This is a warning for those that would read the following story. I must warn that elements of my life have been offensive, even repulsive. The image that I paint of my past is not pretty, but realistic. I hold nothing back in my testimony for this cause: God took something useless and wretched and made it righteous and beautiful; that something was me. I have experienced a miracle of transformation; I am born again!

I accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior on October 30, 1994. It was the best day of my life because it was the day that I went from darkness to life, from death and destruction to peace and righteousness. I was born again, born anew, to a new life (2 Corinthians 5:17). My eyes were opened; it’s indescribable. If you’re not born again it’s like trying to describe a color to someone who’s never seen, like trying to describe a taste to someone who’s never tasted; knowing Christ is peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7). I have eternal assurance through Jesus Christ. Before my conversion to Christ, I lived a life for myself. Truly it was a life of disparity and depression. I didn’t know who I was. It seemed as though daily my mission in life was to figure out who I was, why I was created, what my mission was in life, and to bury my feelings of depression and disparity caused by not having those answers by whatever means possible.

I abused just about every drug that you can imagine. On a daily basis I would smoke marijuana. I smoked marijuana more than I smoke cigarettes. Literally, the first thing I did in the morning was get high before going to high school. At lunch I would get high as well. It was allot easier when they (school administration) would let us go out to lunch but when they ceased to allow us I tipped my cigarettes with ground marijuana and smoked them between classes. I knew that by the time anyone smelt something funny I would already be smoking tobacco. Plus, it was too daring, smoking pot out in the open like that, and no one suspected anything because they couldn’t imagine that anyone would do it right in front of them. Sometimes, I would make tea from marijuana and drink it in the cafeteria to get high. After school I would get high with my friends and, sometimes, if they weren’t around, I would get high by myself throughout the evening. I smoked pot as often as tobacco users smoke cigarettes. Even in the middle of the night, if I couldn’t sleep, I would sneak out my window (because I lived with my parents at the time) and get high. I used a variety of other drugs as well; alcohol was another norm for me. I used several prescription drugs in conjunction with alcohol, pills such as Xanax and Rohypnol. Occasionally, I would experiment with LSD; unfortunately, I used meth quite often as well. I wanted to be as numb as possible. I hated high school. I was really bored with it. Life didn’t make sense just for the sake of living it, especially with all the uncertainties that I had.

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