A Turning Point – John

From disaster to pastor, this is the real life story – my own personal testimony – of how I came to saving faith in Jesus Christ.  I believe miracles still happen every day and the greatest miracle to me is that of human conversion

Fractured Childhood

I never knew my real father.  My mother had many husbands and I was dumped at my aunt and uncle’s to live with when I was very young.  My aunt and uncle already had a house full of their own children.  They had seven children in all plus me and my bigger brother along with my aunt and uncle, this made 11 in one house.  I ended up claiming the closet as my own bedroom.  I didn’t know enough to feel sorry for myself as a young child.  I remember that the only books that I loved where encyclopedias.  When my mother finally did come for my brother and me, even if it was for a short time, we had a new step-father.  In all those years and in all my mother’s different marriages, I never heard the phrase, “I love you.”  I never heard any praise or encouragement but I did remember being screamed at, spit on, shouted at, and cussed out more than once.  I also remember being beaten, being slammed to the floor, and one time I was “spanked” with a log from a stack of firewood.  Once I suffered a fractured skull at age ten.  I became so hardened over time that I never gave my mom the satisfaction of crying when I was beaten.

My aunt and uncle must have felt sorry for me, for when I was with them, they never raised a hand against me and they never yelled or screamed at me and they never told me that I was worthless.  My mother lied to the school and I started kindergarten at age 4 and wouldn’t be 5 until my birthday in November.  Today, most children whose birthday is in November and age is 5 would wait until next year and be 6.  So I actually started school at 4 and I was always 1 to 2 years younger than all my classmates and needless to say, I struggled mightily in sports and academics.  By the age of 16 I had graduated already but still being a minor I could only work on a farm.

God Resists the Proud

What an arrogant young boy I was when I left home at 16.  I had such hostility that I often got into fights with men who were much older than I was.  I couldn’t stand even the slightest insult.  I flew off the handle at just about anything.  I was a cocked gun with a trigger finger. I stole, I drank, and I used any drug that I could find.  It seemed that I was taking life out on me and anyone who happened to be around.  I lived with a guy that sold drugs and stole anything that was not tied down to support his drug habit.  I tried cocaine, acid, marijuana, alcohol of all kinds and I even mixed drugs at times.  It was amazing that I didn’t kill myself.  I was at home one day and a police officer arrived at the house I was living in and said that he had a warrant for my friend and then he asked me my name.  After I told him, he said that he had a warrant for me as well.  So off to jail I went, this being the first of many trips to lockup.

After getting busted for yet another breaking and entering and possession of a controlled substance charge, I was taken before the judge who had gotten sick of looking at me and he sent me off to state prison.  After serving there for about 2 years, I knew that I was getting ready to get out.  The only person who had ever visited me…and I had only one visitor in those 3 years (1 in the county jail awaiting the transfer to the state prison and 2 while in prison), was my father-in-law.  None of my actual relatives wanted to have anything to do with me and ironically, the only visitor I had was neither my family or my friends.  I remember nearing my release that I had no home, no car, no job (not likely to find one either being a convicted felon), and apparently no family.  I was so down that the only way I could look was up.  I attempted a feeble prayer but thought, who was I?  I saw the trustee bringing books and at the very bottom of the stack there was a torn and tattered Bible. I asked him for it and signed to check it out.

But what a powerful testimony to the power of God, that someone so far down in the depths of a living hell on earth, could be lifted up so high.

God Gives Grace to the Humble

Ironies of ironies I found that the God of the Bible was the only true source of freedom.  For me, it took prison to be set free.  I opened the Bible up and read Psalm 22.  Now this is what is called Scriptural roulette and I do not recommend it when you want to find answers in the Bible, but apparently God had planned this as a special circumstance and I didn’t know any better.  If floored me what I read and I will give you some of the verses in this chapter that actually foretells of Christ’s torment and abandonment on the cross (I did not realize that at the time).  Imagine what I felt when I read some of these verses in Psalm 22.  I thought that they were written for me!