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- Story Listed as: True Life For Teens
- Theme: Survival / Success
- Subject: Biography / Autobiography
- Published: 09/05/2016
MY STORY: His story of grace
Born 1983, M, from Gainesville, Ga., United StatesI will start out by saying that I am not good at telling my story or writing, but I feel that I am being called to share it. There is someone out there that needs to read this and I believe God is going to use it to change your life. I want to start out by saying that it is a story of redemption, restoration, and a testimony of God’s grace in my life. He has done miracles for me that I never dreamed were even possible. Today I want to share my life and faith with you because people have to know that all things are possible for him who believes. I want people to know about all of the mighty miracles the Lord has done for me and how He rescued me from a life of addiction. I was doomed to failure but He brought through and gave me new life. I hope this story blesses you and provides you with enough inspiration and courage to move forward no matter what has happened in your life. It doesn’t matter how much time you have lost to sin, the Lord can redeem the years of your life. He can take every evil thing and turn it into something beautiful. It’s never too late. I will keep this as short and sweet as I can.
I honestly thought that at the age of 32 my life was over because I spent almost 9 years addicted to drugs and alcohol. I was addicted to methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and pornography. I’m not like your typical drug addict that comes from a broken home, divorce, or a traumatic past. I grew up in a good home with loving parents that always gave me anything I wanted. My parents worked hard to make sure that my sister and I felt loved and that we were always provided for. I was just a normal kid growing up in Flowery Branch, Ga. that loved sports, books, and I loved being outdoors and playing with my friends. I loved my family, along with all my friends at church and I loved God. It was when I became a teenager that many of my problems started. From age 13 I began to battle with depression. There were days that I was genuinely happy, but mostly I was severely depressed as a teenager. Like many adolescents, I struggled with the fear of rejection and that fear dominated my youth. I was also very shy and insecure around everyone. I’m not sure why I started believing negative things about myself, I guess it started with my ‘friends’ calling me names. I’m also positive that the enemy of my soul was always attempting to attack my identity as a young man by making me believe that I was stupid and worthless. Those beliefs weren’t as prominent as a teenager but the more I failed in life, the more I believed those words defined me. The most crippling fear in my life was the fear of rejection. I needed people to like and accept me more than the air I breathed. Drugs helped me become the person that I thought people could accept. My addiction started with a couple of bad friends from church. I guess you can say that peer pressure is what led me to try marijuana for the first time. Anyone that has tried this drug knows that it is just a gateway drug. Marijuana very quickly led to many other drugs, like ecstasy and crank and by the time I was 16 years old I was in a full blown addiction to methamphetamines. The first time I did it I felt like I found what was missing in my life. Meth made everything in my life seem like it was perfect. I could be the person I wanted to be, I had no problems, no depression, and I could be myself around my peers. This is when all the serious trouble in my life began. Little did I know that my experimentation with drugs was going to send me into a 9 year nightmare for both me and my family. I got expelled from school 3 times because of drugs and I had a few run ins with the law for the first couple of years of my drug use. Fighting with my parents and being a rebellious teenager was becoming normal. I stopped going to church, started losing the friends that really cared about me, I was disrespectful to my family, and I stopped caring about my relationship with God. Getting high was becoming the center of my life. I started hanging out with all the druggies and by the age of 18 I was a full blown addict.
I lived with my parents mostly until I was in my mid 20’s and I spent a good portion of my teen years using drugs inside of their home. I had no clue about life, I didn’t know how to take care of myself, I had no education, and no direction in life. As a grown man I still relied on my parents for everything and I was quickly becoming a career drug addict. I got kicked out of high school in 11th grade for the last time and tried to go to technical school. It was really tough living with my parents because my dad and I fought constantly. Our relationship was completely broken and my addiction was tearing the family apart. I was never really at home because I was always hanging out with my so called friends and I slowly lost interest in everything I loved growing up. I had completely withdrawn from my family and I stayed high on a daily basis. I think one of the worst things that I did to my family was when my mom cosigned with me to get a credit card and I had a card in our name with a $9,000 limit. I had convinced her that I needed a laptop for school so she helped me get one through her credit. I maxed out the credit line within 3 months on drugs and women. The day that the credit card company called my parents was one of the worst days of my life and it not only broke their hearts but mine as well. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I was so deep in my addiction to meth that I couldn’t stop.
After that, my pastor from the church I grew up in tried to take me to a place called No Longer Bound. It was a 10 month Christian rehab in Georgia. Of course I would not go into the program because I thought I could find a way to stop using on my own. As broken as my life was, I still refused help and it was just a classic case of denial. I went back home from the interview at No Longer Bound and just continued the same cycle of drug use until I was 24. When I was 24 years old, still living with my parents, going nowhere in life, and hopelessly addicted to meth I finally came to a breaking point. I had lost all of my friends because everyone hated the person I had become. I had no ambition, no drive for life, I was empty and I wanted to die. My family were the ones that were suffering the most and they could see how bad off I really was. I looked like a skeleton and I think I weighed about 130 pounds at 5’10”. I knew early in my life that God had great plans for me, but it only seemed like a fantasy at this point. I figured I could kiss His plans for my life goodbye because I was nothing more than a sinner that He was disappointed in and disgusted with. I wanted a relationship with God but I felt unworthy. I had already lost at least 20 jobs in my life and sold or pawned every valuable possession I had. My only hope for getting drug money was to buy a $1 scratch off ticket and hope to make enough to get high. My parents no longer trusted me because I had been stealing from and lying to them. I tried to stay high everyday if possible and if not, I was drunk. I wasn’t really sure what being sober even felt like. I was at my one of my lowest points. I was sure God hated me and He was going to wipe me off the face of the earth very soon. Why wouldn’t He? Look at all the terrible things I have done to myself and my family. Condemnation and shame were two of my closest friends. At age 24 I started to cry out to God for help. Little did I know, even in the midst of my sin, God had big plans for my life. Behind the scenes He had been devising a plan to bring me out of my addiction.
I remember sitting in my room one day high out of my mind and God spoke to me. I know that sounds bad, but it’s true. When else would He have said anything to me since I was always high? He kept giving me the word, “Passover Day”. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew that something was going to happen on Passover Day. I knew that my time at my parent’s house was going to come to an end because the Lord had a plan to drive me out of that house and start making me into the man I was called to be. It was the fall of 2008 when He began to speak to me. On December 17th, 2008 I had a spiritual experience and the Lord spoke a clear promise to me. He said, “Now that the storm is over you can catch your breath in the light of My mercies. I Am near to you, I the Lord, to restore everything to you and not only what you previously had but with an overflowing abundance.” He also said, “I will restore to you the years that the locust have eaten.” Basically, it was a promise to redeem the years of my life…all the time I had so foolishly wasted. I remember being surprised that He would even talk to a filthy sinner like me. I didn’t know that at the time He wasn’t condemning me but making plans to restore me to life. I knew that on Passover something was going to change for me.
At the time, I was on probation for a DUI I was charged with in November of 2008. Getting arrested was a painful experience, but I needed it. I couldn’t seem to hold a job or pass a drug test for probation so I started looking for a program because it was that or jail. Looking back on everything God was using my arrest to lead me to a program. On April 9th, 2009, on Passover day, I began the first day of my program at No Longer Bound (A Christ-centered drug and alcohol regeneration program). I had a tough 10 months ahead of me, but I knew that I had to change. Passover day was the first day of my road to recovery and redemption. It was my first day at No Longer Bound. Little did I know that this would start a 7 year process of restoration in my life.
During my stay at No Longer Bound God healed my soul and He changed me. He cleared away all the wreckage of my past and He began the process of making me into a new creation. The program was the hardest/scariest thing I’ve ever done. Before the program when life became confusing or too much to handle I would run to the only thing I knew that would make me feel safe…my parent’s house and drugs. At No Longer Bound I didn’t have anything to fall back on and I was forced to face myself and my past. In the program I had to deal with all of my issues and confront the person I had become and I was greatly ashamed of that person. I had other men surrounding me 24/7 who loved me enough to point out all of my character defects and God used them to shape me into the man I am today. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it was also the beginning of an incredible journey of salvation. During the last week of my program I realized that I had changed and I was no longer the same. I was not the person who walked in the doors 10 months prior. No Longer Bound taught me so many valuable lessons about life. I was very proud that I had finished something for the first time in my life. I was excited about life again. My relationship with my family hadn’t yet been completely restored but it was a great start and my life was finally moving in a positive direction. After the program I decided to stay an additional 10 months as a servant leader.
Near the end of my stay at No Longer Bound I was asked to set goals for my future and my plan was to go back to school for automotive technology and become ASE certified. Hopefully I would make a lot of money, have a family and move on with my life and I could put my addiction behind me, but I could sense that God had different plans and He was calling me into ministry. God has always been a part of my life, even in my addiction. He got a hold of my heart at a very young age and I remember growing up that I always told my grandmother that I wanted to be in ministry. I told my leaders at No Longer Bound that I felt called to ministry and they hooked me up with a place called Three Dimensional Life. This place was another program very much like No Longer Bound. The only difference was that it was for teenage boys struggling with addiction.
So…at age 27 I spent the next 15 months working at Three Dimensional life as a house parent. I got the opportunity to help adolescents avoid making the same mistakes I did in life. Let me tell you, that was a growing experience that I will never forget. I had to deal with a bunch of teenagers who were just like me when I was growing up. They were stubborn, manipulative, and didn’t listen to a single thing I had to say. I thought maybe God was punishing me for everything I put my parents through. Little did I know that my program didn’t end at No Longer Bound. When you spend almost a decade using drugs it can take a very long time to recover and I definitely needed more recovery than just 20 months at NLB. I will never forget the supernatural miracle I experienced in my own life and witnessed in the life of the boys of 3D. It was there that I continued to grow up and learn about being a man. Even though everything in my life was going much better than it was 3 years earlier I felt that something was missing. I remember near the end of my 15 months at 3D I started noticing that everyone I knew had a girlfriend or wife. And here I am at 28 years old, single and still so socially awkward that I couldn’t hardly even hang out with my friends because it was so painful. Even after all the change I had been through, social anxiety disorder still crippled my life. I remember going out on one date while I worked at 3D and believe me that took a lot of courage to even show up. I really began to struggle with loneliness and I wondered if anyone would ever want me because I didn’t feel that I had much to offer. Once again, God spoke to my heart and said that He had a wife for me, but that I had to wait and be patient. He said that I would meet her when I turned 31 years old and that He would be using the next few years to prepare us both for marriage. It was a tough pill to swallow because I knew that I had already lost so many years of my life….why did God want me to wait another 3 years. So I did the only thing I could do, I held tightly to His promises and I waited.
After 15 months as a house parent I believed that it was time for me to move on. I had received a job offer from No Longer Bound and they wanted me to come back and be on staff. I spent the next 2 years teaching inner healing (something I thought would never be possible) and working at Cars 4 Recovery as a shop manager. The funny part about it is that I never expected to be working at No Longer Bound after 3D and what really threw me for a loop was the fact that my very first day on staff at No Longer Bound was April 9th, 2012! April 9th, 2009 was the very day I entered the program at No Longer Bound….Passover day and now here I am back on staff at Passover. Obviously, I was convinced that God’s hand was on my life as He led me every step of the way.
After 2 years of working at No Longer Bound the Lord spoke to my heart and said that I had grown as much as I could in that environment and it was time for me to move on. I honestly didn’t have any clue what the next step was. He didn’t say where He wanted me to go, but He did make another promise to me. He promised me that I would be the Program Director of Three Dimensional Life and I would also get married on 3D property.
At the end of my 2 years at No Longer Bound something very unexpected happened…I relapsed for 1 year. I’m not sure why I relapsed, but I think part of the reason is because I kept the door open to sin at times. There were times when I still struggled with lust and I think the enemy used that against me. I also had never lived life outside of my parent’s house or an institution. In a sense I had become institutionalized and really didn’t know how to make it in the real world. After all I had been through I didn’t see a relapse coming, but I don’t really think anyone ever does. In the AA program they call addiction cunning and baffling. I do know that right before I relapsed I began to become angry with God because my life wasn’t happening as fast as I thought it should. I was sick of waiting for a wife, I was sick of my social awkwardness and the believing that I was stupid. I was just tired of waiting and I cursed God for not giving me the life I wanted when I wanted it. After all, I felt that I had earned it over the last 5 years. If it were up to me my recovery would’ve taken a lot less time. I’m a very impatient person. Looking back I realize that I was extremely blessed but too spoiled to actually see it. I didn’t realize that people who had the things that I wanted had worked hard to get where they are and I was pissed at God for not handing life to me on a silver platter. Apparently, after years in recovery, I still had a lot of growing up to do.
After a few months of being away from NLB and using drugs I ended up living with my parents again in the summer of 2014. I once again was full blown into a meth addiction and I eventually ended up pawning the title to my car. I worked several jobs landscaping and just kept quitting and getting fired because I kept getting high. I think that 2014 was the absolute worst year of my life. My parents were devastated over my relapse and I kept wondering what I did wrong to miss out on God’s plan for me. My mom was in and out of the hospital because of heart problems due to the stress I put on her. Everytime I would come down from a high I would just sit up in my bed and cry. I was so confused at how my life had taken a turn for the worst. The only thing I could get from God at the time was that He was using this experience to humble me and train me for the future. He also said that part of my problem was that I thought to highly of myself, I couldn’t see that then, but I see it now. I tell you what….after being clean for 5 years and being on staff at two recovery ministries it was more than just humbling, it was humiliating. I ended up back at No Longer Bound trying to get in the program down in West Ga. at what used to be another one of the campuses. I made it through the program about 3 weeks before I had a mental breakdown. I left that program and tried a half-way house, which I only made it through about 4 weeks there before I started smoking crack. I was becoming the very person that I hated again and perpetuating the shame that dominated my life.
At the end of 2014 God spoke to me once again and said that 2015 would be my turn around year. I started telling my dad that it would be my turn around year and that he didn’t need to worry because it was going to be a year of grace and I would make it. It was also supposed to be the year that I would meet my wife according to God’s past promise. By that time I had figured that if God did have a plan for my life I had destroyed it and there was no chance of seeing His promises because I had relapsed. I figured that if I did get married or ever become the Program Director at 3D that it was going to be a very long time, if it even happened at all. I longed to see my dreams come true but seemed to lack the will power to take a step in the right direction. Somehow, in the midst of my addiction and suffering, I knew that things would begin to turn around in February of 2015.
On February 7th, 2015, I was led to a drug and alcohol program called U-turn for Christ in Tennessee. It was a 2 month, very intense, residential program. I remember my first day in that program very clear because I was so hurt and disappointed in myself. After my parents dropped me off there and left I just sat there in my bed and cried. Nothing seemed to make the pain go away. I remember my first week there I fell to my knees while we were outside working and I told God that I felt like this was the end of my life. He responded to me with a song by Steven Curtis Chapman called ‘Glorious Unfolding’ and he encouraged me that my story had only just begun. Even though it was an extremely painful time in my life, it was there that I knew I was being prepared for leadership at Three Dimensional Life. U-turn for Christ was so rough. It was full of men who had been to prison and in that place if you crossed the wrong person you might end up somewhere in a ditch. It was a bad place. I was around guys who had committed horrible crimes and I was scared to death, but you know what? It taught me how to be a leader and it taught me a little about the word trust. It was a very poor area in Tennessee. We didn’t even have a washing machine. We had to wash our clothes outside in the middle of winter in a tub or the creek…whichever you prefer. It was pointless to hang my clothes to dry because they would turn into an icicle. It was at U-turn for Christ that I learned how to have a little gratitude. Really it was during my 1 year relapse that I learned more about what it means to be man, how to take care of myself, and to have gratitude for every blessing.
Near the end of that program the Lord began telling me that I would meet my wife at the end of May. What was interesting was that I graduated U-turn for Christ on the first day of Passover April 11th, 2015. I went back to Georgia that day with a lot of hope. I did move back in with my parents, which was a terrible idea, but I found a job immediately and began working. On May 29th, 2015 at age 31 I went on my first date with a woman named Kim Woodard. It happened just like the Lord had said and I knew she was to be my wife. It was a very exciting time for me because I had finally met the person I had been waiting on for years.
Then, once again, something unexpected happened. Two weeks after I met her my old drug dealer got a hold of me and I relapsed. Kim said it was a good thing that she met me before I relapsed and saw the person I really was before drugs changed me. If it hadn’t been for that, she wouldn’t have stayed. I’m sure you are wondering how in the heck I could relapse after God had done so many miracles, but statistically meth users are still 50% likely to relapse even after being clean for 10 years. It creeps up on you when you least expect it. God, being Who He is, saw that I was going to relapse again and He used Kim to help keep me alive. I remember one night I was about to overdose with a second gram of meth that I had in my pocket and the Lord sent Kim to my house just in the knick of time before I snorted what would’ve killed me. She told me that she loved me and when she said that I knew I had to stop using, so I took the drugs flushed them down the toilet and I began to seek help again.
On September 17th, 2015 I went to a place called Sober Living America. It was a half-way house in Atlanta. I knew that if I wanted to hang onto Kim I had to stop using. It was my last chance. It was hard going into my 6th program but I just humbled myself and became obedient. I was determined this time to stay straight because I knew I had to. There was no more time left to waste and I really didn’t want the path I was going down to become any darker.
After 2 months in this program something else very unexpected happened….
I was taking a shower one day and the Lord all the sudden spoke to me and told me to put in an application in at Three Dimensional Life. I for sure thought He was crazy because with my recent track record and only 2 months clean there was no way that 3D would even look my way. The Lord said, “just do it and I’m going to do something that will amaze you because I still have big plans for you.” I put the application in online and about 3 days later I received a call from a gentleman named Bo Hairston. He was the Program Director for Three Dimensional Life! We set up an interview and I went and spoke with him. I was completely honest with my past and the fact that I had only been clean for 2 months. Bo said that he would call me on the following Monday and give me a definite answer. I guess you can imagine that I was on edge waiting for that call. That weekend I got on my face several times before God and begged for a chance to be back in ministry. I promised that I would not let Him or 3D down. Monday came and I never received a call. I thought that maybe he was busy and would call me over the next few days, but he never called me. I started to get very depressed and I began to have thoughts of using meth again. Here I was at 32 years old and still at one of the lowest points of my life and I wanted to give up. I was devastated that he hadn’t called.
It was that same week in November 2015 that I had been contemplating getting high and that’s when I heard His voice in my heart. He said, “Nathanael it is time for you to make a choice, no matter if you get the job at 3D or not you have to make a choice that you aren’t going to use drugs anymore. No one can make you stop, I can’t make you stop, and your family cannot stop you. You are the only one who can make this choice. I can tell you this: Your family needs you and Kim needs you. I am calling you to make a choice now.” That night I went out to a marta bus stop near the half-way house where I was staying and it was there that I made my choice. I prayed and I said, “God, today, no matter what happens I choose to put meth behind me. I choose to never use meth again and I choose you and I choose to love my family and Kim. I choose to serve you even if you don’t give me the life that I want. It’s not fair to my family or Kim for me to continue in this selfish addiction.” That was it, I made my choice not knowing if I would get the job at 3D or not. The very next day after I prayed and another miracle happened. I was walking out to the marta bench to pray again and the first thing that I saw when I walked up to that bench was a quarter gram of meth laying behind it. I’ve never in my life found drugs on the side of the road like that. I knew that the devil himself had place those drugs there. It was time to test my choice. I picked up that bag of meth, I opened it, pour it out and stomped it into the dirt and I told Satan that he wasn’t going to get me this time. After that moment I knew in my heart that I was done with drugs. 1 week later I started my brand new job at Three Dimensional Life. That was Nov.21st, 2015. 2015 truly was my turn around year.
As you can imagine, when I stepped foot back on the property at 3D I was more than happy. I was filled with so much wonder and excitement at the miracle the Lord had done in my life. There is no way with my past that anyone in their right mind would hire me to minister to teens knowing that 8 weeks earlier I was snorting speed up my nose. It was truly a miracle and I was so thankful. God knew that I had made my choice and for me drugs were history. He trusted me enough to give me another shot at my dreams. For days and days I thanked Him. The first day I pulled up in my Honda Civic to 3D I looked at my odometer and it read ‘555’. That was a number God had given me throughout 2015 to signify His grace. His grace brought me through my relapse, kept me alive, and led me to 3D. His grace brought me a wonderful wife and gave me hope for the future even though I did nothing to deserve it. His grace pulled me out of a mess that was impossible to overcome. It was the year that I thought my life had come to an end, but it was really just the beginning.
On February 7th, 2016 (the day I entered U-turn the year before) I asked Kim Woodard to marry me and at the age of 32 I got married on property at Three Dimensional Life just as the Lord has promised. I am currently working to become the program director and I know that I will be when God has finished preparing me for the job. He really has made my dreams a reality and brought me out of a deadly addiction. I know in my heart that without Him I wouldn't be here because my life was filled with too much pain and regret for me to continue on. 2016 has been one of the best years of my life. I have my dream job, a beautiful woman of God, 2 dogs and I am living the life that I dreamed of when I was laying in my bed high thinking that my life was over. God has done a mighty work in my life. He has redeemed the lost time in my life and restored the years that the locust have eaten. All this time He had been preparing me for His promises and all of the hardship, the tears, trials and tribulation served a specific purpose. He is so faithful and I give all the credit to Him. Without His redemptive work in my life I would not be here. Without Him I would be totally lost and undone. Thank You Lord for saving my life and redeeming your son. From the first day I entered No Longer Bound back in 2009 until now I am a completely new creation and I have a new identity. No longer is my life covered with shame because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and no longer do I have to live in the past or in my insecurities. The man He has made me today is a bold, confident, loving, mature husband and son of God. I started my journey of redemption in 2009 and I have walked through an incredible process where I have been given back my life and the time I lost has been redeemed. I am so glad to be here today sharing this story. God never gives up on us and He never stops loving us no matter how far we have fallen. If he can restore an addict like me and give him the life he dreamed of then He can certainly do it for you to. All things are possible for him who believes. Throughout my journey the only thing I really had to hold onto was Jesus and the promise for a better day. My dad always told me to hold on because there was a better day coming and that day finally came. Thank you to my family, Kim, and God for not giving up on me. I should be dead. God used the woman in the picture to save my life.
I am currently working to become a Certified Addictions Counselor so that I am better able to serve the young men in our ministry. Hopefully I can help them avoid the destructive life that I lived. All of the evil in my life has been worked together for my good and the good of all the young men that I will be fighting for on a daily basis. God took the mess that was my life and turned it into a message about His love, redemption, and grace. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.
MY STORY: His story of grace(nathanael logan)
I will start out by saying that I am not good at telling my story or writing, but I feel that I am being called to share it. There is someone out there that needs to read this and I believe God is going to use it to change your life. I want to start out by saying that it is a story of redemption, restoration, and a testimony of God’s grace in my life. He has done miracles for me that I never dreamed were even possible. Today I want to share my life and faith with you because people have to know that all things are possible for him who believes. I want people to know about all of the mighty miracles the Lord has done for me and how He rescued me from a life of addiction. I was doomed to failure but He brought through and gave me new life. I hope this story blesses you and provides you with enough inspiration and courage to move forward no matter what has happened in your life. It doesn’t matter how much time you have lost to sin, the Lord can redeem the years of your life. He can take every evil thing and turn it into something beautiful. It’s never too late. I will keep this as short and sweet as I can.
I honestly thought that at the age of 32 my life was over because I spent almost 9 years addicted to drugs and alcohol. I was addicted to methamphetamine, crack cocaine, and pornography. I’m not like your typical drug addict that comes from a broken home, divorce, or a traumatic past. I grew up in a good home with loving parents that always gave me anything I wanted. My parents worked hard to make sure that my sister and I felt loved and that we were always provided for. I was just a normal kid growing up in Flowery Branch, Ga. that loved sports, books, and I loved being outdoors and playing with my friends. I loved my family, along with all my friends at church and I loved God. It was when I became a teenager that many of my problems started. From age 13 I began to battle with depression. There were days that I was genuinely happy, but mostly I was severely depressed as a teenager. Like many adolescents, I struggled with the fear of rejection and that fear dominated my youth. I was also very shy and insecure around everyone. I’m not sure why I started believing negative things about myself, I guess it started with my ‘friends’ calling me names. I’m also positive that the enemy of my soul was always attempting to attack my identity as a young man by making me believe that I was stupid and worthless. Those beliefs weren’t as prominent as a teenager but the more I failed in life, the more I believed those words defined me. The most crippling fear in my life was the fear of rejection. I needed people to like and accept me more than the air I breathed. Drugs helped me become the person that I thought people could accept. My addiction started with a couple of bad friends from church. I guess you can say that peer pressure is what led me to try marijuana for the first time. Anyone that has tried this drug knows that it is just a gateway drug. Marijuana very quickly led to many other drugs, like ecstasy and crank and by the time I was 16 years old I was in a full blown addiction to methamphetamines. The first time I did it I felt like I found what was missing in my life. Meth made everything in my life seem like it was perfect. I could be the person I wanted to be, I had no problems, no depression, and I could be myself around my peers. This is when all the serious trouble in my life began. Little did I know that my experimentation with drugs was going to send me into a 9 year nightmare for both me and my family. I got expelled from school 3 times because of drugs and I had a few run ins with the law for the first couple of years of my drug use. Fighting with my parents and being a rebellious teenager was becoming normal. I stopped going to church, started losing the friends that really cared about me, I was disrespectful to my family, and I stopped caring about my relationship with God. Getting high was becoming the center of my life. I started hanging out with all the druggies and by the age of 18 I was a full blown addict.
I lived with my parents mostly until I was in my mid 20’s and I spent a good portion of my teen years using drugs inside of their home. I had no clue about life, I didn’t know how to take care of myself, I had no education, and no direction in life. As a grown man I still relied on my parents for everything and I was quickly becoming a career drug addict. I got kicked out of high school in 11th grade for the last time and tried to go to technical school. It was really tough living with my parents because my dad and I fought constantly. Our relationship was completely broken and my addiction was tearing the family apart. I was never really at home because I was always hanging out with my so called friends and I slowly lost interest in everything I loved growing up. I had completely withdrawn from my family and I stayed high on a daily basis. I think one of the worst things that I did to my family was when my mom cosigned with me to get a credit card and I had a card in our name with a $9,000 limit. I had convinced her that I needed a laptop for school so she helped me get one through her credit. I maxed out the credit line within 3 months on drugs and women. The day that the credit card company called my parents was one of the worst days of my life and it not only broke their hearts but mine as well. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I was so deep in my addiction to meth that I couldn’t stop.
After that, my pastor from the church I grew up in tried to take me to a place called No Longer Bound. It was a 10 month Christian rehab in Georgia. Of course I would not go into the program because I thought I could find a way to stop using on my own. As broken as my life was, I still refused help and it was just a classic case of denial. I went back home from the interview at No Longer Bound and just continued the same cycle of drug use until I was 24. When I was 24 years old, still living with my parents, going nowhere in life, and hopelessly addicted to meth I finally came to a breaking point. I had lost all of my friends because everyone hated the person I had become. I had no ambition, no drive for life, I was empty and I wanted to die. My family were the ones that were suffering the most and they could see how bad off I really was. I looked like a skeleton and I think I weighed about 130 pounds at 5’10”. I knew early in my life that God had great plans for me, but it only seemed like a fantasy at this point. I figured I could kiss His plans for my life goodbye because I was nothing more than a sinner that He was disappointed in and disgusted with. I wanted a relationship with God but I felt unworthy. I had already lost at least 20 jobs in my life and sold or pawned every valuable possession I had. My only hope for getting drug money was to buy a $1 scratch off ticket and hope to make enough to get high. My parents no longer trusted me because I had been stealing from and lying to them. I tried to stay high everyday if possible and if not, I was drunk. I wasn’t really sure what being sober even felt like. I was at my one of my lowest points. I was sure God hated me and He was going to wipe me off the face of the earth very soon. Why wouldn’t He? Look at all the terrible things I have done to myself and my family. Condemnation and shame were two of my closest friends. At age 24 I started to cry out to God for help. Little did I know, even in the midst of my sin, God had big plans for my life. Behind the scenes He had been devising a plan to bring me out of my addiction.
I remember sitting in my room one day high out of my mind and God spoke to me. I know that sounds bad, but it’s true. When else would He have said anything to me since I was always high? He kept giving me the word, “Passover Day”. I had no idea what it meant, but I knew that something was going to happen on Passover Day. I knew that my time at my parent’s house was going to come to an end because the Lord had a plan to drive me out of that house and start making me into the man I was called to be. It was the fall of 2008 when He began to speak to me. On December 17th, 2008 I had a spiritual experience and the Lord spoke a clear promise to me. He said, “Now that the storm is over you can catch your breath in the light of My mercies. I Am near to you, I the Lord, to restore everything to you and not only what you previously had but with an overflowing abundance.” He also said, “I will restore to you the years that the locust have eaten.” Basically, it was a promise to redeem the years of my life…all the time I had so foolishly wasted. I remember being surprised that He would even talk to a filthy sinner like me. I didn’t know that at the time He wasn’t condemning me but making plans to restore me to life. I knew that on Passover something was going to change for me.
At the time, I was on probation for a DUI I was charged with in November of 2008. Getting arrested was a painful experience, but I needed it. I couldn’t seem to hold a job or pass a drug test for probation so I started looking for a program because it was that or jail. Looking back on everything God was using my arrest to lead me to a program. On April 9th, 2009, on Passover day, I began the first day of my program at No Longer Bound (A Christ-centered drug and alcohol regeneration program). I had a tough 10 months ahead of me, but I knew that I had to change. Passover day was the first day of my road to recovery and redemption. It was my first day at No Longer Bound. Little did I know that this would start a 7 year process of restoration in my life.
During my stay at No Longer Bound God healed my soul and He changed me. He cleared away all the wreckage of my past and He began the process of making me into a new creation. The program was the hardest/scariest thing I’ve ever done. Before the program when life became confusing or too much to handle I would run to the only thing I knew that would make me feel safe…my parent’s house and drugs. At No Longer Bound I didn’t have anything to fall back on and I was forced to face myself and my past. In the program I had to deal with all of my issues and confront the person I had become and I was greatly ashamed of that person. I had other men surrounding me 24/7 who loved me enough to point out all of my character defects and God used them to shape me into the man I am today. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, but it was also the beginning of an incredible journey of salvation. During the last week of my program I realized that I had changed and I was no longer the same. I was not the person who walked in the doors 10 months prior. No Longer Bound taught me so many valuable lessons about life. I was very proud that I had finished something for the first time in my life. I was excited about life again. My relationship with my family hadn’t yet been completely restored but it was a great start and my life was finally moving in a positive direction. After the program I decided to stay an additional 10 months as a servant leader.
Near the end of my stay at No Longer Bound I was asked to set goals for my future and my plan was to go back to school for automotive technology and become ASE certified. Hopefully I would make a lot of money, have a family and move on with my life and I could put my addiction behind me, but I could sense that God had different plans and He was calling me into ministry. God has always been a part of my life, even in my addiction. He got a hold of my heart at a very young age and I remember growing up that I always told my grandmother that I wanted to be in ministry. I told my leaders at No Longer Bound that I felt called to ministry and they hooked me up with a place called Three Dimensional Life. This place was another program very much like No Longer Bound. The only difference was that it was for teenage boys struggling with addiction.
So…at age 27 I spent the next 15 months working at Three Dimensional life as a house parent. I got the opportunity to help adolescents avoid making the same mistakes I did in life. Let me tell you, that was a growing experience that I will never forget. I had to deal with a bunch of teenagers who were just like me when I was growing up. They were stubborn, manipulative, and didn’t listen to a single thing I had to say. I thought maybe God was punishing me for everything I put my parents through. Little did I know that my program didn’t end at No Longer Bound. When you spend almost a decade using drugs it can take a very long time to recover and I definitely needed more recovery than just 20 months at NLB. I will never forget the supernatural miracle I experienced in my own life and witnessed in the life of the boys of 3D. It was there that I continued to grow up and learn about being a man. Even though everything in my life was going much better than it was 3 years earlier I felt that something was missing. I remember near the end of my 15 months at 3D I started noticing that everyone I knew had a girlfriend or wife. And here I am at 28 years old, single and still so socially awkward that I couldn’t hardly even hang out with my friends because it was so painful. Even after all the change I had been through, social anxiety disorder still crippled my life. I remember going out on one date while I worked at 3D and believe me that took a lot of courage to even show up. I really began to struggle with loneliness and I wondered if anyone would ever want me because I didn’t feel that I had much to offer. Once again, God spoke to my heart and said that He had a wife for me, but that I had to wait and be patient. He said that I would meet her when I turned 31 years old and that He would be using the next few years to prepare us both for marriage. It was a tough pill to swallow because I knew that I had already lost so many years of my life….why did God want me to wait another 3 years. So I did the only thing I could do, I held tightly to His promises and I waited.
After 15 months as a house parent I believed that it was time for me to move on. I had received a job offer from No Longer Bound and they wanted me to come back and be on staff. I spent the next 2 years teaching inner healing (something I thought would never be possible) and working at Cars 4 Recovery as a shop manager. The funny part about it is that I never expected to be working at No Longer Bound after 3D and what really threw me for a loop was the fact that my very first day on staff at No Longer Bound was April 9th, 2012! April 9th, 2009 was the very day I entered the program at No Longer Bound….Passover day and now here I am back on staff at Passover. Obviously, I was convinced that God’s hand was on my life as He led me every step of the way.
After 2 years of working at No Longer Bound the Lord spoke to my heart and said that I had grown as much as I could in that environment and it was time for me to move on. I honestly didn’t have any clue what the next step was. He didn’t say where He wanted me to go, but He did make another promise to me. He promised me that I would be the Program Director of Three Dimensional Life and I would also get married on 3D property.
At the end of my 2 years at No Longer Bound something very unexpected happened…I relapsed for 1 year. I’m not sure why I relapsed, but I think part of the reason is because I kept the door open to sin at times. There were times when I still struggled with lust and I think the enemy used that against me. I also had never lived life outside of my parent’s house or an institution. In a sense I had become institutionalized and really didn’t know how to make it in the real world. After all I had been through I didn’t see a relapse coming, but I don’t really think anyone ever does. In the AA program they call addiction cunning and baffling. I do know that right before I relapsed I began to become angry with God because my life wasn’t happening as fast as I thought it should. I was sick of waiting for a wife, I was sick of my social awkwardness and the believing that I was stupid. I was just tired of waiting and I cursed God for not giving me the life I wanted when I wanted it. After all, I felt that I had earned it over the last 5 years. If it were up to me my recovery would’ve taken a lot less time. I’m a very impatient person. Looking back I realize that I was extremely blessed but too spoiled to actually see it. I didn’t realize that people who had the things that I wanted had worked hard to get where they are and I was pissed at God for not handing life to me on a silver platter. Apparently, after years in recovery, I still had a lot of growing up to do.
After a few months of being away from NLB and using drugs I ended up living with my parents again in the summer of 2014. I once again was full blown into a meth addiction and I eventually ended up pawning the title to my car. I worked several jobs landscaping and just kept quitting and getting fired because I kept getting high. I think that 2014 was the absolute worst year of my life. My parents were devastated over my relapse and I kept wondering what I did wrong to miss out on God’s plan for me. My mom was in and out of the hospital because of heart problems due to the stress I put on her. Everytime I would come down from a high I would just sit up in my bed and cry. I was so confused at how my life had taken a turn for the worst. The only thing I could get from God at the time was that He was using this experience to humble me and train me for the future. He also said that part of my problem was that I thought to highly of myself, I couldn’t see that then, but I see it now. I tell you what….after being clean for 5 years and being on staff at two recovery ministries it was more than just humbling, it was humiliating. I ended up back at No Longer Bound trying to get in the program down in West Ga. at what used to be another one of the campuses. I made it through the program about 3 weeks before I had a mental breakdown. I left that program and tried a half-way house, which I only made it through about 4 weeks there before I started smoking crack. I was becoming the very person that I hated again and perpetuating the shame that dominated my life.
At the end of 2014 God spoke to me once again and said that 2015 would be my turn around year. I started telling my dad that it would be my turn around year and that he didn’t need to worry because it was going to be a year of grace and I would make it. It was also supposed to be the year that I would meet my wife according to God’s past promise. By that time I had figured that if God did have a plan for my life I had destroyed it and there was no chance of seeing His promises because I had relapsed. I figured that if I did get married or ever become the Program Director at 3D that it was going to be a very long time, if it even happened at all. I longed to see my dreams come true but seemed to lack the will power to take a step in the right direction. Somehow, in the midst of my addiction and suffering, I knew that things would begin to turn around in February of 2015.
On February 7th, 2015, I was led to a drug and alcohol program called U-turn for Christ in Tennessee. It was a 2 month, very intense, residential program. I remember my first day in that program very clear because I was so hurt and disappointed in myself. After my parents dropped me off there and left I just sat there in my bed and cried. Nothing seemed to make the pain go away. I remember my first week there I fell to my knees while we were outside working and I told God that I felt like this was the end of my life. He responded to me with a song by Steven Curtis Chapman called ‘Glorious Unfolding’ and he encouraged me that my story had only just begun. Even though it was an extremely painful time in my life, it was there that I knew I was being prepared for leadership at Three Dimensional Life. U-turn for Christ was so rough. It was full of men who had been to prison and in that place if you crossed the wrong person you might end up somewhere in a ditch. It was a bad place. I was around guys who had committed horrible crimes and I was scared to death, but you know what? It taught me how to be a leader and it taught me a little about the word trust. It was a very poor area in Tennessee. We didn’t even have a washing machine. We had to wash our clothes outside in the middle of winter in a tub or the creek…whichever you prefer. It was pointless to hang my clothes to dry because they would turn into an icicle. It was at U-turn for Christ that I learned how to have a little gratitude. Really it was during my 1 year relapse that I learned more about what it means to be man, how to take care of myself, and to have gratitude for every blessing.
Near the end of that program the Lord began telling me that I would meet my wife at the end of May. What was interesting was that I graduated U-turn for Christ on the first day of Passover April 11th, 2015. I went back to Georgia that day with a lot of hope. I did move back in with my parents, which was a terrible idea, but I found a job immediately and began working. On May 29th, 2015 at age 31 I went on my first date with a woman named Kim Woodard. It happened just like the Lord had said and I knew she was to be my wife. It was a very exciting time for me because I had finally met the person I had been waiting on for years.
Then, once again, something unexpected happened. Two weeks after I met her my old drug dealer got a hold of me and I relapsed. Kim said it was a good thing that she met me before I relapsed and saw the person I really was before drugs changed me. If it hadn’t been for that, she wouldn’t have stayed. I’m sure you are wondering how in the heck I could relapse after God had done so many miracles, but statistically meth users are still 50% likely to relapse even after being clean for 10 years. It creeps up on you when you least expect it. God, being Who He is, saw that I was going to relapse again and He used Kim to help keep me alive. I remember one night I was about to overdose with a second gram of meth that I had in my pocket and the Lord sent Kim to my house just in the knick of time before I snorted what would’ve killed me. She told me that she loved me and when she said that I knew I had to stop using, so I took the drugs flushed them down the toilet and I began to seek help again.
On September 17th, 2015 I went to a place called Sober Living America. It was a half-way house in Atlanta. I knew that if I wanted to hang onto Kim I had to stop using. It was my last chance. It was hard going into my 6th program but I just humbled myself and became obedient. I was determined this time to stay straight because I knew I had to. There was no more time left to waste and I really didn’t want the path I was going down to become any darker.
After 2 months in this program something else very unexpected happened….
I was taking a shower one day and the Lord all the sudden spoke to me and told me to put in an application in at Three Dimensional Life. I for sure thought He was crazy because with my recent track record and only 2 months clean there was no way that 3D would even look my way. The Lord said, “just do it and I’m going to do something that will amaze you because I still have big plans for you.” I put the application in online and about 3 days later I received a call from a gentleman named Bo Hairston. He was the Program Director for Three Dimensional Life! We set up an interview and I went and spoke with him. I was completely honest with my past and the fact that I had only been clean for 2 months. Bo said that he would call me on the following Monday and give me a definite answer. I guess you can imagine that I was on edge waiting for that call. That weekend I got on my face several times before God and begged for a chance to be back in ministry. I promised that I would not let Him or 3D down. Monday came and I never received a call. I thought that maybe he was busy and would call me over the next few days, but he never called me. I started to get very depressed and I began to have thoughts of using meth again. Here I was at 32 years old and still at one of the lowest points of my life and I wanted to give up. I was devastated that he hadn’t called.
It was that same week in November 2015 that I had been contemplating getting high and that’s when I heard His voice in my heart. He said, “Nathanael it is time for you to make a choice, no matter if you get the job at 3D or not you have to make a choice that you aren’t going to use drugs anymore. No one can make you stop, I can’t make you stop, and your family cannot stop you. You are the only one who can make this choice. I can tell you this: Your family needs you and Kim needs you. I am calling you to make a choice now.” That night I went out to a marta bus stop near the half-way house where I was staying and it was there that I made my choice. I prayed and I said, “God, today, no matter what happens I choose to put meth behind me. I choose to never use meth again and I choose you and I choose to love my family and Kim. I choose to serve you even if you don’t give me the life that I want. It’s not fair to my family or Kim for me to continue in this selfish addiction.” That was it, I made my choice not knowing if I would get the job at 3D or not. The very next day after I prayed and another miracle happened. I was walking out to the marta bench to pray again and the first thing that I saw when I walked up to that bench was a quarter gram of meth laying behind it. I’ve never in my life found drugs on the side of the road like that. I knew that the devil himself had place those drugs there. It was time to test my choice. I picked up that bag of meth, I opened it, pour it out and stomped it into the dirt and I told Satan that he wasn’t going to get me this time. After that moment I knew in my heart that I was done with drugs. 1 week later I started my brand new job at Three Dimensional Life. That was Nov.21st, 2015. 2015 truly was my turn around year.
As you can imagine, when I stepped foot back on the property at 3D I was more than happy. I was filled with so much wonder and excitement at the miracle the Lord had done in my life. There is no way with my past that anyone in their right mind would hire me to minister to teens knowing that 8 weeks earlier I was snorting speed up my nose. It was truly a miracle and I was so thankful. God knew that I had made my choice and for me drugs were history. He trusted me enough to give me another shot at my dreams. For days and days I thanked Him. The first day I pulled up in my Honda Civic to 3D I looked at my odometer and it read ‘555’. That was a number God had given me throughout 2015 to signify His grace. His grace brought me through my relapse, kept me alive, and led me to 3D. His grace brought me a wonderful wife and gave me hope for the future even though I did nothing to deserve it. His grace pulled me out of a mess that was impossible to overcome. It was the year that I thought my life had come to an end, but it was really just the beginning.
On February 7th, 2016 (the day I entered U-turn the year before) I asked Kim Woodard to marry me and at the age of 32 I got married on property at Three Dimensional Life just as the Lord has promised. I am currently working to become the program director and I know that I will be when God has finished preparing me for the job. He really has made my dreams a reality and brought me out of a deadly addiction. I know in my heart that without Him I wouldn't be here because my life was filled with too much pain and regret for me to continue on. 2016 has been one of the best years of my life. I have my dream job, a beautiful woman of God, 2 dogs and I am living the life that I dreamed of when I was laying in my bed high thinking that my life was over. God has done a mighty work in my life. He has redeemed the lost time in my life and restored the years that the locust have eaten. All this time He had been preparing me for His promises and all of the hardship, the tears, trials and tribulation served a specific purpose. He is so faithful and I give all the credit to Him. Without His redemptive work in my life I would not be here. Without Him I would be totally lost and undone. Thank You Lord for saving my life and redeeming your son. From the first day I entered No Longer Bound back in 2009 until now I am a completely new creation and I have a new identity. No longer is my life covered with shame because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and no longer do I have to live in the past or in my insecurities. The man He has made me today is a bold, confident, loving, mature husband and son of God. I started my journey of redemption in 2009 and I have walked through an incredible process where I have been given back my life and the time I lost has been redeemed. I am so glad to be here today sharing this story. God never gives up on us and He never stops loving us no matter how far we have fallen. If he can restore an addict like me and give him the life he dreamed of then He can certainly do it for you to. All things are possible for him who believes. Throughout my journey the only thing I really had to hold onto was Jesus and the promise for a better day. My dad always told me to hold on because there was a better day coming and that day finally came. Thank you to my family, Kim, and God for not giving up on me. I should be dead. God used the woman in the picture to save my life.
I am currently working to become a Certified Addictions Counselor so that I am better able to serve the young men in our ministry. Hopefully I can help them avoid the destructive life that I lived. All of the evil in my life has been worked together for my good and the good of all the young men that I will be fighting for on a daily basis. God took the mess that was my life and turned it into a message about His love, redemption, and grace. Thank you for taking the time to read my story.
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