark said, “after I had been crying and begging so long for help.” The thing is, Mark said, you have to be ready to listen, and then you have to be ready to follow.

That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Mark suffers from something akin to stage fright. Though he now plays two to three times a month with the praise band, he doubts himself each time he picks up his guitar, worrying that he’s not good enough, that he’ll forget something, that he’ll mess up.

Even so, playing praise music has become his passion, he said. And he wants to share that with everyone. “I want people to be joyous, to enjoy worship, to want to come each week,” he said. “It’s not a performance. It’s a time of worship. I want to make sure everyone is worshiping.”

Mark has come a long way these past two years. He used to be the guy who said, “What’s with all this brokenness stuff? Get a life.” It took his own brokenness for him to realize just what that means. He now has a life, completely different from the life he had envisioned, but in so many ways that much richer, and so much more blessed.