Four Lives in One

Life Number One (buckle up and get ready for utter hopelessness)

I was born in 1979 and raised in a small town in eastern North Carolina, Tarboro, NC. My parents were married, and I had 2 siblings (an older brother, and an older half sister). I also had 3 other half sisters (on my dad’s side) that I didn’t meet until I was around 11-12 years old (this is just the beginning of the dysfunction). My father was a very reclusive man that had very little to do with my brother and I. I have zero memories of ever having a meaningful conversation with my father. Later on in life I learned why he didn’t have much to do with us boys and the reason may shock you. While I won’t spend too much time on the subject (as it’s very difficult to talk about), I am compelled to talk a little about it as it affected me very much as a young man/teenager and it may help someone else who's experienced something similar. You see, my father was bisexual and wanted to become a woman. This was in an era and time that is much different than the era we live in today where homosexuality and transgenderism are pushed onto the masses from the top (government/media down). In those days very few dared to talk about or announce that they were not heterosexual in the 70’s/80’s. While promiscuity was rampant, homesexuality was very much frowned upon and kept quiet, especially in the bible belt and southern states like North Carolina where we lived. I did not learn about my father being essentially a transgender person until I was 9 or 10 years old. One day he came into my bedroom with his toenails painted red. I was utterly disgusted to see this, and very confused as I was all male meaning I had been actively involved in playing sports (baseball/basketball/football) and also was already attracted to girls at this point in my life (puppy love type of attraction). I personally up to that point had never even had a thought that a biological male would ever consider being a woman, it made zero sense to me and was unheard of in those times at least where we lived. I had a talk with my mother about it and she finally mustered the courage to tell me, after I insisted she give some answers on why he painted his toenails. When she told me he wanted to be a woman, it completely threw my world and mind into a cycle of confusion, anger, and resentment that I would not recover from until I got saved as a young man. I later learned he (as many who have this mental battle) was sexually violated and molested/raped as a child. So where faith begets faith, likewise dysfunction begets dysfunction, but that's another entire sermon for another day. 

He was also verbally, and physically abusive to my mother, to the point that many times when they were yelling and arguing, I would hide in my closet in my room and cover my ears with blankets and pillows in fear. I grew to hate my father more than anyone on earth, and once he began to physically abuse my mother when I was around 11-12  years old (more frequently that is, he had been violent on a couple occasions when I was younger), I looked forward to the day when I would grow bigger and stronger and I desired to kill him and end the abuse and pain he was causing us and my mother. My older brother also later shared with me that he had these same thoughts. These are thoughts no child should ever have about one of their parents, but this is what sin, dysfunction, and anger produces. This was all occurring in a small town mind you, where everyone knew each other and people slowly began to find out about my dad when I was growing up. This was so embarrassing and difficult to deal with (I only ever got close to a couple people because of this) and it affected my life and development in so many areas I have come to learn. 

When my mom finally had gotten beaten so many times she got the courage to leave my father in the middle of a school day. She packed some bags and checked us all out of school, we went and lived with my Aunt for a little while to tried to reset our lives. He threatened her life many times after she left and he stalked her for a couple years, this was also a very scary and confusing time. He would stand at the windows of the house we were living in at the time and be listening in to our conversations and my mom finally got a restraining order on him. Also she very bravely held her ground and did not give into fears to return to the abusive relationship (that she had done many times in the past) and he finally gave up and moved to California (where he could freely live his transgender life without fear) when I was 14. This was a huge relief for us all, but we all had very deep emotional scars and trauma, and we all dealt with it differently. This set the stage for my teenage years and because of the things I had seen and unbelievable home life it made it very easy for me to spiral down into some of the darkest places that a human can go. I dealt with the pain and confusion by beginning to drink and do drugs. It started with smoking pot at 14 which my brother introduced me to. Not too long after my father moved to California, my mother finally was able to date without fear of

Him she met another man who lived in a bigger town about an hour away.  Myself and my mother moved in to his trailer. My sister was already off to college and was the only one seeming to be able to deal with everything successfully and continue on in life. My older brother had also already moved out on his own, but was also making bad decisions and also turning to substance abuse to cope. But he seemed to also use getting into relationships with women more as a crutch and didn’t become a full blown addict/alcoholic like I wound up becoming. The town my mothers new boyfriend lived in (Greenville, NC) was known for having one of the biggest party schools (East Carolina University) on the east coast. Moving to Greenville turned into a recipe for disaster for the direction that my life would take in the coming years. 

Once we moved to Greenville, I completely lost all restraints and dove head first into sex, drugs, and alcohol. This period of my life was so dark I have many sections of it blacked out that come back in my memory every so often. One summer when I was 17 (I think) me and my new closest friend in Greenville (really just someone I did lots of drugs and drank with regularly) Zeb did over 100 hits of acid. We also tried lots of new drugs (mushrooms, pcp, ecstasy, cocaine, crack, heroine just to name a few). My life had completely spiraled out of control, Zeb, myself, and a couple more guys in our small circle started stealing to support our addictions. We stole new CD’s and sold them at used record stores. We broke into cars at night after getting really drunk (this became a normal occurrence). Things got so bad, we got a call from a detective that wanted us to come in for questioning about some stolen checks we had written for Pizza one night. After learning each bad check we wrote was a felony Zeb and I discussed and decided to steal my moms car and run away to Mexico and seek asylum. We nearly made it to Mexico, but were stealing gas along the way, and got arrested after getting chased by a cop in Big Spring, Texas en route to El Paso where we planned to cross the border. My poor mother had reported us as runaways, reported the car as stolen, and we were behind bars. You would think this would be a pivotal moment where I would change my ways, but nothing could be further from the truth my bottom was not yet in sight. Several more drug and drinking related arrests later, and a new habit that I had picked up sniffing cocaine had begun. This led me to even lower lows, and one day my friend Zeb overdosed and went into a seizure from a very raw batch of cocaine that we had obtained had me seeing myself in him. He didn’t die but after coming out of the seizure, asked me the question that had me understanding I was now a slave and addict to drugs. He simply said after the overdose “where’s it at man”, meaning he wanted to do more drugs. I told him to chill and that he was going crazy, and I took a walk outside. This walk proved the most pivotal moment in my life. I walked and talked (or what I came to learn later was a prayer) and simply said “God if you’re real show yourself to me and I’ll change”. Nothing happened that day, but rest assured God heard my pleas. Psalm 51:17 comes to mind “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” A couple weeks later around the holidays, I got into a physical fight with a good friend the night before and was exhausted but woke to a knock on my door. On the other side of the door was a preacher of a new “church plant” in Greenville, NC, although he didn’t introduce himself as a preacher, just Brian. He asked me if I knew Jesus and if I had ever heard the gospel. I don’t remember what I said, but I’m sure I brushed him off, but he persisted to tell me the gospel anyway. I just remember him saying Jesus Christ the Son of God died for me, I had maybe heard that but I had never heard it, if you know what I mean. He also asked for my phone number and said he’d simply like to stay in touch, and he did. He called and reminded me of upcoming church services and just to chat and I actually went to church on my own because I wanted to for the first time in my life at 19 years old, somewhat out of curiosity but also I was subconsciously seeking help. 

Life Number Two 

After coming to a church service or two, and listening to what was being said, it was unlike any message I had ever heard (which at this point weren’t very many) and I was pulled inside and felt compelled to respond to this call to change (or repent). I later learned this was the Holy Spirit that was doing the compelling or drawing/leading to God. I knelt at the altar and began to surrender my life to Jesus on November 22nd, 1998, and I still have my new convert/visitor card that I filled out from that service. Sometime Later Pastor Brian gave it to me as he had kept it and thought it might be something I would possibly want at some point. I literally felt forgiveness and the weight of sin being lifted from my life, the world looked different, the clouds and sky looked different. I was still smoking and drinking but kept coming to church and started to clean up and get delivered, but for me it wasn’t instantaneous. I also had a big backwards turn after about 6 months of attending church. One night I did cocaine again and that sent me back into addiction and darkness for another year or so. I spent all the money I had saved over the six months of getting cleaned up on drugs and was back in a bad place. I called my mother who called my sister who agreed to let me come live with her and her husband but I had to check into a rehab in Roanoke Rapids, NC (about 1 ½ hours away). I did that and attended an outpatient rehab and got cleaned up but was not serving the Lord, I was no longer drinking or using drugs but was still promiscuous and not living right. God kept on pursuing me though, and I started back attending a small family church in that area that was preaching a decent Gospel but nothing like I was hearing back in Greenville at Pastor Brian’s church. I got the courage one day to call him back and he was just as encouraging as before, he told me to drive over and come to a revival that was going on soon, and I agreed. I went and felt a strong prompting to come back to that church. Pastor Brian offered to get me a job as a laborer of a brick mason company he was the foreman of and offered to help me move back to Greenville. I took him up on the job offer and moved back to Greenville, this time fully committed to serving Jesus and committing to a life of discipleship. I was either 21 or 22 years old now but I completely came back all in on everything going on at the church and committed to prayer, reading the word, and evangelism. We went out and hit the streets weekly, preaching and inviting people, praying with people on the streets to bow their knees and believe the Gospel, and I prayed for the sick. It was an incredible book of Acts type of experience that I was living out. I was working on issues and dealing with the past as best as I could in that small church, but I still had sin battles as a single guy but just kept pressing in and pursuing Jesus. I will be ever grateful for the sacrifices, love, grace, mercy, and example of a true disciple of Jesus that Pastor Brian had shown me. I still am in contact with him till this day 20+ years later.  

After a couple years back, I got some shocking news that Pastor Brian was going to be taking over another church in another state and that we would be getting a new Pastor. I know for many in churches that's a normal occurrence, but in my case with as close as I had become with Pastor Brian this was very difficult to learn news. The new Pastor and his wife came in to take over, and I gave them the benefit of the doubt, but man was it quite different in terms of how the couple operated in their relationship and the way they dealt with people compared to the previous Pastors and his family. The new Pastor was much more passive, and his wife kind of ran the church and the household to say it nicely. The few stronger personality types of men began to leave the church and the only ones that would stay were also very passive types of men. God was still at work, but the love, grace, and respect for the Pastor and his family were no longer the same as when the previous Pastor and his family were there. In the midst of all this going on I had gotten married to my lovely wife Stephanie. Much like me, she has a radical testimony of being saved and redeemed from an insane set of circumstances and likewise had an amazing Pastor and family that loved and embraced her fresh off the streets. I began to learn that the new Pastor’s wife was behind the scenes causing lots of controversy among the few women in the church and accusing people of trying to take over the church and other weird stuff that was by no means true. So my wife and I were trying to get to know one another and grow in ministry in this very dysfunctional church and it was very much affecting our lives and marriage. We tried to have conversations with the new Pastor about his wife, but as you can imagine that didn't go over well and nothing came from it. We wound up even contacting their overseeing Pastor from the mother church that sent them, but that also didn’t really lead to any changes wrought with the new leadership and family. We were at our wits end and decided to leave the church. When we first left that church, by God’s providence found another denominational church with a seasoned Pastor who preached a great gospel and who understood how to work with and love people. So we really were at first in a good place and continued serving the Lord.

Life Number Three

The culture of the new church we went to was very much different from the church we were saved in. There were some good, loving Christian people, but there wasn’t a vision for discipleship and evangelism. While it would be convenient to blame what began to occur on the subsequent churches we attended over the next decade or so, at the end of the day we are all individually responsible to continue to seek God and serve Him. I began to loosen up on some disciplines and went back to college to pursue a degree in the IT industry. While obviously there is nothing wrong with going to college, it’s the reasons why we do what we do that matters. I began to pursue wealth over Christ, and after I graduated and took an internship I went fully into my pursuit of my career and real estate. Did we still always attend church and make an attempt to “keep God first” ? We did, out of habit. As we know though it’s pretty easy to honor God with our lips and have our hearts far from God, and that’s where I landed with my faith. ‭‭Matthew‬ ‭15‬:‭8‬ ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me;“.

I had the old evangelism soul winning stories, and in most cases knew as much of the scriptures as the Pastors of the churches we were attending, but I was a compromising Christian. I had become lukewarm and no longer useful for God. I began to use scriptures to justify my actions that I was beginning to enter back into and was no better than I was before I first believed. I started back drinking a few beers here and there socially, and before I knew it was back to drinking a 12 pack 4-5 days per week. There really isn’t a more miserable person on the planet than a believer who no longer fits into the church and also no longer fits into the world. That’s where I was and it showed, I rarely cursed and still prayed over meals with the family out of a religious habit but my heart was far from God but deep down I still wanted to honor him, but I also wanted my own pursuits and sin. Matthew 6:24 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” I also think this biblical principle applies to any sin, desire, or idol that we put above fully pursuing and serving God. 

To make a long story short, for over a decade we went through the motions of Christianity, our marriage suffered, our children suffered, and worst of all I was wasting my short life on my own pursuits. This really is the crux of it all, Jesus saves us and sets us free from sin and the curse of sin (whether we walk in that and believe it or not) and fully expects us to set aside our will and life to do His. Many of us don’t think this way, and I was not thinking this way during this time in my life. The pandemic happened and we went under contract on a new house in the new city we were living in Charlotte, NC (the suburbs). The wild thing was our house plan we selected went up in price 8-10 times after we signed the contract, and we later learned that many others who were in the same situation were forced to re-sign higher contracts (by other builders because of rising building supply costs and lumber). We were not made to re-sign a new contract and our house on the day we closed had about 35-45% equity in it on day one. We lived there for about a year and saw a couple houses in our neighborhood sell and comps were set around 50% over what we close on, so we decided to sell. The providence of God comes into play during this whole situation. When we discussed selling we also discussed where we would move to, and the plan was to scale down life and life less tied to stuff. My wife’s parents had retired and essentially sight unseen, they bought some land in knowhere Arknsas and were building a homestead in their retirement years with no other family around them. We began to look at the cost of living in that area and were floored at how cheap the houses were. We made the decision to move there and I had decided to turn my hobby of reselling collectibles (which boomed during the pandemic) into an attempt to do it full-time. We bought a house outright with cash and I started down this path of being an eBay reseller. The problem when we moved was that I brought myself with me. My alcohol consumption was out of control and was becoming very expensive, and while I was selling a lot of collectibles those markets were cooling down as people were going back to work and back into offices and didn’t have as much time for hobbies. Another problem we were encountering was the house we bought was a fixer upper and building supply costs were still extremely high so everything needed fixing (the kitchen and the bathrooms) and we began to hemorrhage most of our savings and sales were slowing down. During the midst of all this we did find a church to attend and the Pastor at the time had likewise moved from a big city to this small town and was preaching a good gospel. God began to call me back to himself and to a new fresh surrender. I remember drinking a lot and watching YouTube of Billy Graham or Paul Washer and God started using the messages I was hearing in my church, and the new YouTube feed was being filled with Gospel preacher suggestions. I would cry and weep, and one day I began to ask God to meet me again, and intervene in my life and finances which were becoming desperate.

Life Number Four

Once again Psalm 51:17 comes to mind “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”. I believe that of all the prayers of the billions of people on earth that take place each and every day, God’s ears perk up when He hears a broken person cry out and perceives their heart is broken, contrite and ready for change. In Hebrew the word broken in this text is niš·bā·rāh which means: break, break into pieces. In Hebrew the word contrite is dakah which means: crushed. As painful as it is to get to a place like this, dare I say God always hears this kind of prayer and responds with compassion and mercy. The love of God is beyond our comprehension. Since this renewed surrender God has revealed so many things fresh and new, and has done a great work of healing in my marriage and family. God reminded me of the power of the resurrected life and I simply quit drinking overnight, and would turn in each night and read the word of God, wake every morning and spend time in prayer and reading of the word. I am active in my local body of believers leading a small group and the men’s ministry. I have also enrolled in a seminary program at GCU. I likewise started this new ministry of Gospel Evangelism and plan to share the message of hope and help train and disciple any church or believer that would have me to. Making disciples and sharing our faith whether it be one on one or through preaching/teaching is what Jesus has called us to do and should be the main priority of the church along with loving God preeminently. This leads me to where I am today, called by God to serve in a local church leading ministries, serving others, cleaning toilets, sharing the Gospel to individuals in one on one evangelism, and preaching/training churches how to have a culture of evangelism and have a strong marriage. To God be the glory, forever and ever amen!