Description:
One Testimony of What God has done in my life: "Getting me out of Jail."
I moved to Abbotsford when I was 15 from Toronto, it was a very hard move for me to leave all my friends that I had grew up with over the past 7 years. I began drinking alcohol and partying and hanging out with people who stole things and did drugs etc.
One night I asked a person I was hanging out with if I could take the stolen truck that he had and I was going to drive back to Toronto to see my old friends. I decided I would steal gas from the gas stations all the way to Toronto. I was very drunk when I decided to do this. So I took the truck and went home and packed a few bags late at night. I remember my mother waking up. I had another person accompany me in the truck.
I pulled up to my first gas station still in Abbotsfords and there were police cars at the Tim Hortons beside the gas station. The gas station pumps were full of cars at the time and I was too drunk to be able to back up properly so I tried to squeeze in between a vehicle at the pump and the gas station. I didn't make the squeeze and I ended up scrapping along the car beside me. I sped off unto the Highway in which I was pursued by police down the highway, threw some back roads and out into Chilliwack where the police punctured my tires with a spike belt which slowly deflated my tires. Once the truck I was driving slowed down enough and was unable to turn due to driving on rims I turned the truck into a school, got out of the car and ran away. Soon afterwards the police had caught me with the help of a police dog. The dog had torn my left tricep muscle while capturing me.
I spent the next 2 weeks in jail and asking God to forgive me. I read the Bible and prayed often and really begged God to get me out of this situation. As the courts were asking to keep me in jail for 6-9 months and this was not my first conviction. I had plead guilty and was only awaiting sentencing. I remember doing everything I could to "clean" up the jail cells I spent time in. I would use my fingernails to scrape off anything that was evil from the walls or scrape it enough so it was illegable.
Two weeks later I was in a cage just behind the court room waiting and ready to be escourted through the door to the court room for my sentencing. When I felt this peace like a cloud decending on me. This feeling was of peace and reassurance that everything was going to be ok and that I only needed to follow God's lead in the court room. I did not know what this peace meant but I knew that everything was going to be ok. I thought to myself that either God is going to be with me during the 6-9 months of jail time or that he would get me out but either way it was going to be ok.
I was taken into the court room and the judge spoke. I don't remember what he was saying but I was sad at the entire situation and I felt like crying which I rarely ever did in that time of my life. Yet I felt God wanted me to allow myself to cry so I did.
I do remember the judge than talking about a farmer and a story about a pig who would not listen to correction. The point of his story was that he was giving me a chance but if he ever saw me back in the court room that he would nail me very hard.
Within a few hours I was out on the street walking down the sidewalk with my girlfriend under my arm and my parents walking by my side. The sun was shining and I was so very grateful for God's mercy in my life.
While in jail I told God that if he got me out of this mess that I would do my best to not get into any more trouble. Within 6 weeks of being let go from jail with nothing more than a suspended licence, 150 community hours and a 2 year probation I was arrested again and this time it was for assault. This time I was sentenced to 2 months in jail and during that time a Christian Biker club visited the jail and I gave my life to Christ.
When I got out of jail I attended church regularly on Sundays, Bible study on Wednesday and a Youth Christian thing called, "God Rock" on Friday evenings, Murray Dueck was the youth pastor there at the time. It was during my time at this church, Valley Christian Fellowship, that I felt God's love for me and learned of His plan for my life. I learned and experienced many powerful and life changing things in which I knew Jesus Christ was God, that He loved me and had a plan for me. That He was faithful and I was to obey Him and He would give me a life which included giving me the desires of my heart.
My life has never been the same since. God has transformed me inwardly and I am a new man. Thanks be to God. :D