I grew up in a church-going family. We were at every meeting. I sang in four choirs there, I directed three. Very involved, very active. It almost seemed like busywork sometimes. I went to Sunday school, I knew about God, I knew about Jesus, but I didn't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. My senior year in high school, I got the news that my father had been murdered. I played it off well. No one really saw that I was struggling with it.
It just really felt like there was a hole that needed to be filled. I tried to fill it with drugs, with alcohol, with partying. After college, I just stopped going to church altogether. One day, on a Sunday, because I didn't feel like going to church with my mom, I thought I should get a little bit of work. She had the satellite system hooked up and I'm flipping through channels. Then, the logo pops across, Amazing Facts presents. I've listened to a lot of different ministries, but this was the first time that he's actually saying something where I had to grab my Bible and actually pick it up.
"I've never heard this before. Let me let me look through and find this." I went through all the Storacles, I went through all the study guides and I just couldn't get enough. Then the Sabbath came up. He's going through the appeal and I'm just going, "Lord, I hear you. I have to go to church." I show up. It was funny, I didn't feel like I was going to be judged, anything judgmental, anything. I walked in the door and I just felt at home, but there's still a problem.
I'm still partying. I was still going out to the bars. At this time, I was selling cocaine to pay my rent. 16 days later, I find myself in a life-or-death situation. I had just came back from a liquor store and I grabbed a bottle of vodka. There I am, high off cocaine, with my Bible in hand, trying to do a Bible study. I heard an audible voice. "Just look at yourself," and I did. I was like, "What am I doing?"
I got on my knees and I said, "Lord, if you do not take this away from me now, I'm going to kill myself." I was going to continue this lifestyle and I was going to end up overdosing, having a heart attack, whatever it was. "You have to take this away. All of it." That day, He lifted all of it away from me. It was all God. When God does something in your life, He does it complete.