The Story of My Journey

My beliefs are not some quiet part of my life, they are the central part of who I am, yet it was not always like this. Before I became a Christian, I was a “normal” person, believed that there was a God, but did not really believe in God at all, I enjoyed all the things that everyone else did as well, getting muddy playing football or rugby, music, and even drinking (even though I was not yet 18 – the legal age limit here in England). Yet something was wrong with my life, I felt there must be more to life then wine, women and song, and so I started to look at religion. I suppose I was lucky, the school I attended had a decent library and quiet a few reference books on the world's religions. And so when it was too bad to play football or rugby, or when I was skiving away from lessons, I could normally be found in the library with my head buried in a book. I did learn a lot from those books, but everything they described felt old, dry and dusty, not what I was looking for at all.


However I did have some friends who were Christian (though I did not really know it at the time), and they started to realise that I was looking for something, and they knew the answers to what I was searching for. So they professed their faith to me and invited me to church. I decided to go along and try to see what they saw there. This carried on for a couple of years, and I slowly started to believe that there was a God, but I never believed that I could be saved, I thought I had sinned too much to be saved, and anyway by this time I was believing what my school mates said about me. Mainly that I was a fat, ugly, stupid, speccy four eyed geek. And so I started my slide into depression.


Soon after this my friends noticed where I was sliding to and they started to pray for me, seriously pray for me, and they started to tell me more often how special I was to God and everything else, yet I never believed them. And so my slide continued until I decided it was time to die.


What did I do? Well one Friday morning, I woke up, both my parents had gone to work, and my little sister was out, and I was approaching my 16th birthday. I suppose that the pressure of waiting for my GCSE results and the belief that I had done really bad in them also contributed to what I was feeling. So I got out of bed, and basically dressed myself up in my best clothes, went down stairs and into the kitchen. At that time we had a very sharp knife, I knew how sharp it was because just a month or so before I had managed to slit my thumb on it helping my sister cut something out. So I took this knife and put it against my wrist, and just as I was about to draw it across, something unexpected happened.


I saw a white light, I could see nothing else except this white light, there was no kitchen, no knife, no floor, nothing, just this white light. Then I heard a voice, and this is what it said to me. “Stop, I cannot let you die, for you are my child and I love you.” And when I finally could see, well I found I was making a cheese sandwich with the knife I had a few seconds before been holding against my wrist.


For a few years nothing really happened, I went to church on a Sunday, and I tried to kill my self in various ways but nothing ever came of it, then my friends invited me to a Christian youth conference, and I thought “what the hell, why not” so along I went, and there I heard the word of God preached in a way that actually reached out to me and touched my heart. It gave me hope and made me realise that God could forgive me. So on the final day after having a hard time digesting this, during the youth service, and during a time of prayer I went to the toilet and prayed for God to enter my life, and for him to forgive me all I have done.


Then I waited, I waited for 5 minutes and nothing happened. I was crushed, and I felt totally alone. So I walked back down to where the service was being held, and I walked back to my seat, and as I reached it I happened to look at the youth pastor who was preaching, and he said at that moment “God Loves You!” That was the moment God decided to answer my prayer, it was 2:30pm on Feb 14th 1997, and I was just over 17 years old.


I stood back up, went to the foyer of the church and tears were streaming down my face, and all I could say was “thank you God”

This is why God means the world to me, he saved me from my own hand, and he saved me from death. The Lord has given me self belief, confidence and has helped me overcome the sins of my past that were haunting me. The Lord God is my rock of salvation, and I thank him daily for all he has done for me, for giving me friends who believe in me, who care for me and who trust me.

And so I say once more to God.

Thankyou for saving me.