PART OF WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR ME

My name is john and I am going to try to tell what god has done for me. When I was very young some of my very first memories were in a church just being a child not paying to much attention to what was going on. All I really wanted to do was play or go outside. I remember shouting, praying in tongues, the interpretation of tongues, lots of worship and healings. I remember my grandpa trying to explain to me what was going on.


My grandpa was always reading his bible and sometimes he took naps with his bible laying in his lap. My granny she always went to church, and she loved to sing. She even preached a couple of weeks while the preacher was gone.


When I was a little older, maybe ten or eleven, I was riding my bicycle and had a crash like most children do but this time I could not walk or move my legs at all. The doctor said that there was swelling in my spine and we should wait and see what happens. That was not the answer my granny was after.


There just happened to be week long church meeting going on in a small town that my aunt lived in, she told my granny to bring me there. My granny took me to the service that night and on the way there she told me that I was going to be healed. Well like most children that age I took that with a grain of salt and during the service I was doing everything but paying attention. It was a small full gospel type of church fairly traditional. Then near the end of the service they had the alter call and if anyone needed prayer for anything you went to the front. That is when my aunt and granny carried me to the front and sat me on the alter. The way they did things there was many people laid hands on me and prayed including the preacher. As a child it seemed like a very long time but it may not have been. Then they seemed to slow down a little and the preacher prayed some more and when he finished he looked at me and said “son stand up and walk “well I stood up and walked and I am still walking today. The people were shouting. They wanted me to walk back and forth all I wanted was to go back to my seat. I guess as a child I did not realize what a miraculous thing had just happened. All I really knew then was my granny said I would be healed there and that was what happened.


As a few years passed it seemed like I stayed in trouble of some kind most of the time. then I started smoking, drinking, smoking pot, using drugs and anything else that was the wrong thing to do I was either doing it or about to. I was totally out of control.

For twenty six years I was a alcoholic. I thought blacking out was normal since I had blacked out from the very beginning. Nothing good in my life lasted very long it seemed like I would find a way to mess it up.
Never did I forget the healing that happened. Something like that you never forget and I knew God was real. So three or four times when things would get real bad I would turn to him and every time he would meet me with open arms. Things would get better every time. Then after a few days or maybe a week or two I would go back to my old habits.

Once I was near the bottom I had no car or drivers license and living at my mothers house. I started going to a denominational church that was in walking distance but after a few times of going one of the elders saw me going in the bar after church. So I got a visit the next day and they explained to me what a bad person I was and what I was doing was sin and I needed to repent as if I did not know that what I was doing was wrong. I think they was afraid it would make them look bad if a sinner came to there church. I thought that was who church was for. I know now that they was doing what they felt was the right thing to do. I just wish they would have been led by the Holy Spirit and I am sure they would have handled the situation different. That was the last time I attended that church or any other for at least ten years or more.

As the years passed the drinking grew worse at times it was worse than others and near the end I remember thinking one night this week I am not going to drink but it never happened. I knew I was in bad trouble but how can it end. Even when I vowed not to drink I ended up drunk. I knew I needed to stop. I think I wanted to stop.

At this time things was at its worst or at least I thought. At that time I did not call it sin, but if it was sin I was doing it.

One Sunday morning a lady that I knew invited me to church and I said ok because I was trying to impress her. That was the summer of 2001. I still to this day remember that service and what he preached about. It was not a earth shattering message but for a hour or so I felt like there may be hope for me. I wish I could say that I went to the alter and made things right that day but that did not happen instead within hours I was drunk again.

After that I went to a couple more services with her. Each time it was like I could see a little glimmer of light. I started going to church every Sunday morning and sometimes on Wednesday if I could stay sober that long. I would show up right when the service would start and leave during alter call. Normally I would go to the bar after church or go somewhere that served alcohol. Sometimes I would have alcohol in my van and I would start before leaving the church parking lot. At this point the only thing that seemed to have changed was where I spent my time on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. This went on for about six months.

On Wednesday January 9 2002 I went to church got there right when it started left during alter call. I felt Gods presence a lot more that night than in the past and as I drove away I new something was different. I stopped at the local bar where I practically lived seven days a week. As I went in the lady tending bar brought me what I always drank and set it on the table. When I sat down at the table something was not the same and as I reached for my drink I heard God speak to me as plain as any voice I had ever heard. ”He said this part of your life is over”. Then I sat there a few moments and a thought came to me that I could drink that last drink and the Lord said “you have had your last drink”. I remember looking around the room and then going outside to my van. As I walked to the door I knew that I would never be back again, I sat there in my van it seemed like an hour and lots of tears later I went home. At the time I was not sure why God done things that way but I knew my life would never be the same. Many times I think back on that night and I remember every detail it is almost like I can even feel it all over again. I never have felt the presents of God the way it was that night; there is not a way to describe it.



When I got home all I remember is crying for hours then the next morning when I woke up I remembered what a doctor had said a year or so earlier that if I quit cold turkey that I would probably need to be hospitalized due to extreme detox symptoms. Before I would have the shakes after ten hours of not drinking. I was still in bed and I realized that I felt fine it had been around thirty hours since I last drank. I held my hand up in front of me and I noticed that I was not shaking at all. Then I got up and walked around the house. I felt better than I ever remembered. Not a single detox symptom of any kind.



That was January of 2002