I had episodes with girls when I was eleven, twelve, and thirteen years old. I can remember riding my bicycle to girls’ houses to go do things, sexually, with them I shouldn’t have been doing. I even remember sometimes having a beer on my bicycle. We would laugh at one another because we were drunk riding our bikes. I got into methamphetamine, ecstasy, ketamine, cocaine, crack; you name it. If you could snort it, swallow it, or smoke it I was doing it.
Towards the end of my run of being sick, as I call it, I broke. At the age of thirty-three, I had been in sexual relations with just about every girl I could get my hands on. I’d had enough. I cried for two days. I didn’t know why. I didn't know what to do. I just knew there was a God. I knew I had to pray to him and ask him to help me. At the same time, this girl was helping me figure out my finances since I was doing drugs. I was spending each week an average of $600.00-900.00 from Thursday to Sunday. I thought, “If I stop doing drugs I’ll have enough money to buy a new pickup truck.”, so I did. I stopped abusing drugs. I quit running around.
I bought a new pickup truck with a Duramax diesel engine and a crew cab. It cost between $40,000.00-50,000.00. I started letting her drive it. A drug buddy friend of mine who owns a body shop had gotten saved but I didn’t know it. She came home and said, “I wrecked your truck today.” Of course, I jumped off the deep end and immediately wanted to go reach for a beer and some drugs to drown out the emotions. Instead, I went to my buddy’s body shop. I was going to get high, and let him fix my truck. One of the first things I said was, “Let’s roll one and see what you can do to fix my truck.” He's started laughing at me. I said, “It's not funny.” Jason Gilbert is his name. His dad is the pastor my church.
Jason pulls out a Bible out and says, “We’re not going to get high [on drugs]. We’re going to get high on Jesus.” I thought, “You’ve lost it.”, and I left. It really spooked me. I just didn’t want to hear about Jesus. I came back the next week to check on the repair of my truck. Jason invited to a men’s encounter. He told me it was an event from Friday through Sunday where people are taught about the love and mercy of God, and people that are lost without Jesus Christ can find help. He told that If I’d go he would pay for it, and if it didn’t work out he would refund my money. So, I agreed to go.
The first day there was a lot of loud worship. Another guy approached me and said, “Just let go.” I was always the type that wanted to sit in the back of the room and hide. I had this big knot in my throat, and I didn’t know what it was. My buddy, Jason, came to and said, “Man, I love you.” I hadn’t had many guys tell they loved me. I said, “What do you mean?” He very sincerely said, “Man, I love you. I just love you. I’m glad you’re here. God wants to love you.”
They were talking about prayer. I said, “I don’t know how to pray.” Jason said, “Just talk to Him.” I said, “[God], Please help me take all this stuff out of my life.” They asked me if I wanted to kneel and pray. I said, “Yes.” I just began to pray and ask for God to help me, and to come into me and lead my life, rather than me because I was making a wreck out of it. I felt like a dump truck was lifted off of my shoulders. It’s hard for me to talk about love, but I could feel the love of God. The Holy Spirit was all over me. It is hard to explain when you’ve lived in such filth for such a long time. I was a changed man. To this day, I’ve been clean since I was thirty-three. I haven’t turned back. God has truly pulled me out of the fire and blessed me.
If I was a young student today I would seek God out and find all the Christian friends I could. I would find a good church, and just rely on him every day, not my friends, but rely on God, and He’ll lead the way. When I was leading the way I made a big mess of things. There are many things I don’t want to talk about on camera, but I think God wants to make my mess His message. To the youth today, I say, “Just be strong in God.”
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