Submitted by Brother Tom

     My name is Tom and I am a sinner saved by the Grace of God through His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

     I was born into a loving Christian family during the early nineteen-fifties. I was forced to attend Church all of my early life. I was taught about Jesus but never really understood the concept of the Power of the Holy Sprit.

             My early childhood was spent playing in the woods and I had a special love for dogs, only a few store bought toys can be remembered. I was encouraged, (I felt forced) to participate in Scouting, church groups, and sports. At about age ten or eleven I was encouraged to work at my dad’s service station. Later in life at family functions I would jokingly tell my dad in front of the family that forced servitude of a minor is called child slavery. I learned a lot of useful stuff in the Boy Scouts but that was where I learned to smoke cigarettes, drink beer and sneak out at night without getting caught. By age fifteen Scouting, church groups, and sports were history, now I was working, driving, hanging out at pool halls, going to bars, drinking and raising hell in the “60’s” was the driving force for my life. I don’t remember my High School graduation, several of my friends and I got drunk the night before, but I was there. Five weeks later I was off to Nashville Auto Diesel College to learn a trade and keep from being drafted into the Army. Turning eighteen in 1968 was a fearful thing indeed, the Vietnam conflict was at its peak and the Army was taking anyone that didn’t have a college deferment. I graduated from the Auto Diesel College in 1969 after taking classes both night and day. I had to bum rides and use public transportation while in Nashville, I wasn’t in a hurry to get drafted but I was in a hurry to get back home and find a job. After being back home for a couple months I had a good job, new car, and that all dreaded draft notice. The bus that transported the group from Henry County to get our physicals was pack. Being classified 1-A was a fearful time in my life, I drank a lot, was afraid to get into a serous relationship and lived for the moment. I and one other guy were the only two left that were on that bus to get our physicals when President Richard Nixon decided that a draft lottery would be the fair way to pick inductees rather than by random. I won and didn’t have to go to Army.

       I enjoyed living life on the edge, working hard and having fun. Illegal drag racing on the streets of southern Virginia brought me both pleasure and profit. President Jimmy Carter put an end to my drag racing during the gas shortages of the mid Seventies. Needing the thrill of competing and speed brought me into the world of showing game horses. During this period of time I impregnated my girl friend, got married and started a family. My son was born April 15, 1976. Everything I wanted as a child I made sure my son had from toys, ponies and parties, to fun at the beach. I worked hard, played hard and enjoyed my family life. In 1979 the company where I worked as an industrial maintenance man closed. While working for this company I was involved with the Teamsters labor union as a shop steward. This is when I first felt a need to help people with their problems.

       I thought I could enjoy a few months of unemployment but during this time is when I realized the extent of my wife’s drug problem. My marriage was rocky before the lay off and the stress of only having about a third of the income coupled with my wife’s drug problem ended the marriage. In February of 1981 I took my son from the home of his drug abusive mother. I wanted my son to know there was a different way to live his life one where it was ok to be honest and to never be ashamed of the things he did. I wanted him to know if you never do anything you are ashamed of, you will never fill ashamed. My son’s mother moved out and I became a single parent. My son’s grandparents were more than glad to help with his needs as I looked for employment. Because of the up coming divorce and lack of income the horse was sold and the motor cycle was purchased. I had a lot of friends that were biker and I used the excuse of fuel economy as reasons for my new life style. I worked at a couple of low paying jobs to make ends meet until my dad made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.  

      My Dad was getting ready to retire at age sixty two. This hard working self made man had looked forward to his retirement for years, a time to fish, work in his garden and travel with my mom. Dad wanted me to come back to work for him and after his retirement he was going to give me the business he had established over thirty years earlier. I accepted the offer and was back where I started working at my Dad’s service station with the dream of expanding the business and making my fortune. I agreed with my son’s mother that we would have joint custody with provision we would not do drugs or abuse alcohol in front of our son. I would look after my son’s needs weekdays during the school year and his mother would look after him on weekends and in the summer I would have him on weekends. For over fifteen years I had been living my dirty little lie of alcohol and drug abuse but never around my son or our family. I felt as though there was no power greater than me! I could not or would not believe there was a God or a place that was known as heaven or hell.

       On July 22, 1981 while riding my bike I was involved in an accident with a sixteen year old girl that had been driving only a few weeks. This young lady didn’t see me as I rode my bike through four way intersection; I awoke in a puddle of gasoline, the bike still between my legs. I had suffered a L1, L2 spinal injury, both vertebras were completely crushed. I survived a twenty two hour operation to stabilize my back. My mom was beside my bed when I first awoke from the surgery. She informed me I would be paralyzed from the waste down due to the spinal injury. I was like a six month old baby; I had to be taught how to complete even the simplest physical task. The impossible happened; I was able to move a toe. The doctors said there was no way this could be happening due to the damage of the spinal cord. The head of neurosurgery at North Carolina Baptist Hospitals explained to me the extent of my spinal injury; He said “your spinal cord is about the texture of a banana, yours looked like it had been stepped on and then the foot smeared it across the floor”, what you are doing is impossible. Three months of intense therapy had passed and now I was leaving the hospital in a body brace that I would wear for a year, but I was also using long leg braces to do some walking. While in the hospital my son’s mother wouldn’t let him visit and said I wouldn’t be able to look after him. I knew I had to get my son out of that environment.

      My mother wanted me to stay at my parent’s home until my mobility improved and the dilemmas with my son’s living arrangements were settled. After threats of legal action my son was allowed to stay with me at my parents. My son’s mother filed for divorce and we agreed to split the property and my son would stay with me during the school weekdays and weekend during the summer. I was obsessed with regaining my mobility to the point I would work out sixteen hours a day. By hyper extending my knees I was able to get out of the long leg braces and just use the forearm crutches. A couple years later I graduated to using two canes. All this time I was learning to deal with chronic pain. The half of my savings account from the divorce was drained after three years of no income. President Ronald Regan in effort to balance the budget was denying Social Security Disability benefits that I had paid into while working and was entitled to by law.

        My parents came through again and were lending me twenty dollars a week for necessities. My mobility was still very limited and endurance was limited to about three or four hours before the pain became unbearable. A friend told me a way I could get some money by playing poker. He said all I needed to do was take my time and play only the hand that I knew I would win, he called it playing locks. He was right; I had plenty of ill gotten money by playing poker. I still took my responsibility for raising my son very serious. I would always be back at my parent’s home before my son woke up. Now in the first grade, I would get him up in the mornings and get him ready for school. After he was gone I would go to bed, get up, exercise, go back to bed, get up, exercise and wait for him to get home from school. We would do school work, play, and some have fun. I would put him to bed and go play poker again. This went on for about eighteen months until I met my brother’s, girl friend. This young lady told a story that was heart wrenching, her dad was one of those people I had been winning money from. She told of how her brothers and sisters went to school without proper cloths, lunch money, or school supplies. She told about not having food, heating oil or any extra money at home because of her father gambling away his pay check and her mother’s pay check every week. This young lady is the middle child of nine children. My brother’s girl friend had left home at the age of fifteen, got a job, finished school and lived on her own until moving in with my brother at age nineteen. This brought me under conviction, I felt her pain and stopped playing poker not because I didn’t win but because of the families that were losers.  My brother and his wife have been together for over twenty years now, married for fifteen years with a twelve year old son. This stage of my life as gambler was over.

        I still was exercising and dealing with chronic pain when I received my Social Security Disability benefits a few weeks after I had stopped playing poker. I was able to repay the money I had received from my parents and outstanding loans that I had made prior to my injury.  My son and I would survive with this income. My son was now in the third grade and at his mom’s when he called on the phone and told me that his mother had been doing drugs while he was with her, even smoking pot as they drove down the road together. I go to pick my son up and confront my x-wife about her drug use when her boy friend gets in my face and says for me to leave his woman alone and for me to never come back over there. I said OK as I hobbled out on my canes with my son. If I couldn’t go back over there how could I take my son back? I got a lawyer to file with court for custody of my son. The money that was left from my Social Security Disability back pay was now being invested in my son’s future as payment to our lawyer. This is when I gave up all alcohol and drug use. I won the custody case and my son’s mother could only have supervised visitation with her parents. During this period of time my dad had retired at age sixty five and sold his business.

       Three months after retiring my dad was diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. This once strong man was filling the draining effects of chemo therapy and radiation therapy. Oh so sick was this man, my father, my friend; I had to honor his dieing request, he wanted me to go to church with him and my mother. I never believed there was a power greater me. I thought stories in the Bible were only stories told by shepherds setting around the camp fire. For years I would set there in church ever Sunday that my parents were able to go and listen but didn’t believe that God is real. Four years of helping my mom look after my dad as a cancer patient, raising my son, dealing with constant chronic pain and getting dumped by my girl friend weighed heavy on my emotions, I wanted to die, I know now it was Satan attacking me through depression. I was clean and sober for five years by this time; I wanted to hide from reality, I did not want to deal with life on life’s terms, I was so sad. I wanted to feel the numbing effect and escape of substance abuse. There had to be another way.  It was Christmas Eve 1987; my whole family always attended the Christmas Eve service and then has a family get together at my parent’s house. So sad I was, a hurt that wouldn’t go away but I went to the service and pretended every thing was fine for my dad’s sake; the cancer treatments made his so sick. Substance abuse was not an option to relieve this emotional pain I was being smothered by. That night at the alter during communion I ask, “Lord if you are real take all my hurt and sadness away”. It felt as if cold air went into the right side of my body, from head to toe and then out the left side and in the blink of an eye all my hurts and pain was gone. I never had felt such a force ever; there had never been such a feeling felt by me in all my life. The feeling of peace and joy was overwhelming. I knew that being born again was real. I wasn’t sure what this power really was that I felt that night, so I started studying the bible, and all other forms of religions. Even when I was alone I never felt alone. I became an active church member, doing the best I could consider my physical limitations. Helping others became my life. About a year later my dad passed after battling cancer for about five years. I started back to college and am now a senior at Old Dominion University majoring in Human Services.  A few months after my dad’s death from cancer my mom discovered she had ovarian cancer.

       My mom and I both agreed we would never go through what my dad suffered with chemo therapy and radiation. My mom’s cancer was cured with a complete hysterectomy. My mom lived the remainder of her life as a helper. Tending to the needs critically ill friends and family members was her mission in later years. Mom’s church ministry was to deliver video taped sermons to shut-ins. July 21^st, 2004 my mother went on to Glory after spending three months as a Hospice patient. I tended to all my mothers needs for those three months, Jesus was my constant companion and I was so blessed with this faith walk.

            I tell you now as a fact ALL Blessings come through Jesus Christ! 

      Believe, ask and you will receive the true desires of your heart. I am so blessed only because this sinner did ask. All my needs, all, come through Jesus Christ.

·        My spiritual needs-A Pastor who is my brother and friend that teaches and preaches the truth about The Father, God; The Son, Jesus; and the awesome power of The Holy Ghost.  A loving and caring Church family who accepts me as the person I am not the person I once was.

·        My physical needs- After a L1,L2 spinal injury I am able to stand, walk and endure the pain that ravages my body without medications or any other substances.

·        Educational needs- In high school I was told that I was not the type of person that could comprehend the knowledge needed for a formal education. I should learn a trade so that is what I did. Inspired by study of the Bible and led by the Holy Spirit I entered a local Community College. In 1999, I was inducted into Phi Theta Kappa honor society, 2000-2001, Who’s Who among students in American Junior Colleges and in 2003 The Trio Academic Achievement Award for male graduate with the highest grade point average for 2002-2003. I am now a senior at Old Dominion University with a 3.6/4.0 GPA majoring in Human Services. This is what God has done through the Holy Ghost!! I give Him all credit, all praise and honor for every part of my education.       

·        My financial needs- My bills are getting paid and day to days needs are being met.

·        My spousal needs- A love and understanding that has come through Jesus has united me and my best friend who will some day be my help mate, my partner for life. (Pray for Amy to be delivered from any and all harassments and attacks of enemy through The Blood of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.)   Amen, thank you for praying and may God pour out His Blessing for you and your loved ones.

  Conclusion: Thank you Jesus for all areas of my life. I will not dwell on the past nor will I worry about tomorrow. I will give all Praise, and Honor today for You being this sinner’s Lord and Savior and most awesome Caregiver through faith, my Jesus Christ of Nazareth.   
I know not where my life may lead me tomorrow but I do know Jesus is alive and God is real and all things are possible to those that believe.  

Tom, a sinner saved by Grace.