Chris

My name is Chris. For 10 years of my life, I was a drug addict, alcoholic, a junkie, a liar, and a thief. Those ten years were ten years of heartache, pain, agony, and a lot of lonliness. I can say that I was the scum of the Earth.

You might say that all of this just sounds horrible, you must have had an aweful childhood. Nope, your wrong. As a matter of fact, as a child I was raised in church. My mother was a song leader and my dad was a deacon. We were always at church. I was in Sunday School, I was a part of children's church, and I was in the youth group. I was even in a Christmas play or two. As a child I knew the song "Jesus Loves Me" and I went through all of the religious motions that the grown-ups went through. But, you know what? I didn't know Jesus. Therefore, the devil came into my life at an early age and blinded me and corrupted my mind.

When I was 15, I started smoking pot and I thought that this was the greatest thing I had ever discovered. But the moment I started smoking pot, I became a drug addict. I would skip classes and school just to get high. Then I started drinking beer and whiskey. Before I knew it, all my life was about getting a buzz.

By the time I was a sophomore in high school, I was a full blown alcoholic and drug addict. By the time I was a junior, I was not only drinking and smoking pot, but I was doing cocaine, crank, acid, and taking pills. Little did I know that I was headed down a long road of destruction.

After high school my life was no different. By this time, the devil had destroyed my life and my family. My parents were divorced and I was on dope and running around like a wild man. I would get a job in a factory and work long enough to get paid, then I would quit my job to party, find a new job, and start it all over again. I never really had a place to call home. I guess you could say that I lived wherever I passed out.

Several years after high school I got this job working for the local phone company. I met this girl named Tami and we dated for several years. Tami knew that I drank and smoked pot but I hid all of the so-called hard drugs from her. Of course I did her like I did everyone else in my life. I treated her like dirt. By this time I was riding in a motorcycle club. I had decided that I was going to be a wild, partying, biker dude, and live my life on a Harley Davidson.

Well, Tami and I were engaged to be married. We had a wedding shower and moved in together. Then I didn't come home one night and the whole thing was off. She went back home and I kept living wherever I passed out and at every drug house I could find.

Time went by and Tami and I not only wound up together, but married, and she was pregnant, so we got us a little house and I got out of the biker club. But I kept right on sneaking around doing dope. In two years we had two beautiful boys thirteen months apart. But I was not a good father or husband. As a matter of fact, I abandoned my family. I would leave my wife and kids in the house with nothing for two or three days at a time so I could smoke crank and crack cocaine. I would tell my wife I was going across the street to the store to get beer and would come back three or four days later strung out on crank and crack. I was not only losing my mind, but I was about to loose my family, and my life, what little I had of one.

By the month of June 1997, I had spent at least $40,000 on drugs that year alone. It was the middle of the summer and we had no air conditioner in our house and no food in our house, and I couldn't afford to pay a $13 water bill. I had sold all of the valuables in our house and my wife was fed up, so her and the kids piled their clothes into our only car and left me. After they left, I found myself at a drug house and I knew I was in bad shape. Before it was over, I lost my family, my house, my job, my truck, and I found myself sitting in rehab. In rehab they told me that I was a garbage head, because I didn't care what it was, I would take it, snort it, or drink it. I went through the same rehab twice in a row without leaving. After rehab, the first thing I wanted back was my family but they didn't trust me. So I went to my boss to try and get my job back and he said the first thing I was going to do, was that my wife and I were going to a revival service at a local church. So we said o.k.. I didn't think I had anything to lose at this point.

Well, that Friday night we went to the revival service and the preacher stood up and said that the Holy Spirit had changed his message to renewing your first love. At that moment I knew God was after me and the Holy Spirit began dealing with my heart. That night he gave an altar call and I ran down and my wife ran with me. I fell on my face and cried like a baby. Jesus was meeting me there and changing my life. That night, Jesus wiped away all my sorrow and pain and saved me from a devil's hell where I was headed. Jesus turned me around and radically changed my life. He washed away all my sins. Then he totally set me free from drug addiction and alcoholism. He put my family back together and gave me back my house, my job, and my truck. I came to Jesus with a broken home, as a drug addict and alcoholic, but he took me in and delivered me and set me free and he'll do the same for you. Oh but Jesus didn't stop there. He called my wife and I into full time ministry, to go and preach the gospel. We've shared Jesus with others in jails, churches, on the streets, in beer joints, and in crack houses. We will go anywhere and share Jesus with anybody because the bottom line is that it doesn't matter what you've done or what your involved in, Jesus can set you free. Jesus delivered me from ten years of drugs and partying. I lived a life of lies but Jesus set me free and put my family back together, and he'll do the same for you. Jesus loves you just like he does me. But the first thing you must do is realize that your a sinner and repent, and ask Jesus to come into your heart. Pray this prayer with me today.

Jesus, I believe you died for my sins and that you rose from the dead. Please forgive me and come into my heart. In jesus name, Amen.

Now, go after God with all your heart. I thank God for changing my life but he wants to change yours too. Don't just get saved, stay saved, and don't just get delivered, stay delivered. God can change any situation if you just let him. Praise God.