can i share my testimony with you in brief?
Im 20 years old.
All the way back in elementary school i was seriously lost. I was a vandal and id ALOT of really bad things. I started smoking and doing drugs when I was about 13. I got suspended from school 4 times one year. Ive been expelled twice, placed in alternative school, group homes, two rehabs. My drug use became addiction and I tried alot of drugs, almost everything. I started stealing from everyone and living a total lie. I was lost, broken, enslaved, and blind…i was in denial and didn’t even know it. I was really broken I can’t stress that enough, i never learned how to live or to be a human being.
I should be dead. I have alot of stories, but I will leave it at this, I need to be thankful because there are several times doctors told me they weren’t sure I was gonna make it and Im still here. But people I got high with, people i went to school with are dead.
When I was eighteen my freshman year in college, i got very heavy into some serious drugs. I started stealing from my job to get money to support my addiction. Alot of money. I couldn’t live without them. I was going to twelve step meetings with a desire to stop, and I still couldn’t I would cry in a meeting about wanting to stop then at the break Id go in the bathroom and get high. The words of Saint Paul sum it up succinctly " I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." and Jesus explained why ""I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave of sin. "
One time I managed to stay clean for two days, man was it sooo hard, it took every ounce of will power I had. I even prayed to God to help me, but the third day I got high. And rather than helping me, you know what happened? It got worse, way worse. In a two week period of time my life fell completley apart. I got placed on academic probation and threatened to get kicked out of college, got kicked out of my house, totaled my car, and found myself in some VERY VERY bad situations. I was doing things I never imagined to get JUST ONE MORE.
My world crashed around me, my Mom told me if i didn’t go back to rehab I would have no place to live. It was winter and winter in philly is cold. I went to rehab with no intention of getting clean. I wanted to hang on to the lie, the partying and drinking and immorality, thinking that was where I would find happiness. I went into rehab high.
You know its funny, I went into rehab with no intention of getting clean, but God had other plans. God spoke to me through somoenes words, tey convicted me, they pierced the hardness of my heart, piercing bone and marrow. Know the parable of the lost sheep? I was the lost sheep, wandering, lost. I went to a rehab called miramount…miracle mountain is what it stands for. Jesus came into the hills in search of His lost sheep.
After reflecting upon my life, I realized something, there had to be more to life than this. And I also realized that I wasn’t being the person my parents raised me t o be. I was someone or something else. I realzied I did alot of terrible things and hurt alot of people. I felt real convicted. I saw for the first time the truth, i had a serious problem, and I needed help. I hit my knees and cried out to god. In His infinite mercy and love, He heard me…and answered. He touched my heart, Im not the same person today. Let me be the first to tell you i was the least deserving…but God is good yo…He healed me…and I praise Him and Thank Him every day. By the way, remember how I told you i couldn’t stay clean for two days? By His Grace Ive been clean 26 months and 22 days.
Im grateful.
Miracles happen. I tried being brief. Yes God has helped me. Im giving Him credit where it is due.