I am a long-distance lorry driver and previously I was a landscape gardener.
My Background
At secondary school I started to sell drugs to my friends. I attended many raves and gradually drugs began to control me. I bought and sold drugs, making great amounts of money – but it was never enough. Often, I was in trouble with the Police, once Police with guns even closed my street and came into my home. I grew cannabis in my home. I was popular as I became the DJ at these raves and in being the drug dealer for those attending. Drugs made me feel invincible but gradually they sucked life from me. Drug misuse brought me to the place of being near to death.
Admitting defeat
I admitted defeat.
After 20 years of this lifestyle, I was desperate, I had only one chance left. My mum contacted a Christian friend in Dover, and she found me a Christian rehabilitation centre. I was in this residential centre during Covid living with 40 other men from Jan 2020 until summer 2022. Many of these men had had terrible pasts, some homeless, many broken from drug addiction or involved in crime. I sensed that something good was going to happen to me as soon I joined this centre.
The centre was very strict, we were never able to go anywhere alone at first: 7am wake up, 7:30 breakfast, 8:00 chapel, 9-5 gardening work. There were responsibility areas for laundry, making breakfast, waking people up, securing the premises. This is where I learnt how to landscape gardens , restore furniture and most importantly to start to build my relationship with Jesus Christ.
The change Jesus brought
During a church service one day after a sermon about sanctification, the preacher prayed for me. I felt a great power move through me and into me. A weight lift from me. I kept saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”, tears streaming down my face. It was a moment of monumental change, a moment of true repentance. I gave my life to Christ. My selfishness and self-destruction began to change from that moment. There is nothing that God cannot do. He changed and saved me. That moment changed me forever. I have experienced what the Bible described – a heart of stone being replaced by a heart of flesh.
However, I often had horrid, dark, demonic dreams. In fact, I think the whole world is working to draw us away from serving Christ. The book of Job is one of my favourite books in the Bible and I love chapter 28 verse 28: ‘the fear of the Lord – that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding’. Job has different voices, different friends speaking to him. I know that Jesus is the true God.
Powerfull dream
One night, I had a powerful dream that brought me to the point of decision making. The dream was of my workplace – an engineering workshop. In the dream everything in the workshop was so clean, miraculously clean, perfectly clean. Normally from this workplace after a day at work I would be covered with dust and dirt everywhere.
In the dream I asked to see the policies – to see if it was a good place to work. The policies were brought to me and they were perfect. Then I saw a man, with two other men by his side. This man was like the leader at my Christian rehabilitation home but he had an amazingly golden beard and perfect features. It was like God was showing me Jesus, through this man. The men on either side were holy and warned me from speaking badly to the holy ‘manager’.
The choice
I knew God was giving me a choice: to chose the pure way or the dirty way. It was a choice about discipleship, lifestyle.
Sometimes my friends would pray for me. I received many occurrences like this where it was impossible to believe that these were coincidences. It has become impossible for me not to believe in God.
Today
I serve now on the PA in church in UK. Although I love worship and music and need the Bible and know it is the source of power. The song ‘Come Holy Spirit’ by Bright City was an important stage in my healing. The phrase ‘I’m on my knees’ in the song described where I had been (from drug addiction) and now it described where I wanted to be (before Jesus Christ).
I have experienced spiritual battles and attacks but God’s Word has protected me and I know that God is sovereign.
I want to give back to God and others. I have received so much. I have indisputably heard and felt God. Now I am learning to trust him even when I don’t feel him and learning to follow him more closely every day.
I have felt God’s faithfulness.
– Michael, UK