Originally I was going to do a testimony of my year in Christ, starting from accepting Him as my Lord and Savior and ending with what would now be three months ago… I struggled with doing this and my decision on how I’m writing my testimony. I kept putting it off and eventually I just stopped it all together. So what changed, why this renewed interest in starting it again? I feel that God basically told me why should He do any more for me if I’m not willing to share with everyone what He has already done. And because I’m hardheaded, He had Pastor Datha preach on the reason we don’t maintain our healing/blessings is because we don’t tell it. And again because not only am I hardheaded but also stubborn, He has kept pointing it out through others and especially with Pastor Lisa reading all of the testimonies. Why wouldn’t I want to give my testimony? Everything He has done for me since accepting Him and even before then I should be willing to tell everyone. I should be willing to share it with anyone, especially if it helps them out or just plants even the smallest seed. So why was this so hard for me to do? Fear and doubt, the devil used fear to convince me I should not because it will not be received well and made me doubt it because who would want to hear a testimony from me with all of my struggles. I’m not perfect, but I am a lot better now than I was before and I’m still a work in progress. Something that I am willing to put the work into I just need to be better about being obedient. So I’m going to do this in faith and obedience to God. My walk with God is not perfect, and everyday presents its own challenges, but the peace and freedom that I’ve experienced makes it worth the fight. I know what I need to do to strengthen my relationship with Him and I know the reason I struggled. It’s funny that after reading what I had typed so far of my testimony, my own testimony helped remind me of that feeling of closeness with God. So here is the testimony that I should have given when I was originally going to do it.
A Year in Christ
In an effort to save you dear reader from what could potentially be my scattered and rambling testimony, here is the TLDR (too long didn’t read) for you. No matter how much I tried to run away from God, He was always there for me. After accepting Him and becoming born again my depression and anxiety went away. I was able to stop smoking on a day I was left alone with what could only be described as feral six year old twins. My relationships were repaired. My Dad and sister’s relationship was healed. And God has proven to me that my faith in Him was the best decision I’ve ever made. So you can stop here and save yourself some time, but my journey from where I was to where I am now is amazing to me and oddly enough I can not explain any other way than “But God.”
“This is my testimony from death to life,
Cause grace rewrote my story, I'll testify” – My Testimony by Elevation Worship
Like most stories I should start from the beginning. Not to condemn those from my past, justify my decisions, or to have others feel sorry for me, but to give an idea of what I was freed from. Like everyone else my adult life was shaped by the things I was introduced to as a child. For me this included smoking, gambling, drinking, porn, violence, lying, stealing and, drug use. All of which I was exposed to before my teenage years. Again I’m not saying this to blame anyone or looking for sympathy, I know others have had it far worse. I was blessed to have two parents that did everything they could to provide a better life for my sisters and I than what they had. All of this exposure led me to of course start doing it myself, in my rebellious teenage years, because this is what everyone else did and if it was worth causing the destruction it did then it must be worth it. Looking back now, it is crazy to see how the lies the devil tells you just makes sense to you. Growing up I was a very infrequent church goer. My mom and my sisters would occasionally go, but in my family I went the most, which again was not very much. I remember a time when I was all for God, but then I started losing my faith and all together just didn’t believe anymore. Going to church was more of a way to get my parents off of my back about my behavior then it was anything else and it eventually I just stopped going all together. I stopped living for God and started living for Earthly things. I stopped believing in God and started believing in other things. My concerns were no longer heaven or hell, but how my relationship with this person is going to be and what about me. I started living for myself and the things of this world. This led me into a very self-destructive lifestyle. It got to a point to where the devil didn’t need to help me destroy my life I was doing it all on my own. Luckily for me the drug use lasted a few months and the drinking I only did at that time was as a social thing but never to the point of getting drunk. I thank that voice in the back of my headed that reminded me of what the drugs did to my grandparents and family and what it was like to be around drunk people as a child. There was still a tight grasp on me that it led to a deep depression and thoughts of suicide. Again that little voice reminded me of when my grandmother attempted to commit suicide and how it destroyed my family. That voice reminding me of that is what saved me because it made me realize how I could never do that to my wife and kids. It’s weird that because of that decision to not commit suicide my anger and depression got worse. I began to neglect my family, I buried myself in work, and I put things first in my life instead of my family. I kept the depression hidden from my family because growing up that’s not something we would talk about. I eventually talked with my wife about it and went on medication for it, but the medicine only helped for a short while and then we would have to increase the dose. I started looking for answers to my problems in other religions, other beliefs, other things to make me feel whole outside of drugs and alcohol, and eventually I started seeing a therapist for it because it wasn’t getting better. Little did I know that my wife, who had started going to church months prior to me starting therapy, had put the wheels into motion of me being freed. I heard a story about how this one singer, who suffered from depression and drug abuse, changed his life around by asking for a sign from God and received it. So I decided to do the same. For me it came in the form of a picture of my wife and I signing the contract to have our house built. A picture that was taken a week before our kids where born. Why is that significant? Well our kids are adopted, from foster care, a program we didn’t begin until May of the following year of our home being built, but of course I overlooked this and discounted this as the sign I was looking for. It’s crazy how we can easily talk ourselves out of receiving from God all that He wants to give us.
Since therapy wasn’t really helping I eventually met with Pastor Brian to talk about the depression and the suicidal thoughts. Talking with him felt different than talking with the therapist. It wasn’t a matter of let’s blame everyone else for the problem or that I have a chemical imbalance that medication was the key to fixing. It was simply a matter of its an attack from the enemy. Now BC (Before Christ) me would have just dismissed this as “Of course that’s what he would say, that’s what their answer will be for everything…” but like I said, something about this talk was different. On the drive home it was like a wave of raw emotion just came over me so much so that I cried all the way home. Not like a boo-hoo woe is me cry, but a feeling of raw emotion. Thinking back on it, it was like being told by God “You’re not ok right now, but you will be.” Pastor Brian sent me a video by Rick Renner to watch about how the devil attacks our minds, and it hit me. The things he talked about made sense, it was like he knew what I experienced as a kid. It wasn’t that he was picked on or how the teachers said he will never become anything that I connected with, it was the fact that as a kid he enjoyed classical music and the opera. Something I enjoyed as a kid and still do. The following Sunday I went to church and decided to become born again.
Before that day, I never felt a peace like I did the moment I gave my life over to God. Like a lot of other people will say it was as though this crushing weight was lifted off of me, and that is a good way to describe it. Before I was in darkness and drowning, struggling to stay afloat in water and doing everything I can to try and save myself. I reached out to the wrong things only to cause me to struggle more and to become exhausted. I finally reached out to the one thing that helped. I reached out to a promise from God that not only grabbed me back and helped me, it renewed me. That darkness was replaced with a light that made me whole again and warmed me. When you honestly and wholeheartedly let God in, be prepared because your life will be different.
Following this event the Church had their St. Patrick’s day revival. Something I’ve never been to so I didn’t know what to expect. Three days of hearing the Word preached by Rev. Marty Blackwelder. Because God knows I’m hardheaded he made sure to make himself known to me all three days. It was like the first night He shouted here is another sign, the second night was Him saying are you sure you got it, and the third was Him just making sure I knew. I had started reading/listening to the Bible so naturally I had questions and one of them was about sacrifices from the Old Testament and the night before the revival I talked to my wife about it asking her what she thought we should sacrifice now or if there is something we are to sacrifice now. That first night Rev. Marty talked about what our sacrifices to God should be. Little did I know this was God’s way of saying “Hey you, pay attention.” Another question I had and was going to ask Pastor Brian about that Sunday was how do we hear from God, and sure enough the second night Rev. Marty covered this topic. “Hey, you’re starting to pay attention right?” The third day Rev. Marty talked about fear, anxiety, doubt, and other things that I had been going through. “And now I’ve got your attention.” But honestly despite all of this, the one thing that honestly told me more than anything that He is there, and listening was something I thought during the first night of the revival. Keep in mind my attendance at church was pretty non-existent and my knowledge of Praise and Worship music was also non-existent other than what my wife listened to when I was in her car and stuff from decades ago. I had the simple thought during the middle of service that first night, “I wonder if there is any Dance/EDM style Christian music.” I don’t know why I had that thought, Dance/EDM isn’t the style of music I listen to the most and I wasn’t going through a Dance/EDM phase at the time. But sure enough, at the end of service the Praise and Worship team played Alive, a Dance/EDM song. Things like this has become quite frequent, so much so that I started calling them my Lunchbox Love Notes, a small gesture that would mean nothing to anyone else but to me it means everything to me. BC me would just count stuff like this as coincidence or that it is my minds way of making a connection, but with the frequency of the occurrences and how random the subject matter is, there is no other explanation aside from God.
On April 17th of 2021, a little over a month of giving my life over, I decided to sort of put my faith to the test. I felt that if I had faith in the bank that they would have my money, that the stuff I ordered on Amazon would be here within one to two days, or any other silly little thing like that, why couldn’t I have faith God will be there for me. On that day my wife went to Seed Chicks and left me with our very energetic six-year-old twins. That morning I woke up and had my last cigarette. After I finished, I said to God, “If I can have faith in all of these meaningless things, why can’t I have faith in you that you will see me through overcoming my addiction to smoking. I am putting my faith in you to see me through this, to see me fulfill a promise I gave my wife that I would quit when we had kids. You require my faith to walk with you and so I will place my faith in you for this, because if I can’t place my faith in you for this then how am I going to do it for the big things?” To this day I have not smoked once, the enemy sends the occasional craving my way but God reminds me of my promise to my wife and kids.
Shortly after this, Pastor Brian preached on our ability to have faith in things like the bank and online shopping, and how we need to have that same faith and stronger faith in God. What makes that more amazing, is the only person I told about the conversation I had with God was my wife. The next thing I started praying for was for my Dad and oldest sister to repair their relationship. Something that truly would require an act of God. They were to the point that they could not stand to be around one another and eventually where neither wanted anything to do with the other and my sister really didn’t want anything to do with anyone in our family. But God. Shortly after my wife and I started praying for that, it happened. They finally worked everything out and started speaking with one another again. It’s funny sometimes how God works. My youngest sister would always complain that she doesn’t understand why my parents are now treating her like nothing happened and BC me would have gone along with her complaining as well, but God kept reminding me of the story of the Prodigal Son. We should be happy she came back, would I not be happy if one of my kids left came back? Didn’t God rejoice when I came back to him? Because of things like this my walk with God became better, my faith started to build up. I would have thoughts just pop into my head that I would share with my wife and then Pastor Lisa would preach on it or Pastor Brian would talk about it during the LIFE course or one of the random messages I would watch on YouTube would talk about it. One of my favorite examples of this is I had this thought, that God made us and He knows us better than we know ourselves and because of this He knows how to talk to each of us. For me its through songs, and from time to time it’s through sarcasm. He truly knows how to talk to me. One day my youngest sister got COVID and shortly after develops pneumonia. I prayed for her and then the bridge to a song got stuck in my head. It just kept playing over and over in my head and I wasn’t sure about the lyrics to it. I knew the beginning of the bridge and thought I knew the rest. I just kept coming up blank with it and decided to watch the lyric video of it. When I read the lyrics I got chills. A feeling I can only describe as the presence of God. “You’ve got a lion inside of those lungs so get up and praise the Lord.” Before that day I probably listened to that song several dozen times, and thought I knew it well enough to be able to sing if I had to, but that one portion kept playing in my head incorrectly because God knew I would go look it up and I knew right then and there that my sister would be ok. Shortly after sharing this with my wife and my thought on how God talks to us in our own individual way, Pastor Lisa mentions this in one of her messages. Things like this has shown me how much He truly loves us. While I’m not perfect, and I once denounced Him and didn’t believe in His existence, He still loves me enough to show me that He does love me and cares for me. Knowing where I once was and where I am today are two completely different places. They are not even close to one another. Prior to March of 2021 if you told me that I would accept Christ as my Lord and Savior and that I would live for God, I would have honestly thought you were crazy. I hid the fact that I didn’t believe in Him from my wife, probably not very well, and I only did things related to God for her to keep her happy. I will tell you that is not the way to live. I thought by me doing those things it would show her that I loved her and was willing to do it for her. No, had I truly loved her and my kids I would have been the man of God I was supposed to be. He repaired my relationship with my wife and kids. In return they got a better father and husband. He fixed me and my relationships all by entering a relationship with Him. If He did it for me, He will do it for you.
Know that by accepting God into your life things will get better. There will be things to test your walk with God and your faith, and the devil will attack you. For me one such attack was a dream I had. In this dream people would read this book, die, laid to rest in a shallow grave and be reborn. As I was talking to someone in my dream about what was happening, this demon popped up out of nowhere and scared me so much so that I was literally screaming and punching myself to wake up. This demon was very realistic and wasn’t something I just dreamed up. I woke up in the middle of me punching myself in the face only to still have that demon in my vision. Once it went away and I composed myself, the thought crossed my mind, why would the enemy do this in the middle of my dream if they were trying to convince me God doesn’t exist and this whole thing is just flawed. At that moment my memory of that demon started to shift from a very realistic thing to something less realistic, like it realized I’m calling it out and tried to disguise itself. Prior to this dream I was curious if I should get baptized and because of this dream I knew I should. Be prepared to fight the good fight of faith. The devil will throw things at you and bring things up from your past but know that no matter what God has your back. There is nothing like the peace you get from knowing that your faith in Him will see you through these attacks. I say all of this because for some it is a struggle. It comes easier to some than it does others, but no matter what God will always be there for you. Even though I turned my back on Him, He has never turned His back on me.
This journey so far has been unbelievable to me. I (BC me) never thought that I would accept Him into my life, look forward to going to church, feel empty if I don’t go, be happy to talk
about Him openly, try and live my life according to His word, and become free from the things that held me captive. Everything that I’ve seen and experienced I just cannot explain other than God, and I just cannot see why I would ever want to go back to the way I was. Sure it might have been easier but the rewards for following Him out weighs the anything of this world. I thank you if you read this whole thing and I also apologize for this… but to be honest, you kind of did it to yourself, I gave you an out at the beginning… There’s a reason I’m quiet, lol… In all seriousness, I pray that this helps either you or someone else. There is an answer other than what this world has to offer and it’s better than anything you can imagine. You just need to take that step of faith and expect great things for your life.