My Testimony

I was raised in a pretty broken home. My real father left before I turned two years old, leaving my mother to raise me alone. My mother divorced and remarried into an alcoholic, and abusive relationship. My first stepfather regularly beat my mother, and as far as I know tried to beat me but my mother took the brunt of it. This violence continued and escalated to the point of my step-father locking me in his bedroom one night and trying to kill my mother. Luckily our neighbor broke the door down and saved us.

Not long after this my mother divorced and moved on as a single parent, now raising two children. After a while my mother remarried again. My second stepfather was not physically abusive as was my first, however he was mentally and emotionally abusive. My parents continued to use alcohol and drugs (marijuana and meth-amphetamines) going into my teen years.

Going into adolescence I started using drugs, alcohol. I failed in school, regularly lashed out, and started practicing witchcraft. My mother’s alcoholism reached a peak and she had to be hospitalized several times. Not long after I became severely depressed and told my parents that I was going to kill myself. I was hospitalized and treated for depression. I barely made it through high school, and right after high school went straight into the Marines. This was a feeble attempt to get some discipline and learn some responsibility.

Not long after entering the Marines I started drinking very heavily, and continued to binge drink 90% of my income away. After a couple years of the stress of military life and the alcoholism, I turned back to drugs to escape the military. I was other-than-honorably discharged from the Marines and returned home.

After this I worked odd jobs never lasting for more than a year or two, continued heavy drinking and drug use, as well as an increase in occult and witchcraft. This continued for several years and I ended up in Nebraska where I met my wife.

I met my wife online and we began living together for two years before we married. I continued to use drugs and alcohol. Our first year of marriage was a roller coaster of turmoil and calm, culminating in the loss of my good paying job, and my wife’s affair.

My son Gregory is the result of my wife’s affair. We decided to stay together and get treatment. My parents were not happy with my decision to stay with my wife and raise our illegitimate child. Several months later we received several nasty voice mail messages from my parents, calling my wife and I every name in the book. At this point I pretty much severed contact with my parents.

This was the last straw for my wife, and shortly thereafter she gave her life to Christ. The next week she asked me to come to church with her, and I agreed. At this time I didn’t know that she had given her life to Christ, however I was at a crossroads in my life. I had been searching for a long time for something to fill the void in my life, and my soul. The message I heard that day in church drove it home in my mind. I realized at that point that I had been struggling all my life to fill the void myself in vain. I realized that nothing I would ever do would fill the gap. I also came to terms with my sin, which I had covered up and been in denial over for my whole life. I knew at that point that there was only one person who could erase all my sin and fill the void in my life, and that was Jesus Christ. Somehow I felt the holy spirit guide me up front to the altar and brought me to my knees, where I poured my heart and soul out to God. I don’t know how long I knelt at the front of the church, it seemed like an eternity, but when I stood up it felt as though a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders. That was by far the best day of my life, surpassing the day I married my wife and even the birth of my son.

Matthew 11:28-30

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”