My testimony to Gods glory in my life. It's long but worth a read.

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Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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#1
View attachment will fit.txt

I couldn't fit it in 20,000 characters so I had to try to post it as an attachment, the Word Document was too big as well so I had to post it as a txt file. Sorry I posted it this way, it was the only way I could figure out how to post the whole thing. I hope it's readable to all.
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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#2
I would also like to add this was my attempt to summarize it as well, the original was twice this side, and the funny thing is I wrote it with the intent to give it verbally in 15 minutes in front of my church. The Holy spirit hijacked His pulpit that night needless to say. 8^) I just want people to know I tried pretty hard to put it in an easier to read format, but didn't want to leave anymore of it out than I already had, guess I'm long "typing-winded?". It's kind of a "whole picture" story to get the point across fully. For any that want to, you could easily cut and paste it to a better format. Thanks to anyone who reads the whole thing.8^)
 

IDEAtor

Senior Member
Aug 15, 2012
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#3
You are a very good writer. Thank you for the testimony I know it was a lot of words and a lot of details and admittedly I did not read all of it but I did read a lot of it and it is amazing to see, amazing to hear your heart in the text. Don't stop sharing your testimony. Glory to god.
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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#4
Thank you very much, and it all came from Him. What I was and could do died on my bedroom floor that night. From then on all glory to His mighty name.
 
P

phillip1980

Guest
#5
Glad to read and understand your testimony. It was worth the read and is very encouraging. God Bless.
 

Rachel20

Senior Member
May 7, 2013
1,639
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#6
Thank you so much for your testimony. I was so moved.

God bless you!
 
Aug 12, 2013
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#7
Well jimbone, I also have my testimony quite long. Mine took his to write, in fact days. Even when I cut it sorry to read in front of people it took hours yet... that was years ago and already over 3 church buildings have kicked me out and banished me so I never trust to read it to them. No one actually had ever heard my full testimony, and very few have only heard me say I'm a Christian and a child of God. Although, the scary part of reading it to them is that people would think I'm insane, evil, crazy, unsaved, fear me more than they already do. A testimony can be very short and most people just like to hear you say you were saved then you gave your life to Jesus then were saved and not really care to hear and understand how you were and what God has done in your life saving you. It's crazy but that's what I see. I asked a pastor one day if I could give mine but he wanted to limit my time to say it and still have a service with singing and preaching... plus he wanted me to keep those parts out that would upset people or be too awful for young people to hear. I find it so ridiculous to take anything out of a testimony, especially for young people. So I just didn't give it because it'd basically not help anything. Then people would think I'm just lying later when I eventually do something wrong and they would think I lied or something. But I love to hear a full testimony. If it takes hours I'll read it. Yet, I cannot read yours here with the link text thing. My phone won't do it and the pc's at the library won't let me open Christian chat. So I can't read it. You could just take part by part and keep adding the story onto replies of the subject and just put part 1, part 2, etc. At the top of each one. Other than that, I can't read your testimony heh.
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
2,694
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#8
Well jimbone, I also have my testimony quite long. Mine took his to write, in fact days. Even when I cut it sorry to read in front of people it took hours yet... that was years ago and already over 3 church buildings have kicked me out and banished me so I never trust to read it to them. No one actually had ever heard my full testimony, and very few have only heard me say I'm a Christian and a child of God. Although, the scary part of reading it to them is that people would think I'm insane, evil, crazy, unsaved, fear me more than they already do. A testimony can be very short and most people just like to hear you say you were saved then you gave your life to Jesus then were saved and not really care to hear and understand how you were and what God has done in your life saving you. It's crazy but that's what I see. I asked a pastor one day if I could give mine but he wanted to limit my time to say it and still have a service with singing and preaching... plus he wanted me to keep those parts out that would upset people or be too awful for young people to hear. I find it so ridiculous to take anything out of a testimony, especially for young people. So I just didn't give it because it'd basically not help anything. Then people would think I'm just lying later when I eventually do something wrong and they would think I lied or something. But I love to hear a full testimony. If it takes hours I'll read it. Yet, I cannot read yours here with the link text thing. My phone won't do it and the pc's at the library won't let me open Christian chat. So I can't read it. You could just take part by part and keep adding the story onto replies of the subject and just put part 1, part 2, etc. At the top of each one. Other than that, I can't read your testimony heh.
Absolutely I can, and thank you for being interested enough to ask. I'm sorry that you seem to be having a hard time telling yours, that seems pretty ridiculous of you pastor to not be able to set something up for you to tell of Gods glory in your life. I thought that's what all this was about.

One thing you did do was peak my curiosity in wanting to hear yours. I will post mine right now, but I would like to work out a way to read yours as well. I could give you my e-mail or anything like that so you could send the whole thing, but we can work that out anytime. O will start posting it right below in just a few. Thanks again for the interest, and all glory to His NAME.
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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#9
My Testimony
1. A Quick rundown of my childhood. I don’t want to spend too much time on this, but I think it ties in to the glory God poured over my life and a quick understanding of my walk to Him. I’ll start with the fact I was born to young parents. Dad was just 18, and my mother was maybe 19. They got married after I was conceived and tried to do the right thing, but life happens and it didn’t work out. I guess mom had me for the most part at first, like usual, but before my 2nd birthday my dad was bringing me back to her after our weekend together, and my mom made the comment “ It must be nice to have him a couple days then be able to just drop him off for the week”. This is one of the things I love my dad so much for, but he heard that and with NO hesitation at all, he about-faced and walked right back out the door with me, and from then on raised me without feeling I was a burden. I’m sure there was a bit more conversation, and some kind of an agreement, but that was the last time I’d see my mother until I was much older. From there my dad met my step mother, and she raised me as her own, taught me manners, and how to be accepting of all people regardless of race, differences, or anything like that, but I was not raised in a religious family. My father knew a little about the word from his Grandma, but we were not practicing Christians, never went to church, never talked about God, to be honest we never even referred to ourselves as Christian, and didn’t give too much thought to the whole thing. So I was not raised in the church. I was raised well though, I always had love, never went hungry, was then and am still very grateful for everything I did have. However there was a huge void in my chest caused by not having my biological mother around. I didn’t know that at the time, nor did I ever think about it much, but it did rear its ugly head later in life that’s for sure. We had what appeared to be, a pretty average, happy, family. My brother was born 4 years after me, my sister 4 years after him. When my brother was born, I feel we were considered equal, we did everything together, and I remember no problems, but once my sister was born things seemed to change. In retrospect I can see why everything happened the way it did, but at the time it was confusing. Apparently this whole time my step mother was fighting with herself internally about her sexual orientation. I guess she was trying to do the “socially acceptable thing”, with my dad and the family, while fighting her own desires the whole time. This caused resentment towards my dad and in turn towards me as well. Once she had a boy and girl of her own, I became a 2nd class citizen in my own home. It seemed she couldn’t look at me or dad without the lie she was living eating her up. After 13 years of marriage, she found a reason to kick my dad out of the house, and it just so happens, almost to the day a year later, found a reason to get rid of me as well. Dad was trying to keep us kids together, but didn’t realize the kind of stuff I was dealing with. It was at this point I went to live with dad, right before the start of high school and giving me a whole new level of freedom I had never known, nor did I know what to do with it.
2. High school, oh what can I say about high school? I was definitely high at school most the time, and this was the beginning of the time where I started learning about the uglier side of life, you know the “real worldly life”. I had been pretty well protected from the ugly side of the real world most my life to that point, so I didn’t really know what to look out for, or stay away from, or any of that. I had just discovered marijuana and loved it, so at that time my main objective was to get weed and smoke it, that along with my lifelong love of video games was enough to keep me distracted from any pain or responsibility (like most kids these days). It only took a year and a half to get myself expelled from school for the first time, it was for having weed. (I traded half a joint for half a pack of cigarettes before school and that kid got caught and told on me) I was also arrested for this offence at 16. Of course I was still young, but even for my age I had exactly 0 ambitions for anything at all. I also was put on probation at this point and through violations and new charges I’d rack up over the next few years I would stay on probation for the next 10 years. The concept of my soul, or the future in general was completely foreign to me, and of no importance. I just didn’t care at all, I had plenty to distract me from any kind of truth or future, and plus I had no one around me that even knew how to guide me in the right direction. Of course God wasn’t distracted; he was blessing me even then despite my complete lack of faith and strait up anger towards him (My anger towards Him is ironic because at this time because I’d claim there was no God, yet when anything bad happened He’d be the first one I would cuss). This was also when I met my beautiful wife to be, a key part of my journey to Christ, but I was still just as lost as one can be. The high school pot smoking quickly turned into pot selling, and then trying and selling acid, eventually coke, then just whatever may be around at that time, I also found myself to be a very angry person; I was a scrapper and built my image off what people expected me to do, and that was fight for the most part. Thank goodness I was never a drinker; I just didn’t like it much, taste or effect, and it never became a big thing in my life, God was looking out for me here too, me being the only one in the family that didn’t love alcohol.
3. At 17, after a big fight with my dad and his girlfriend, I decided to leave home. From there the partying just escalated more and more until the day I was kicked out of high school, for the 2nd time, and in the last 6 weeks of my 12th grade year. From there I went to work for the family Tree Service, and lived in a tiny little trailer at the lot we kept all the business equipment in. This is when I went full on wild and learned the ways of life for myself. It’s around this time my best friend shot and killed himself, a couple weeks later my grandpa, who was fixing up a place to sell Krissy (my wife now girlfriend then) and I, passed away too. I fell off the deep end; I was medicating the pain as much as possible. This is also when I met someone who was much, much, more street wise than I was. His dad and my Grandpa ran together back in the day, so it was a kind of natural thing for us to hang out. He introduced me to an underworld I had only heard about in rap songs. He started real small and before we knew it we were running 100’s of pounds of weed, and kilos of coke up and down the highways. It got to the point the “big dealers” in town I knew from before, would come up and try selling me the coke we brought into town and they didn’t even know it came from us, so we were supplying our old hookups and the people above them without them even knowing. I had never seen so much money stacked up as I did with him at that point. Just to be clear, I didn’t stack much; even then I didn’t care about money as much as I did the experience. God was watching out for me then too, not only by giving me a natural resistance to the love of money, but also kept me protected from addiction at that point. I would do coke and other highly addictive substances, and often, but after a night of partying hard once I woke up the next morning, unlike most; I didn’t want to see that crap the next day. I was SO blessed it never snared me like it did so many people I knew. It got bigger and bigger, we had money, girls all around (I was with my current wife then too, and was raised not to cheat, and never did then, but the opportunity was all around) clubbing, partying, hookers working for him, it was survival of the fittest, just all kinds if sin and I loved it. The saddest part at this point is that I thought my lifestyle was completely normal and everyone was like I was. All that money to be made and Krissy, who was the only one working a real job, was paying all the bills and was the only one doing right in any way. I just didn’t care about that stuff, and it got to the point that we were way too far behind on our house payments, I saw I was going nowhere and dragging her down with me, and it just so happen at that time her mom in Nebraska was having a hard time with her sister. She asked Krissy if maybe she could come up there and help out. I saw this as an opportunity to get her away from me and took it. I didn’t officially “break up”, but in my heart I was freeing her and letting her go so I couldn’t keep dragging her down with me. The day before she was to leave, I got a knock on the door first thing in the morning and it was a police officer coming to pick me on a V.O.P. (violation of probation), I spent the night in jail for the first time that night, but lucky for me my friend came and bailed me out the next day before she left town, and we got to say our goodbye’s right there in the jail parking lot. I stayed here, and lived with a couple friends here and there, even talked to a couple other women at this point. I didn’t have to talk to too many to realize what I had let go. I had actually befriended a prostitute my street wise partner had brought down from Birmingham. I honestly felt for her, no one ever treated her like a person her whole life, and she was put into the business by her own father, and I wouldn’t be surprised if I was the only guy that ever listened to her without expecting something else. I mean the poor girl just never had a chance. Well my friend didn’t like that, he thought I was falling in love and he was trying to look out for me, but he would not believe that I wasn’t even having sex with her. I know that sounds all noble and respectful, but it was just as much self-preservation as it was respect, I mean with her history I’d have been nervous with protection, plus I still love Krissy and knew it. Time went on and after a couple other incidents me and my best friend came face to face about to fight over his own paranoid thoughts that existed only in his head over this girl. What hurt most was I was telling him the truth about us and he didn’t trust me enough to believe what I was honestly telling him. This is when I made the decision that I could not live my life like this anymore. I mean I had been with this guy from the first 8 ball to fat stacks of money, giant freezer bags full of coke, and bags of weed you couldn’t even lift, never once did I lie to him even when I could have, and he wouldn’t believe the truth coming out of my mouth and was ready to fight me over it. He couldn’t even trust his own blood brother, so I don’t know what I expected anyway. I was the worst drug dealer in history anyway; I couldn’t take a woman’s last $50.00 while her baby was running around in no diaper, and no food in the cupboard, so I’d give them the drugs, go use their money to buy the food and diapers then bring them back. The thing about that is you can’t be a drug dealer with a conscious when the only objective of a drug dealer is to “get dollars” and that just wasn’t a good enough reason for me anymore. I couldn’t live my life without trust, or preying on people’s worst vices for profit. I no longer wanted to live this way and thought to myself about how much I missed Krissy. Then I had the most brilliant epiphany in the history of mankind, “instead of sending her away because I’m so bad, why don’t I just act right and be the man I think she deserves?” Well this “brilliant epiphany” just happens to coincide with a brand new problem.
It had been about 4 months since I got out of jail the day Krissy left. I had a job at the time and was paying everything off like I should. At that time I happen to work for the only person ever in history to pay his people with a check at 5:30 on Friday. Well I get a call on the 4th month after my release from jail, and I had paid her $300 a month every month for the last 3 months, well she called me that Friday and said if I didn’t have my next payment in to her by 5:00 that day, I was going to be violated again. I pleaded with her to let me pay first thing that following Monday, I told her I didn’t get paid until 5:30 that day, and I’d be waiting when they unlocked the door to open up first thing Monday morning, money order in hand. She just repeated “have it in buy 5:00 today or you’re violated”. So I did what anyone would have done in that situation, secretly called my girlfriend and asked if I could stay with her and her mom in Nebraska, got the OK, then without telling anyone I walked to the bus station and left town. I got up there, got a job, and started learning how to live without all the craziness in my life. It went well but only lasted about 6 months. It was on Krissy’s birthday and we just got back from dinner, we were all sitting in the living room watching TV when there was a knock at the door. Her mom got up and opened the door; waiting on the other side there were 2 uniformed officers with my mug shot asking for me. I had shaved my head in between the picture they had and then, so they were double, and triple checking it. I told them “it’s me”, and they slapped the cuffs on. Krissy, her sister, and mom were all three crying as they lead me out, and all I could say was “happy birthday baby”.1.My incarceration. What can I say about my time in jail? This was only my second time even seeing the inside of a jail, and I had 2100 miles between me and my case. I had no idea what to expect. I had to be extradited, and when you are in transit the federal Marshalls get custody of you, and you only go through Federal prisons for holding. They are also in no hurry to get you there, it took right at 5 ½ months for me to make the 23 hour trip. I flew on con air, stayed in Leavenworth-KS, Oklahoma City-OK, Atlanta-GA, Tallahassee-FL, Santa Rosa County, and finally Okaloosa County. I had never been so happy to see a jail house in my life.
I had to wait a little more than a month for my first court date after I arrived, so at that point I had been locked up for right at 6 months. Another fact was Krissy was moving back into Fort Walton the same day as my court date, so I really hoped to get out that day (not that what I wanted mattered). The day of my court appearance it seemed my chances of being released dwindled with each case that pasted. The judge was handing out time that day like candy, and the inmate right before me was asking for a bond reduction and was denied, so on his way out he made a smart mouth comment that set the judge off. The judge was already handing out time like it was nothing and they called me right after the smart mouth. I found myself in front of the judge with my public defender saying “I guess I forgot his file”, but the judge read off my charges and asked how I wanted to plea. I had paperwork from here to Nebraska proving I did exactly what I was charged with, so I said “Guilty”. The judge looked me right in the eyes and said “You realize you could get up to 10 years for this, don’t you?” I don’t know what I looked like when I heard that, but I felt like my eyes got as big as dinner plates and popped out of my head about 2 feet like a cartoon. I responded with “no sir, I did not know that, if I would have it may have changed a few of my decisions”, he followed with the question, “are you sure you don’t want to change your plea?” I’m sure it seemed like longer to me, but I sat there and thought about it for a good 60 seconds and replied, “As much as I wish I could change it, the truth is I did exactly what I’m being charged with, so I really can’t change it, Guilty your honor.” So the judge said he was going to let me sign myself out until my next court date, but not without the state attorney jumping up saying “No way, he is in here for running!”, the judge looked me right in the eye and told me “Son, if I let you sign yourself out today and you are not here for your court date, you’d better never get caught again and never come back before me”. I looked him right back in the eyes and told him “Thank you sir, and I will be here when I’m supposed to.” Just try to tell me the Lord wasn’t with me even then. Out of everyone from jail that rode with me for court that morning, I was the only one that got out, out of everyone that walked in to the courtroom free that morning only 2 of them walked back out free. God had planted honesty in me, just like the conscious that kept me from being a successful drug dealer. I can see that in retrospect, but was blind to it then, because the blind can’t see. God does work in mysterious ways, not only was I reunited with my “God given” girlfriend and soul mate that very night, but that night was also when my first son was conceived. Now in my new found freedom, “with CC sanctions”, I did not stop liking the buds, so I smoked, and failed a UA (urine analysis) before that next court date. Yes oh yes, the judge that had given me that chance, yea I slapped him in the face with that one, and on top of that I figured I had already failed that UA I might as well keep smoking, and did. All that accomplished was making it even harder on me when the judge sentenced me to a 6 month lockdown drug rehab program. At the time the rehab was rumored to have a 6 month wait, but the judge said if I could pass another UA that day then, I could continue to wait to go to the program on the outside; if I failed I had to wait for the bed to open in jail. Well I failed the UA and had to turn myself in right away. That night I found myself back behind bars with the fear I would miss my first child’s birth. It was just after we found out Krissy was pregnant, but all this was also right after 9-11, and it turns out they had just lifted the freeze on everything federal. There were so many different horror stories floating around about how long it was going to take for me to even get to Keaton (name of the rehab program) to even start the 6 month sentence, it wasn’t going to take waiting too long before there was no way I’d be out in time to see my first child’s birth. I also did not want Krissy to have to go through the whole thing all alone. I had heard tale of people who had been waiting to go to Keaton for 4 months before 9-11 attack and then the Feds locked everything down. It ended up taking them more than 12 months before they could even start doing the 6 month sentence. I was really worried about missing the birth of my first child.
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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#10
I was only in jail for 14 days when the C.O. (correction officer) came in and yelled “Rogers roll it up”. I honestly thought they were about to release me by mistake. I knew there was just no way a bed had opened up this soon. Well they dressed me out then opened the door to let me go. On the other side of the door was a lady from the program to pick me and 1 other female up to start the program. Again Gods hand was ignored, but He was no doubt looking out for me here too. On the way to the facility the lady was giving us the basic rundown of how the program worked. I was just listening, but the girl next to me was declaring up and down how this was her last chance, and how she way ready for anything to get right, and was going to “do this” with no problem. The lady then gave us her main tip. It was “do not leave, and just stick it out”. I told her that she will leave this program before I did. That was my only “declaration” to her on the whole trip to Pensacola. We arrived, got settled in, they gathered everyone together and explained the ground rules, then told us that 75% of us wouldn’t make it through the first 6 months, and out of the 25% that did, 90% of them wouldn’t make it through the 6 month aftercare program. So on average out of 100 people about 3 will complete the program successfully without being locked back up. I’ve always been the kind of person that will do something just simply to spite the odds. If you told me I couldn’t I would keep trying until I proved you wrong. Not that it was always a good thing, but I was very hard headed that way. That is a very important aspect of my personality I’ll address as we go on, but keep it in mind. The girl that rode there with me took off the in her 2nd week, and even funnier than that the lady that picked us up that day ended up getting fired for talking money to replace a couple guys dirty UA samples with clean urine, so my “declaration” came true and she did leave before did. I did beat the odds and not only made it through the whole program, but did so without a single write up which is almost unheard of. I used my time there wisely though. This is where I realized where all the anger I had inside of me was coming from. It stemmed from the fact my mom left me at such a young age, and that loss left a gaping hole inside my heart. I was able to identify the source of that anger and forgive her eliminating the anger and giving me the ability to move on. In this program we were able to get a job and work after the first 2 months, and during the 2 months we had to stay at the facility I earned my GED. Once the 2 months of lockdown was up and I found a job, I had the ability to send Krissy the money I made to help out. The most important thing that happened to me was getting in the program after just 2 weeks of waiting, this put me in the position to finish the lockdown part of the program (the first 6 months) 1 month before she was due. So I was able to make my first sons birth, by the glory of God.

4. Now I’m a new Dad at 23 years old. I still don’t “do the God thing” or anything like that, but this is when Krissy started her walk with the Lord, and seeing the birth of my son had me reconsidering my atheistic worldview. She would plant seeds, but she understood she couldn’t force it on me. Life steadily moved on as it does, and I made it through the last 6 months of my program, and the year of house arrest without getting in trouble. For the first 6 months of the aftercare program, to finish up my rehab, I stayed drug free, but I figured out a way to pass my UA’s for sure 6 months in, so I started smoking pot again. Despite that decision I still got off probation on time, and was 100% free and clear from the “system” at 25 years old for the first time since I was 15. Krissy and I had been together about 9 years at that point, and decided to make a wedding date, even though we had been engaged for years at this point. This was when she made the decision to come 100% clean with me about something that happened while we were separated. I have to admit I was shocked. I would have never guessed she was even capable of anything like this (cheating on me) in a million years, but I also saw it as an opportunity to come completely clean with her as well. I let her know all the things I’d never told her about so we could both know exactly who we were marring before we made that commitment. Regardless of the shock we both felt we came clean with each other, forgave each other and moved on (not that it was nearly as easy as it sounds here). This was also the time my father and I came back together to work, we started doing tree work again. Krissy and I got married a year later and everything was going so good. This is right around the time the movie “The Passion of the Christ” came out, and Krissy wanted to see it and I did too. That was the first time I got some real idea of the story of Christ’s sacrifice, and the first time God actual pulled me towards Himself directly. Before this movie I didn’t know the real story, I didn’t even know He was betrayed by his own disciple, and I had never taken the time to even try to understand any of it. This made me curious, and around this time the little household Bible group Krissy was going to was ending, the people who ran it were moving so she wanted to find a church to go to. This is when we found the a Church, and when I heard the pastor at that church for the first time and was really drawn to the Word, at the time I didn’t know why, but I was attracted to truth. We attended for a while and I said my little prayer and was even baptized by the pastor around this time. Our tree work was going great, a few storms came through right around that time, and we were making very good money. The year of the storms and the following year I know my father and I easily cleared 6 figures each both years, that was almost a quarter million we made legally in that time. I was making more money than I ever had, even dealing drugs, but without knowing exactly how to deal with money once we made it. We ended up accumulating a lot of bills for ourselves, we had the money there to get whatever, but I never stopped to think of what would happen if the money stopped coming in. At this point in life I already called myself Christian and was past the whole “partying” lifestyle for the most part, I still smoke pot and cigarettes, but nothing else drug wise until I tried my first pain pill anyway.
I was never a “pill guy” growing up, but turns out I really liked them and through them I soon found out what addiction really was. My whole life to this point, by God’s grace alone, I had never been addicted to any drug, I had been sentenced and completed drug rehab without really knowing addiction for myself. When 2008 rolled around all our business just stopped, but my new addiction didn’t nor did the bills we had built up. The money we had saved up was enough to pay bills for about 6 months, but I knew after just 2 months I had to find a job fast, and working for 10-11 dollars an hour was a BIG CHANGE from the $400 a day I was making on average doing tree work. We pushed on kept working and eventually got everything set right, paid up, and moved on. It wasn’t too long after that we decided to have another child. Krissy got pregnant again soon, and shortly before my 2nd sons birth I found my current job. After my 2nd sons birth Krissy and I are both addicted to pain pills and not nearly able to support our habits, which really just lead to a lot of days feeling really bad because we did still work and pay bills, and didn’t do crime so it just sucked when we were out. This went on and on for a couple years until I finally got so fed up with it I had to do something. I wanted to stop so badly and couldn’t. If I got that call saying my hookup had something that I could go pick up, and the money was in the bank, there was no way to keep myself from u-turning to go get them right then and there, the flesh is weak and that’s what I was relying on to quit was my own will (my flesh). Of course I did not have what it took to stop myself, but eventually I heard about the methadone clinic, and decided to give it a try. I loved it and used it for all the right reasons, to get control of my life, addiction, and really to save some money at this point. This is also when we ended up with 1 vehicle between both of us again, and I thought it would be a great idea to get a motorcycle. They’re cheap, a low gas investment, I live close to work and just seems to be a practical idea all around. Great idea right?
5. At this point in life I thought I was doing everything right. I had a good job, we had just found a church we liked in town again after having drifted away from the word for a while because of addiction and the “real world” stuff (excuses) we had going on, but it was time and God was pulling us back to Him. We were doing very good financially because of the stability the help joining the clinic allowed, we were getting back on track. From there everything seemed to be getting better and better. I remember walking out of work to hop on my motorcycle heading home and I thought to myself, “Man, I just paid all our credit cards off, all the bills are paid up, I am leaving my awesome job, hopping on my motorcycle, with my long Viking braid hanging halfway down my back, to go home to my beautiful wife, who was cooking my favorite dinner, and my two awesome kids. Man life is good.” I had life whooped at that point as far as I was concerned. That was the last thought I remember before two and a half weeks later when I woke up in the hospital with my right arm just not working.
In the hospital I remember having mentally regained myself for about 3 full days before I was alone with my dad and could finally ask him “what the heck happen? Why am I in here?” I had gathered a little something about an accident from conversations with people, but until he told me I didn’t even know it was a motorcycle wreck. At this point I was very happy and thankful to be alive; God defiantly had His merciful hand on me during that accident without a doubt. What happened was a lady in an SUV tried to “shoot the gap” right in front of me and apparently didn’t see me, and/or just misjudged her timing. I left about 20 feet of rubber on the road locking up my brakes trying to stop, so I saw it coming at least but couldn’t miss her. I caught the very back end of her vehicle (front tire hit the front part of the rear passenger wheel well), the initial impact shattered both my wrist sending me over the handlebars into a shoulder block right along the top of the SUV, causing the SUV to flip over and separating my head and shoulder far enough that it pulled the nerves that control my arm (the brachial plexus) right out of the spine by the roots. I also broke the top 3 ribs on my right side with one puncturing my right lung. I also fractured the right scapula (hardest bone in the body) in 3 places. I actually regained consciousness on the scene, but I don’t remember any of it, they induced the coma I was in to keep me out of pain. I left the Hospital to go to physical rehab a couple weeks after I woke up and made it through that pretty fast. After rehab I went back home, and that’s where the real battle started. There was 1 sister in Christ that came to talk to me in the hospital, and she was the only one to warn me that the real battle wouldn’t start until I got home, and boy was that ever an understatement.
6. Upon my return home after rehab I still had an external fixator on my good hand, but I was very happy to be home none the less. The biggest problem at this point was the pain. I couldn’t understand how my numb arm (with no nerve to take the signal of pain from the arm up to my brain) could hurt so much consistently. At the time of my wreck I had been in the methadone clinic about a 10 months, and was actually considering starting the dosing-down process to get off them completely once I hit my 1 year anniversary, but that didn’t work out like that. Once I woke up in the hospital I was already past the methadone DT’s and everything, or at least I couldn’t feel any symptoms through whatever medication they were giving me for pain. Once I went home they were giving me the pain pills I didn’t want anymore and had come so far in my struggle with and I really, really, didn’t want to become dependent on them again. I did them for the pain, but it was a weird type of pain that regular pain pill couldn’t help anyway. I was also 100% straight up with the doctor from the start about my addiction history, so he was hesitant to give them to me anyway. I was getting doses that were comically funny to me, but I took them because the pain was so bad, but they didn’t even get rid of the pain only dulled it. To be honest the pain pills could take the edge off, but they really didn’t help much overall. I started researching my injury, and wasn’t too surprised to find out this particular injury has a high percentage of people that commit suicide due to the overwhelming pain, and the number of people that get function back in their arm was very small, and the function that the few did get back was minimal at best. The only time I seemed to get any relief from the pain was when I listened to music and that seemed to work by distracting my mind from the pain, but the most relief I ever got was in that twilight period right in-between being awake and asleep, it was crazy
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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#11
7.The accident happened on Oct. 25, 2011, and I got out of rehab to go home before my birthday that year, so before Dec. 15, 2011. I sat around healing for a month or so, got my external fixator (when they drive screws into the bone to connect a metal bar that holds the bones in place to heal) removed in that time period and was just trying to adjust to everything the best I could. I got bored sitting at home pretty fast and was blessed to have an awesome job that would work with me and let me easy myself back into my duties at my own pace. So early in Jan. 2012 I decided to return to work to see how, and if I was even going to be able to physically do my job. This was when life started hitting me much harder. At this point I was still under 2 delusions, first I still thought there was a chance of getting my arm working again, and second I thought I had some kind of monetary compensation coming to me from insurance, after all everyone involved in the accident had full coverage. I mean we live in 2011, we prepare for these kinds of things right? There’s no way the “almighty system” could let me down right? Well you will be very surprised to find out it absolutely did let me down, oh and how it bounced me off the pavement. It turns out I was not adjusting to the whole “loss of my dominate arm” thing very well at all either, another surprise right? That was about the time a hard truth hit me, it was how every single day of my life from 12-15-79, until 10-25-11, I had woken up completely healthy and whole, and had taken it completely and for total granted every single day of my life. The day this donned on me hurt bad, I cried, and I cried in absolute shame of my selfishness. Realizing how ungrateful I truly was towards everything God had blessed me with my whole life made me ashamed in a way I had never felt and that was just the beginning.
I was completely inside out in so many ways. For example- instead of being proud that I went back to work and was making a way to keep providing for my family no matter what, I’d cry because I lost my arm and I had to hold a box with my feet to tape it up. Returning to work also sparked my memory and I remembered the last thought I had the day of the accident I mentioned earlier. The one about how great I had it, and how everything was going good finally, great wife, dinner, kids, bills paid, it hit me very hard breaking me down even further because now I knew it was all gone and not coming back. All that was gone now and I was left confused not knowing how I could handle it. I mean wasn’t I doing everything right before? What had I done to deserve this? It wasn’t freaking FAIR!!!!!! It got real bad and was everything I could do to keep up my daily routine. I just wanted to die, bad. I had an easy way to do it too; I was equipped with an arm I couldn’t feel at all. I could cut my wrist and not even feel the bite of the blade. I thought about this 1,000 times every day. I couldn’t walk down the street without wanting to throw myself in front of every car that went by.
I was mental planning out my death constantly, but thinking of the aftermath I could only make it as far as my boys. I could rationalize everything else, I knew that someone could take over at work no problem, my family would eventually move on too, even my gorgeous wife would have no problem finding someone whole to love and take care of her better than I could anymore. My attitude was “I’m not even a whole man anymore”, and worse than that I knew I was mentally broken for the first time in my life. I could justify leaving all that in my head, everything but my boy’s. I could not convince myself that there was anyone on this earth that would love my boys and take care of them like their own true father would. So I stuck around feeling literally “stuck” here on this planet. I fought this all the time, every second of everyday, just nonstop. Time kept on ticking by with life as it does, uncaring, unapologetic, and unyielding to our will or what we wish or want. I learned from this experience, pretty quickly, that this world does not care at all. The thing was I hadn’t separated God from the things of this world yet. It got to a point I felt I had to do something, so I set up an appointment with a counselor, that’s how the world tells us to fix our problems right? The counseling did helped a little, but that’s not saying too much. When I first started I was so far down, I could barely look my counselor in her eyes. I would be talking to her in session and could bring up this particular issue, and even with her saying, “let’s see if you can look me in the eyes”, I just couldn’t do it at all. I was broken and confused bad. Even in a situation like that, in private, I couldn’t bring myself to even make eye contact with another person. I also learned around this time that the max settlement I could possibly get would be 10K, and the chances of me ever seeing a dime of that with the $750,000 in medical bills now hanging over my head (the insurance companies has a right to that money before I do and 3 years later haven’t seen a dime) it didn’t look very good. I did however get $1,200 for my bike (lucky me) so in my head for the loss of my bike and my dominate arm the world would pay me the handsome sum of $1200 dollars, total. Was not a very good deal from my perspective, and I can assure you this didn’t help with the suicidal thoughts. I was stuck with no way out. The therapy helped me learn to “fake it” a little bit better, and I was at least giving it a little more of an effort on my part, but it wasn’t enough and I was still broken inside my own head. I remember being in church getting angry when I’d hear “lift your hands to God”, and I would think, “I can’t lift my HANDS, you took one of them”, as cynically as I could. I found a grudge against God starting to develop, and still didn’t understand what I had done to deserve this.
8. Now I find myself in an awkward position, I am, on the exterior, doing better. I am going to work, able to do more of my household duties, and everything seems to be on an upswing, but I still can’t let go of the fact my right arm is gone. I was just learning to fake it better once I could see people were starting to get wearied of my depression. I also had two surgeries within the first 6 months of the accident, and ended up stuck at the house again for about 4 extra months. During this time I just made the best of it and dragged myself through each day. I was just doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing, but hating every second of it. I healed from the surgeries and went back to work, again just robotically going through the motions, but I was miserable and felt guilty for that too. Here I was blessed in so many ways, but could not acknowledging His hand at work, and this even after the realization of how bad it hurt to not acknowledge God’s blessings until after they were gone. I just wanted to just die, I can’t stress that enough. It wasn’t just random thoughts here and there either, I wanted to DIE every second of every day. I also started looking around at the world around me in a very different way at this point. I started looking at the government, and our financial systems. I even started looking into Scientology just to see what it was about not because I had any interest at all in joining or anything like that, it was just in the news and I was just curious about what it was and what they actually believed.
Now in my world nothing was going right and I couldn’t fix it. Even worse I didn’t feel like fixing it anymore. I was at my house alone the day it all came to a head and I broke down completely. At this point I wasn’t even sure if I believed in God anymore. I never made an “official” decision in my head that I didn’t believe in God anymore, but I wasn’t sure at all. I was full of doubt, confusion and weariness. To be 100% honest I was FINISHED. I already thought I was a Christian so I wasn’t looking for Jesus, or even asking God for anything, I was just done with life. I hit my knees that day in my room alone crying out, “I can’t do this anymore, the world wins. I’ve done my best, but I can’t do it ANYMORE!!” I was done inside my mind; I was done inside my body, and I was done inside my soul. I was completely broken down mentally, physically, and worst of all spiritually. Praise God!
9. The funny thing is when I woke up the next day feeling better I didn’t know why. I was no longer consumed with wanting to die, and just felt better in general. I didn’t know why, but I did know it was from God. Over next few days of putting together what was happening to me and the guidance of the Holy Ghost I figured out I had been reborn. I found myself at the True Christian starting line with a shredded veil on the ground beside me.
10. My rebirth changed me instantly and my priorities changed overnight. I was a worldly man to the bone without even realizing it. Example- I would walk in from work after a long day, and my boys would bombard me with “Dad, dad, come see this”, or “can you help me with that”, and I would answer with them with, “I just walked in the door; give me a few minutes to settle in before the bombardment”. That would usually cause at the very least a sad looks on their faces if not whining, but I felt I needed that break from the world’s stresses more than they needed me right then, and the world told me I deserved it too. The next day I could see my attitude and behavior had changed when the next time I walked in the door after work and was bombarded like usual, but this time I went in and saw what my oldest wanted to show me, it took maybe 5 minutes, then went to my youngest room to see what he wanted, that took maybe another 5. So after 10 minutes I left both boys glowing and could have been able to go have the break for as long as I wanted. Only now I really didn’t need a break that bad and would rather stay around and play with them. This was due to God showing me how unimportant all those “major stresses” that were keeping me from my boys really where, and now I could see what the really important things were that I’d been neglecting, and now both those important things were now happy in their rooms. I mean overnight my priorities had completely changed; my biggest hobby had always been video games, always. That was my release from this world, my break from reality, and I always kept up to date on everything new coming out. That was what I did, that was my main distraction in this world. All of a sudden with the power of the Holy Spirit, overnight games were at the bottom of the list, along with movies, shows, any sport, or other godless form of distraction (or entertainment as they call it) on this earth (not saying I quit them all right away, but I saw them for what they really were for the first time). Being set free from the bonds of sin and no longer being blind is great, and super freeing, but it’s also shocking and horrifying. I could now see that from cradle to grave this world is designed from the ground up to separate us from God and Jesus our savior. I found it so much easier to separate the things of the world from the things of the Spirit now blessed with the Holy Spirit, I once was blind, but now (through Him) I SEE. I want to spread that sight to others. I have a much better understanding of Matt 7:14 “Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” This alarms me a lot, but made sense when you look at the world around you, and I want to help however He means for me to. I have a new understanding what drives those people to yell the gospel on the street. I’m not sure if it’s possible to truly find Christ and not want to help others to do the same. I’ve found it not to be. I will close this testimony with my new favorite verse, but hope this story sheds a little light on the Glory of our God. He saved me, and I am His 100%.
My new favorite passage is Matthew 5:30 “And if thy right hand shall cause thee to sin, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

 
E

Ecclesiastik

Guest
#12
Awesome testimony brother, God is good!
 
Sep 30, 2014
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#14
Good work brother, it was long, but well worth the read, got goosebumps and tearie eyed through some of it, because I knew the struggle and the fight you went through, Only if people knew what could happen if they cried out with their all, the things Jesus is capable of. God bless you sir
 
P

psychomom

Guest
#15
Jim...i just...i can't...type without stopping to wipe away tears. ♥

oh, the glorious Grace of the Most High God.
 

Jimbone

Senior Member
Aug 22, 2014
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#16
Jim...i just...i can't...type without stopping to wipe away tears. ♥

oh, the glorious Grace of the Most High God.

Oh how I thank Him for His mercy and REAL Power. Our God is amazing and thank you for taking the time to read about what He's done my whole life. Only our God can take something this wretched and change it the way He has. All praise and glory to Him there is NOTHING beyond His grace and power, and He is the center of EVERYTHING.
 
J

jjtj22

Guest
#17
What a powerful testimony our Lord has given you. Your clarity at the end of your testimony at the powers and principalities is so very encouraging to me as a fellow sojourner in this world.

Thank you for sharing.
 
Sep 30, 2014
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#20
God the glory, forever and ever.. Was just thinking about the struggles God led you out of to praise His name brother.


Praise be to God!