There are moments in life when the world around you looks normal, but inside you’re living in a collapsing house. That was me. I walked around with a straight face, but my soul was cracked like old stone. I wasn’t just lost — I was blind. I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t know God. And worse, I didn’t know how far I was from him.
I grew up in chaos, in survival mode, with no compass for truth. By the time I hit adulthood, I was carrying years of trauma like a backpack full of stones — drugs, violence, lust, anger, hopelessness, homelessness, and a darkness that felt alive. I didn’t believe in God, not really. I thought faith was for the lucky ones or the naïve ones. But I was wrong. I was so wrong.
There were nights when I should’ve died. Moments when the darkness wasn’t just emotional — it felt spiritual, like something was trying to swallow me whole. I remember feeling like I was falling into a pit with no bottom, the kind of place where sound doesn’t echo and hope doesn’t exist. I lived years in that spiritual fog, not serving God, not serving the devil intentionally — but my choices leaned toward destruction, and destruction always has a master.
And then… God stepped in.
Not because I deserved him. Not because I was good.
But because he is merciful.
God didn’t meet me in a church.
He didn’t send me a preacher with polished shoes and a rehearsed sermon.
He came to me the way he came to the man with the unclean spirit, the woman at the well, the thief on the cross — right where I was dying inside.
The Holy Spirit started breaking through the fog. I couldn’t explain it. I didn’t have theology. I didn’t have verses. All I had was this sudden awareness that the darkness was real… and that Jesus was stronger than it.
And little by little, God began pulling my life out of the grave.
He didn’t just forgive my sins — he began healing the parts of me I didn’t even know were bleeding: the trauma, the rage, the shame, the numbness, the confusion. He went into the rooms of my heart where I thought no light could ever reach. And with a surgeon’s precision, He began restoring me.
The God I once doubted became the God who carried me.
The God I once ignored became the God who saved me.
And the darkness I once lived in became the evidence of his mercy.
Jesus didn’t just rescue me — he claimed me.
He showed me that identity isn’t found in the streets, or in your past, or in the pain that tried to raise you. Identity is found in him. I learned that repentance isn’t shame — it’s the doorway to freedom. I learned that surrender isn’t weakness — it’s how God rebuilds a man from the inside out.
Today, I stand not as a perfect man, but as a redeemed one.
A man who should’ve been dead
but is alive by the grace of God.
A man who walked in darkness
but now carries the light of Christ.
A man who once hated God
but now cannot live a single day without him.
My story is not about how strong I am.
My story is about how strong Jesus is —
strong enough to reach the depths I fell into,
strong enough to break chains I thought were welded shut,
strong enough to turn a broken man into a living testimony.
Jesus saved me and I am still in awe.
“He brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay,
and set my feet upon a rock, and established my steps.”
— Psalm 40:2
