When I was two years old, my dad committed suicide and my mother was left alone to raise six children by herself. To cope she resorted to drug abuse, and by the time I was eight, getting drunk was normal for me. I drank myself to sleep, did shots with family, and was doing keg stands by age ten. Liquor, marijuana, hard drugs, all of it was scattered throughout my life until one day I came home from school to find all of our possessions out on the curb in front of our house. By now I had seven siblings, and one by one they were taken by various friends and family that could house them. After I realized that no one was coming to get me, I ran to my mother and asked if I could stay with her. She looked at me, in front of what used to be home, then left with her boyfriend without saying a word. Finally, after asking the family that had taken some of my other siblings, I had a place to go.

What’s typical for a normal 10-year-old? Catching bugs, playing kickball, being tucked in every night? All of that was so foreign to me. My life was full of embarrassment, ridicule, and loneliness. I knew things I never should have known, saw things no ten-year-old should ever see. My mother abandoned me, I didn’t have a worldy father, and I didn’t know my heavenly father. My life seemed hopeless.

Stability with my new family was good for me. I started doing well in school, I didn’t drink, and my behavioral issues were dramatically better. I began to go to church and learned about the love of Jesus. Things were truly looking up for me, and it seemed like I was finally living the life I was always meant to live. But five years into this new life of mine, my older brother, who had been like a father to me through all my life, committed suicide. While I tried to lean on friends, family, and Christ, it

seemed to me like they had all failed. So I turned to what I knew could comfort me, and used drugs and alcohol to mask my pain. I became angry and bitter, and fell deeper and deeper into depression. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I tied a rope around my neck and jumped.

By the grace of God, the rope broke. I felt like a failure. I hated myself and I was so ashamed of who I had become. I had nowhere to turn, so once more, I leaned on the Lord.

For many years after that I managed my substance abuse and lived a somewhat “normal” life, until one day on my way home from work I was t-boned by someone who was texting and driving. After surgery, I became addicted to prescribed pain medication. How cruel, I thought. How cruel that I would work so hard to walk with God and keep clean, just to be taken over again by something that seemed so out of my own control.

It was two years of this before my heart began to change. One day I was on Oxycontin while watching my son, and I began to nod out. I was still conscious enough to hear my two year old frantically screaming, “Daddy, daddy, daddy!” as he slapped me, desperate for me to wake up. I knew God was showing me that my life needed to permanently change. The path I was on promised me nothing but pain and death. In Jesus, I was promised fulfillment and joy. I had to choose.

Less than an hour I was at a facility starting my detox. In the following days, I didn’t stop praying. I begged the Lord for help, and for the first time, I accepted him as a partner in my recovery. With my eyes closed, I felt the hands of the Almighty lift me up, and every inch of my soul was filled with absolute peace and calm. I knew my Father was there, and that He would get me through this.

I left the hospital with a renewed sense of mission. I wanted to stay sober and get my life back on track. I immediately went to AA and started working the program. I still struggled from time to time, but I prayed  every day and asked for help. After a few months of hard work, I cried out to the Lord for complete deliverance from my addiction. In a moment, He reached into my heart and filled me with love. I stood up a new man, and have not touched any drugs or alcohol since that miraculous moment!

I was baptised two months later, and soon after that I met my beautiful wife while at Radiant. We are now the proud parents of five beautiful boys, and not a day goes by where I don’t thank Him for the abundance of peace and gifts He has blessed me with. Looking back, I can see how God walked with me through it all. Never once did I ever walk alone.

Do you feel your story can serve as a hope and inspiration to others? Contact us at mystory@radiant.church.