Testify!

[rolylane6]

I posted my coming to christ story on another thread and got me to wondering about some of your stories. I'm sure there's some great testimonies on here. Let's hear 'em.
I'll post mine again here to start things off.

17 years ago, when my son was 14, he was diagnosed with AML (leukemia). Spoiler alert: hes 31 now, a paramedic, and married with 2 children (A true blessing from God considering they said the 2 rounds of chemo he went thru would most likely leave him sterile and not likely to have children!)
During that time in my life I was not yet a Christian. Wasn't sure if there even was a God. Still I began every morning and ended every evening in the chapel at Cooks children's hospital praying to a God I did not know and did not acknowledge as existing. I would ask, actually beg, Him to save my son. I begged, bargained, pleaded for it. I didn't know God or if He existed but I knew if He did, my son needed Him and He was my sons best, if not only, chance at surviving. I guess I needed Him to exist even tho I couldn't admit it. I was willing to surrender my pride for His help even tho I did not know or want to admit if He was real. It took a year in the hospital, 2 different rounds of chemo, 3 trips thru ICU, a bone marrow transplant, and a lot of other procedures but God came thru. Now you would think I would've been immediately converted and became a full blown worshiping Christian after that, right? Well, It definitely laid the foundation but I've always been stubborn so it took a few more years and several more struggles in my life before I truly surrendered. But God stayed with me and I finally turned my life over to Him and fully accepted Christ in my life. Finally, I made it, I'm now what they call a Jesus freak! A term I used to be deathly afraid of being labeled as.
Stupid kid!....me, not my son.
Now that's how God works all things, even the bad (illness), for good!

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[GarGuy]

Thanks for sharing.

[Gunnyart]

I'm the son of an Assemblies Of God pastor so he led my in the sinner's prayer at age 5.
What you've heard about preachers kids being the worst sinners... It's probably true.
I left home at 18 and after a couple years partying at SHSU dropped out to join the Service.
I lived the typical debauched life of a young dumb serviceman.
However...
As convoluted as it sounds, I held on the verse "train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it" as a promise God made with my dad that some day like the prodigal son I would return.

The inciting incident was a pretty severe car accident. (completely my fault)
My immediate reaction was to pound my firsts and shout obscenities including taking taking the Lords name in vain...
In that moment the Holy Spirit convicted me and said "this is what you have become."
I stopped down then and there and begged God's forgiveness and began to praise God in front of the Police, my bewildered passenger and the passengers from the car I hit.
As a witness to God's goodness, the police who was ready to take me to jail didn't even write me a ticket and the people in the other car who were claiming they needed to to be taken to a hospital decided they were fine.
That was just about 32 years ago. I've been through many ups and downs since but on the whole I have lived what I consider a blessed life beyond what I deserve. God Is Good!

[fbchunter]

Amen! Great testimonies

[Gumbo Man]

I was saved 34 years ago at a Wild Game Extravaganza hosted by a church in Houston. I was lead to be there 2 hours early before they opened and didn’t know why.

When I entered the building it was still dark but I saw some light in the middle of the convention hall and went to that light. There was a man sitting there in a booth all by himself and he introduced himself to me. His name was Terry Chupp and he was a traveling minister with the Professional Bass Masters circuit and brought the Gospel to the fishermen on the road.

He started witnessing to me and asked if I was to die today where would I go? I gave him the same response as I always gave being in the same situation. My response was always I thought I would go to Heaven because I was a good husband and good provider and didn’t go around kicking dogs, and I believed in God. He explained to me about not being saved by works but by grace and even Satan believed in God. With that being said I knew that I was truly needing salvation and prayed to receive Christ at that moment.

I’m so greatful that the Lord lead me there that day with his plan that I might have one more chance to claim him as my Lord and Savior. I’ll never know if it would have been my last opertunity.

[wdixon]

I was raised Catholic, if the doors were swinging I was waling through them but only to keep mom happy.
About 13 years ago my son got sick in and out of the hospital with no answers, He was losing weight like crazy. I was mad at the world because like most men I fix things and I couldn't fix this. After several months of me yelling at Drs and nurses my son looked at me and told me to relax and trust Gods plan. ( Took a 12 yr old to put me in my place). Shortly after we had a diagnosis, and after a few years of treatments he was getting back to his old self and thriving . I became closer to God through that experience but was not fully "on-board".
About a year after the above started a friend from church was hounding me about going on a men's weekend with a group from church, I kept blowing him off thinking I had better things to do. 2 days before this men's weekend I had an issue at work, Thigs got physical between me and another dept. manager and I walked out to cool off and went to lunch with my wife and daughter, in the middle of lunch my boss calls and asks about the issue and asked if I was coming back I told him not until I calm down. I hung up the phone ant threw it across the room when I went to pick it up (if you believe in crazy signs) there was an emoji of a man praying when I grabbed it, my heart sank and I just had a weird feeling. I called the friend from church joined them on the men's weekend during which I hit my knees and turned it all over to God and have been on that path ever since.

[WRasco]

Awesome post, thanks to all for sharing. Someday when I have time I will post mine up.

God Bless.

[rolylane6]

I was raised Catholic, if the doors were swinging I was waling through them but only to keep mom happy.
About 13 years ago my son got sick in and out of the hospital with no answers, He was losing weight like crazy. I was mad at the world because like most men I fix things and I couldn't fix this. After several months of me yelling at Drs and nurses my son looked at me and told me to relax and trust Gods plan. ( Took a 12 yr old to put me in my place). Shortly after we had a diagnosis, and after a few years of treatments he was getting back to his old self and thriving . I became closer to God through that experience but was not fully "on-board".
About a year after the above started a friend from church was hounding me about going on a men's weekend with a group from church, I kept blowing him off thinking I had better things to do. 2 days before this men's weekend I had an issue at work, Thigs got physical between me and another dept. manager and I walked out to cool off and went to lunch with my wife and daughter, in the middle of lunch my boss calls and asks about the issue and asked if I was coming back I told him not until I calm down. I hung up the phone ant threw it across the room when I went to pick it up (if you believe in crazy signs) there was an emoji of a man praying when I grabbed it, my heart sank and I just had a weird feeling. I called the friend from church joined them on the men's weekend during which I hit my knees and turned it all over to God and have been on that path ever since.

Signs and wonders... yes they exist! A praying emoji! Tell me God can't use every single thing to further His Kingdom!
And that sounds like a wise young man you have for a son!

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[Leemo]

Fell in love with Jesus in 2016
Only took 50 years

[Gumbo Man]

Fell in love with Jesus in 2016
Only took 50 years

It’s never too late until it’s too late. Congrats Brother.

[breadman]

amen

[Pineywoods]

Sorry for the long read and typos from my fat thumbs on my phone...

As my screen name says, I was raised in the Pineywoods of East Texas. I wasn't raised in a Christian home, though my parents probably were considered "good" people by the world's standard. Every now and then someone from one of the small local Baptist churches around our area would drive miles down those old dirt roads to pick up kids and haul us to church. Around 10-12, I really don't remember exactly when, I walked an aisle, and prayed a prayer, and got wet when the preacher baptized me. I walked away from that with little more than a head knowledge of who Jesus was and what He did, and absolutely no heart change or repentance. My life was not changed at all. In fact, it only got worse and by 8th grade I started smoking weed and hanging around the wring people. Where we lived, way out in the sticks, there wasn't a lot of kids to hang around or much to do. I went from a very smart well mannered country kid to entering a rebellious phase in a hurry. By 14-15, I was smoking weed everyday and by 16 I was dealing. I was into very dark music and had become even more godless in my lifestyle. By the time I graduated, I did it all and was always the life of the party and it only got way worse from there. I was selling weed, cocaine, lsd, meth...you name it. I was a chronic weed smoker and was doing coke on a constant basis as well as lsd most weekends. I was an addict and had moved beyond small dealer stuff. I was depressed, crazy, and didn't care about anyone. Money, getting high, and girls were my God. At that point I'm not even sure I believed there was a God. I chased after everything looking for something to take away my pain and to quiet the chaos inside of me.


In 1998, on a Friday evening some buddies and I were getting ready to go to a big party out in the country where I lived. As usual. I had stocked up on dope to sell that night and lsd was the main thing I was pushing that particular night. My license had recently been suspended for a few months for a minor in possession of alcohol charge at a party in Livingston so I rode to the party with some buddies. This night would change my life forever.


At first, it seemed like any other weekend in my life. I was an experienced drug user with a very high tolerance for almost everything and as usual, that night we started by getting high before leaving the party. We were dropping multiple hits of acid (lsd). We got to the party and it was after dark. The party was remote, at an old house miles and miles down the old dirt roads that I grew up on. There was probably 50-60 people already there and most were familiar faces. Some were in the house but most were outside as it was spring and a nice night. It was one of those nights that was really quiet and clear and you could have heard the frogs and crickets outside if it weren't for the music. I hadn't been there long when I knew something was different about that night. I tried to play it off in my own mind and ignore it for a while. The more time that passed it became impossible to ignore. There was something internal causing me to see myself and those around me differently... and it wasn't because of the drugs. I saw for the first time in my life how disgusting and evil my life was. It was as if I was being shown this. I looked around and listened and saw my lifestyle in a way that I never had. I was internalizing all of this as I walked around trying to act normal. At this point, it's hard to describe what happened but I'll try. It was like I was being shown myself in a mirror and I could see the truth about myself for the first time. I could see the evil in me and around me. I didn't hear an audible voice, but an internal voice made it clear that I had a life or death choice to make at that moment. It was as if I was being asked "are you going to continue in this or are you going to walk away from it?" I knew at that moment that I didn't want that life anymore. I knew I had to leave that party. I went to my best friend, one of the guys I rode with and told him I had to leave right then. They were high, so they laughed and dismissed it. They thought I was just high but there was way more going on for me right then than they knew. The inward unction to leave became so great that I decided to leave on foot. I began to walk down the dark driveway and made it out to the road. I stopped and turned back to look at the party in the distance. I had another choice, do I really leave...? I had to. I walked another 50 yards or so before I remembered all of the drugs in my pocket. I pulled out hundreds of dollars worth of lsd wrapped in plastic in my pocket. I stared at it in my hand and heard that internal voice again give me a choice. Do I keep it or am I serious about leaving this life? I tossed it in the ditch and continued walking. There's 72 miles of connected dirt roads in the area that I was in and I knew most of them. With that said, at some point, shaken by what was going on inside of me, and due to the drugs, I became lost. I wandered for sometime but I'm not sure exactly how long. It felt like an eternity. I got to a place where I could make a turn and I found myself asking "this voice" which way I should go. At this point I was adressing God and asking Him for direction even though I didn't even really know Him or know if what was happening was Him. I would do this every time a turn could be made and finally I recognized where I was. I rounded a curve and dropped down the hill on the old sand dirt road. As I got to the bottom of the hill I could hear a car coming in the distance. I found myself asking God to please don't let it be my friends from the party trying to get me go back. The car headlights rounded the curve and the old car slowed down as it approached the bottom of the hill. It stopped beside me and the passenger window rolled down. An older man probably in his 60's asked me if I needed a ride. It was probably 1-2am and I'm a tattooed up guy, high as kite, walking down a dark dirt road in the middle of nowhere and he wants to give me a ride. I knew I was supposed to get into the car. We probably weren't 200 yards down the road and I just start crying in front of this total stranger and telling him things about myself and my evil lifestyle. He was calm, peaceful, unshaken, and seemed unsurprised by the encounter. He said he was a preacher on his way back from a pastor conference down in Beaumont and was getting in late. He said God led him to pick me up. I could not believe all of what was happening that night but I knew at that moment there was a God and He was trying to get my attention.

I had been living on my own since 17 and had my own place at the time the preacher picked me up. After we had spoken he asked me where I needed to go. I told him to take me to my parents. I woke them up at around 2am and spilled my guts about my addiction and so much more. Only hours before sitting in my parents living room I had taken enough drugs to disable or kill most people and I should have been wired like a power plant for most of the night. Shortly after talking with my Dad I went and laid down and slept like a baby. I went to the church where that old man was an associate pastor on the next Sunday morning and I heard the gospel preached. I surrendered my life that day and gave everything to Christ. I laid it all down. I despised who I was and I knew more than I had ever known anything else that He was my only hope and that He had a purpose for my life. That weekend set my life on a trajectory that still blows my mind to this day. I was called to preach years later and served as a Youth Pastor for over 6 years. I've been a Police Chaplain for the last four years, and the Lord is now leading me to plant a church in my hometown. God's grace and mercy in saving a wretched vile person like me still leaves me in awe. I love Him so much for what He did and is still doing in me. The old Josh has been dead for many years at this point but I pray I never forget what He rescued me from. He pursued me when I hated him and loved my sin. He has blessed me with a life that I don't deserve and I pray that my whole life would be in service to Him. I owe Him everything.

I know that most don't have such a crazy sequence of events bring them to Christ but I know that God knew excatly what it would take to reach a hard headed, hard hearted, wretch like me. I still think about that night a lot and still don't understand everything that happened. What I do know is that once I was lost and now I am found.

[SaltwaterSlick]

God bless you Josh! Thank you for sharing that! What a powerful testimony sir!

[rolylane6]

Sorry for the long read and typos from my fat thumbs on my phone...

As my screen name says, I was raised in the Pineywoods of East Texas. I wasn't raised in a Christian home, though my parents probably were considered "good" people by the world's standard. Every now and then someone from one of the small local Baptist churches around our area would drive miles down those old dirt roads to pick up kids and haul us to church. Around 10-12, I really don't remember exactly when, I walked an aisle, and prayed a prayer, and got wet when the preacher baptized me. I walked away from that with little more than a head knowledge of who Jesus was and what He did, and absolutely no heart change or repentance. My life was not changed at all. In fact, it only got worse and by 8th grade I started smoking weed and hanging around the wring people. Where we lived, way out in the sticks, there wasn't a lot of kids to hang around or much to do. I went from a very smart well mannered country kid to entering a rebellious phase in a hurry. By 14-15, I was smoking weed everyday and by 16 I was dealing. I was into very dark music and had become even more godless in my lifestyle. By the time I graduated, I did it all and was always the life of the party and it only got way worse from there. I was selling weed, cocaine, lsd, meth...you name it. I was a chronic weed smoker and was doing coke on a constant basis as well as lsd most weekends. I was an addict and had moved beyond small dealer stuff. I was depressed, crazy, and didn't care about anyone. Money, getting high, and girls were my God. At that point I'm not even sure I believed there was a God. I chased after everything looking for something to take away my pain and to quiet the chaos inside of me.


In 1998, on a Friday evening some buddies and I were getting ready to go to a big parry out in the country where I lived. As usual. I had stocked up on dope to sell that night and lsd was the main thing I was pushing that particular night. My license had recently been suspended for a few months for a minor in possession of alcohol charge at a party in Livingston so I rode to the party with some buddies. This night would change my life forever.


At first, it seemed like any other weekend in my life. I was an experienced drug user with a very high tolerance for almost everything and as usual, that night we started by getting high before leaving the party. We were dropping multiple hits of acid (lsd). We got to the party and it was after dark. The party was remote, at an old house miles and miles down the old dirt roads that I grew up on. There was probably 50-60 people already there and most were familiar faces. Some were in the house but most were outside as it was spring and a nice night. It was one of those nights that was really quiet and clear and you could have heard the frogs and crickets outside if it weren't for the music. I hadn't been there long when I knew something was different about that night. I tried to play it off in my own mind and ignore it for a while. The more time that passed it became impossible to ignore. There was something internal causing me to see myself and those around me differently... and it wasn't because of the drugs. I saw for the first time in my life how disgusting and evil my life was. It was as if I was being shown this. I looked around and listened and saw my lifestyle in a way that I never had. I was internalizing all of this as I walked around trying to act normal. At this point, it's hard to describe what happened but I'll try. It was like I was being shown myself in a mirror and I could see the truth about myself for the first time. I could see the evil in me and around me. I didn't hear an audible voice, but an internal voice made it clear that I had a life or death choice to make at that moment. It was as if I was being asked "are you going to continue in this or are you going to walk away from it?" I knew at that moment that I didn't want that life anymore. I knew I had to leave that party. I went to my best friend, one of the guys I rode with and told him I had to leave right then. They were high, so they laughed and dismissed it. They thought I was just high but there was way more going on for me right then than they knew. The inward unction to leave became so great that I decided to leave on foot. I began to walk down the dark driveway and made it out to the road. I stopped and turned back to look at the party in the distance. I had another choice, do I really leave...? I had to. I walked another 50 yards or so before I remembered all of the drugs in my pocket. I pulled out hundreds of dollars worth of lsd wrapped in plastic in my pocket. I stared at it in my hand and heard that internal voice again give me a choice. Do I keep it or am I serious about leaving this life? I tossed it in the ditch and continued walking. There's 72 miles of connected dirt roads in the area that I was in and I knew most of them. With that said, at some point, shaken by what was going on inside of me, and due to the drugs, I became lost. I wandered for sometime but I'm not sure exactly how long. It felt like an eternity. I got to a place where I could make a turn and I found myself asking "this voice" which way I should go. At this point I was adressing God and asking Him for direction even though I didn't even really know Him or know if what was happening was Him. I would do this every time a turn could be made and finally I recognized where I was. I rounded a curve and dropped down the hill on the old sand dirt road. As I got to the bottom of the hill I could hear a car coming in the distance. I found myself asking God to please don't let it be my friends from the party trying to get me go back. The car headlights rounded the curve and the old car slowed down as it approached the bottom of the hill. It stopped beside me and the passenger window rolled down. An older man probably in his 60's asked me if I needed a ride. It was probably 1-2am and I'm a tattooed up guy, high as kite, walking down a dark dirt road in the middle of nowhere and he wants to give me a ride. I knew I was supposed to get into the car. We probably weren't 200 yards down the road and I just start crying in front of this total stranger and telling him things about myself and my evil lifestyle. He was calm, peaceful, unshaken, and seemed unsurprised by the encounter. He said he was a preacher on his way back from a pastor conference down in Beaumont and was getting in late. He said God led him to pick me up. I could not believe all of what was happening that night but I knew at that moment there was a God and He was trying to get my attention.

I had been living on my own since 17 and had my own place at the time the preacher picked me up. After we had spoken he asked me where I needed to go. I told him to take me to my parents. I woke them up at around 2am and spilled my guts about my addiction and so much more. Only hours before sitting in my parents living room I had taken enough drugs to disable or kill most people and I should have been wired like a power plant for most of the night. Shortly after talking with my Dad I went and laid down and slept like a baby. I went to the church where that old man was an associate pastor on the next Sunday morning and I heard the gospel preached. I surrendered my life that day and gave everything to Christ. I laid it all down. I despised who I was and I knew more than I had ever known anything else that He was my only hope and that He had a purpose for my life. That weekend set my life on a trajectory that still blows my mind to this day. I was called to preach years later and served as a Youth Pastor for over 6 years. I've been a Police Chaplain for the last four years, and the Lord is now leading me to plant a church in my hometown. God's grace and mercy in saving a wretched vile person like me still leaves me in awe. I love Him so much for what He did and is still doing in me. The old Josh has been dead for many years at this point but I pray I never forget what He rescued me from. He pursued me when I hated him and loved my sin. He had blessed me with a life that I don't deserve and I pray that my whole life would be in service to Him. I owe Him everything.

I know that most don't have such a crazy sequence of events bring them to Christ but I know that God knew excatly what it would take to reach a hard headed, hard hearted, wretch like me. I still think about that night a lot and still don't understand everything that happened. What I do know is that once I was lost and now I am found.

Your youth sounds much like mine, minus the God moment. He chased me many times in my youth, I just never stopped running til I was much older.
Oh what could've been.....

And great testimony!
Sent from my SM-N970U using Tapatalk

[TheHammer]

What a post, what a thread and what a testament to who our Lord is. I was as guilty as anyone that would sometimes forget just how powerful and great our God is while I put him on the back burner of life until I was in the trenches and needed him. I too got saved when I was 8 and had no idea what I was even doing and certainly wasn’t ready for that step. But, the good news is, years later I was saved and reborn again, this time because I wanted Jesus lord of my life, and not just because it’s what I was “supposed” to do. Praise the Lord he’s seen me through every valley in life.