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Surrender, Freedom and Transformation

#156. He Has Been Waiting For You

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 Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

I grew up in Cuba where I earned my doctorate degree in veterinary science in 1997. For four years, I had a very successful, busy practice specializing in surgery. But I felt something was missing. I had an emptiness in my life. I was not a Christian but did know that the spiritual world existed. I decided to go to a Methodist church in my city for a revival. There were several hundred people there but the pastor pointed me out and said, “God has a plan for your life. He wants to use you and He has been waiting for you.” I didn’t believe in Christ so I moved to the back of the church. The pastor started praying for people and they started falling on the ground. I didn’t know what was going on. I am a naturally curious person and this intrigued me.

The next day I went back to the revival and the pastor said the same thing to me. I still wasn’t picking up on this message. I just really wanted to see what he was doing and was there only as an observer. When he did an altar call I ran to the front to see what he was doing. There was a long line of people waiting. The pastor was praying and saying “Holy Spirit come!” and people would fall on the ground when he prayed for them. I was in line for him to pray for me and prepared myself not to fall. When he prayed over me, I fell to the floor laughing and crying. A couple of my friends tried to help me up but I couldn’t get up. Finally, I got up and left the church wondering, “What was that?”  During the months that followed, I continued to reflect on what had happened and I continued to feel that same emptiness that took me to church in the first place.

After six months, I went back to the same church and received Christ. Finally, the emptiness was gone. When I came to Christ, all of my passion and drive were channeled for Christ. I became a tsunami, sharing the Gospel and bringing people to the church.  A month after I became a Christian, I left Cuba to move to the United States. Shortly before I left, in December of 2001, the church leadership called me in and told me that I would become a pastor. I didn’t believe it and laughed at them. But two months later, in February of 2002, I was a pastor at a church.

I came to U.S. chasing the American dream. I had my own plan but God challenged me to take His dreams and not mine. I moved to a city in the Midwest where my sister lived. I sought out a Methodist church to learn English and when I got there I knew more English than the teacher did. So, they asked me to teach the English class. Then the church asked me to teach a Bible Study. Then they asked me to give a sermon. I had only been a believer 6 months and I was preaching! People were coming to church and getting baptized. The Bishop in the Methodist church felt I needed training because I didn’t have the credentials to baptize people. He asked me to go to school to become licensed to baptize and preach which I did. I was still working as a veterinarian at this point.

My wife had come to the U.S. with me and she helped me plant a church in the Midwestern city where we were living.  After this, the Methodist church sent me to a rural area in Kentucky where my wife and I planted a second church. The Holy Spirit told me that the church would be for people coming from different places. I had a dream that the church was packed with people and the very next Sunday people started coming from all different places and the church was full. There were many baptisms. I was 29 years old and had given up my career in veterinary medicine for full time ministry. It was an exciting time. The church was growing and my wife and I had a vision for our future together. But then one day we were coming from a pastoral meeting and I had a car accident and my wife was killed. I was injured as well. I passed out or was dead – I’m not sure – but while this occurred I remember that my wife and I were together, lifted up above the scene of the accident and together we were walking toward the light. But I let go of her hand and she kept walking. She looked back and smiled at me and kept walking away from me into the light.

I didn’t blame God for the death of my wife. I had spent much time with Christ beforehand in prayer, fasting and reading the Bible and this helped prepare me for what happened. When dark moments of life come, your relationship with Christ is what really defines what you are going to do.  Still there was much grief and pain. I loved my wife. We had many plans together and then she was gone. It was difficult to imagine my life without her. I left the church where I was pastoring and went to my sister’s house. There I went into a room, locked the door and began fasting, praying and reading the Bible. Eventually I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, “Stop looking for your wife in the past. She is not in your past. She is in your future. Keep walking forward and you will see her again.” I remembered the day of the accident seeing my wife walking into the light. I just needed to keep walking with Jesus and I would see her again in heaven.

This message from the Holy Spirit lit a fire under me. I was ready to preach again but this time with more urgency. I went to my sister and told her I needed a pulpit and that same day three churches called me and wanted me to plant a church for them. I met with each of the pastors at these churches to see which I felt called to work with.  I had felt the Holy Spirit calling me to preach the gospel in the Dominican Republic so when I went to stay at one of the three pastor’s homes and saw a photo of two pastors from the Dominican Republic on his refrigerator, I knew that he was the one. The other two pastors offered health insurance and a parsonage, neither of which this pastor could offer me, but I didn’t care. I knew that God wanted me to go to the Dominican Republic and this pastor had the connection there. I started a church plant for this pastor and people started coming to Christ. It grew so much that the parent church became enveloped into the planted church.  A year later, in 2004, I was in Dominican Republic planting a church. I have been back in the U.S. since 2005 pastoring a church and providing leadership training and coaching for pastors.

As I reflect back on my journey with Christ, I think about what the pastor said the first time I went to church in 2001, “God has a plan for your life. He wants to use you. He has been waiting for you.” I resisted at first, even bracing myself against the power of the Holy Spirit. But God was patient with me. He didn’t give up on me. He pursued me until I came to Him and gave my life to Christ. And once I surrendered my life and my plan, God’s power was unleashed in my life. God has shown me that life with Him is the only way to true joy, peace and contentment. His plans are better than my plans…much better. God has been so faithful to me in every part of my life, guiding me to the right places and right people not only for my own good but to be used by Him for the good of others. He provided comfort and encouragement when I lost my wife and restored more than what was lost. I have married again to a wonderful wife and we have a beautiful seven-year-old daughter named Sulam, which is a Hebrew name meaning open heavens.  I know that God is with me, working everything out for good.

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#155 Celebrating the Milestones

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 Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

My parents were young and there were some problems at home. ​I moved out when I was 16 years old. I got pregnant when I was 17 and then got married. I got pregnant again when I was 18. The marriage ended in divorce when I was 22. After my divorce, I thought it would be best to move back with my children to my hometown where I had family and friends. My ex-husband hired an attorney who told the judge many bad things about my home county. The judge said he couldn’t prove I was an unfit mother but that my home county was such a bad place to raise children that he had to award residential custody of the children to their father. 

This was a turning point for me. I started not caring about anything after losing my children. I went to see a doctor and was prescribed a nerve pill.  I started taking massive amounts of these daily. This became a lifestyle and because of multiple arrests and drug charges I was unable to get a job. I felt trapped into selling drugs to make a living. For 16 years, this was my life.  I was locked up for many years. I lost so much time with my children and my mom. My mom had always been there for me and had continued to be a support to me. But she passed away while I was still in addiction. 

I never stopped believing in God, and one night in the jail cell I asked God to help me. Sometime later, I was offered drug treatment at a residential center instead of incarceration. About that time, I was allowed to leave jail to attend my uncle’s funeral. While I was there I told my dad about the offer to go to treatment. I told him I wasn’t going to go, that I planned to cut my ankle bracelet and run again. He tried to talk me out of it. I really was tired of running so I agreed to get treatment. But once I was there I wanted to leave. I was going to run away, but there was a massive snowstorm and I couldn’t. I know that was God keeping me there!

I could see the women at the home laughing and having a good time and wanted to know why they were joyful. I started to become more open to the idea of a life without drugs. The CEO came around for a tour of our home and I heard him talking about a job opportunity if we would complete the program and stay clean a year. I asked him afterwards, “I have 17 felonies but you would hire me?” He said, “Absolutely.” That was the turning point. Then I started taking treatment seriously. But I hadn’t had any hope of any kind of decent life for 16 years. I knew God had to help me—and He did.

While I was in treatment, we went to church and I started getting it. I heard a sermon from Luke on building a good foundation. I knew that l needed a good foundation moving forward. After I completed my treatment, I became an intern with the addiction program, but that didn’t work out so I worked as a volunteer in return for my rent as a part of a church program. During those three months, I was really soul searching. God was really working on me.  It felt so good to have my life back. I knew that I wanted use the rest of my life to help people. I got a new job as an intern in a different department, with the same addiction program I had been with before. I truly believe God put me in this department because it is such a good fit for me. My supervisor is a woman. She is the same type of person I am and God placed her in my life as a mentor.

During my internship, I made a mistake and got into a relationship with a recovering addict. I felt like God was telling me the relationship wasn’t healthy and that it would be easy to slip back into addiction. I stayed clean and stepped away from that relationship, but I was already pregnant when I left. I had no idea how I was going to provide for the baby. But God provided people in my life to help me. The organization I was interning with provided an apartment for me during the internship. After one year, I was hired full-time as the Intake Coordinator in the program and one year later I was promoted to Assistant Director of Intake. These opportunities provided the income for me to take care of myself and the baby. God also gave me a family at work. The intake team has really been my family. The pastors that work with our company and the leadership of the company have all supported me.

After I was hired full-time I needed to find my own apartment. I prayed, “God please let us find a decent place to live and be able to make it financially.” One day I looked at Craigslist for a place to live, and the first place was so pretty and I thought, “That is so nice, but with my background there is no way they will let me rent there.” My boss went to look at it with me and because the landlord knew him I was able to rent it. This was the first place I had ever lived on my own and I found out that my landlord’s mother had the same first and last name as my mother! Not only did I get to live there but all utilities are paid, making it affordable. My landlords are Christians and it has been such a blessing. 

I thank God every day for even the little things—the water in the shower, the electricity in our house, the sunshine, and my job. I love my job as an intake coordinator. I talk to a lot of people every day. Sometimes it is a person’s lawyer or family member, but sometimes the person calls themselves about getting placed in one of our residential treatment programs. I get their information over the phone and help get them out of jail and into treatment. I understand where they have been and can communicate hope to them. Each month we celebrate milestones in recovery for the residents, and when their names are read each month I think how special it is that God let me be a part of their recovery. 

God is a loving God. He cares about the smallest things. He knows us personally. He knows what we need. He has much grace for the mistakes that we make. I am so thankful for my recovery. I was one of those people that people would say would never be clean. It’s true that after you mess up your life, you just feel like there is no way out. But God saved my life and He changed me. I am so thankful that He gave me the opportunity to be a mom again. 

​My daughter is now 6 months old and has been​ an amazing gift. At first I had a hard time accepting the​ gift of a new baby. But my neighbor said, “Children are a gift from God, and He is not going to give you this gift if He isn’t going to provide a way to take care of her.” This changed how I felt about it. My neighbor was right—God has provided for our every need. 

God restores what has been taken from you. I now have a relationship with my older ​children. My daughter is 20 and my son is 19. It is not a perfect relationship, but God is working this out too. When I took my daughter out recently to eat she said, “I am so glad, Mom, that I get to be here with you.” She has a daughter now, my granddaughter, and she lets me see her and now I get to be a good influence and a good part of her life. When she comes to visit, I take her to church. It is funny how God brings things around. I loved my grandmother. I felt safe around her and found comfort with her. Maybe now I can be that person to my granddaughter.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning.  Lamentations 3:22 – 23 

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#153 Mission Focused

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Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

I grew up in a conservative home and decided to attend a small Christian college because of its conservative values rather than its faith-based mission. I was accepted to law school after college, but before I began, I learned that my mother had terminal lung cancer. My mother insisted that I not delay my law education and I complied with her wishes. My mother died the week of my second semester law school final exams. I was 23 years old and not ready to lose her. I coped by drinking too much, and this became a way of life for me. I graduated law school, passed the bar exam, and became a prosecuting attorney, all while drinking excessively. I was an alcoholic, drinking my paycheck each week and sometimes missing work because of drinking binges. 

On December 11, 2006, the court bailiff came into my office, shared the gospel of Christ, and led me to the Lord at my desk. Everything changed after that. I have been sober since that day. The gentleman who led me to Christ was also a pastor, and I began attending his church. He had been an alcoholic too and knew what it was like. He was a tremendous support to me and carried me through. A few months later I met the woman who would become my wife.

In 2008, I resigned as county prosecutor and started a non-profit organization to help other people with drug and alcohol addictions. I began by simply connecting those who needed help with treatment programs. This was a needed service in our region, as we live in one of the worst areas of the country for drug abuse. I felt God was calling me to do more, specifically to open a Christian addiction recovery center. There were some major roadblocks to overcome before this could happen. Our biggest problem was finding a suitable place for the recovery center. We had worked on several buildings to get them ready to become the center but couldn’t get any approved because none met the requirements for a residential treatment facility. We had been working for almost two years to open a center with no traction, and finally I realized that there was a house that I had previously leased that might be the building. I had leased the house with a purchase option because of something I had experienced in prayer. I had felt God telling me the building was to become a house of prayer. So, I leased it thinking someday it might become a place for prayer retreats. I never anticipated it might become our recovery center. I asked the fire marshal to do the inspection on the house and he said, “Finally, you are going to open your center!” The house had been a bed and breakfast and had been grandfathered into the building code. Within two months we were open as a Christian residential drug treatment center. And today the house is definitely a house of prayer. 

There was another big hurdle. Money. I had no income and we had a new baby. It had become difficult to even buy diapers. We just couldn’t keep it up with no money coming in. Then I met a Christian businessman and he told me that God would provide if this was His will. One morning in 2011, I woke up at 5 a.m. and went to pray. What I heard in my prayer was that I was approaching things the wrong way. I was approaching drug treatment like a church would, but instead I needed to learn from secular addiction treatment programs. I researched different secular drug treatment programs around the country for a place that most resembled the people and problems in our area, and then with a leap of faith, I spent all our money to hire someone from the addiction treatment industry in Florida as a consultant. Very quickly she showed us that we could be reimbursed from insurance and Medicaid for the care we were providing. This was a game changer and provided the income that we needed to not only continue providing care but to expand.

We now have nine residential Christian addiction treatment centers and four outpatient centers throughout the state. We recently opened an addiction treatment center for pregnant women. Our board wasn’t sure if the time was right to do this, but I felt strongly God leading us to move forward. There was a home for sale in our community that seemed the right size and layout for the maternity center. I had a good feeling about it when we arrived to look at it. The former owners had moved out and nothing remained except a plaster statue of Jesus holding a child in His arms on the front porch. We purchased the home and it now serves as a beautiful place of community where pregnant women and their newborn babies can receive the love and help they need. After purchasing, we learned the home had belonged to a Christian obstetrician. We kept the statue of Jesus holding the child and it is now in the entryway of the home as a reminder to all who enter of Jesus’ love and care for His children.

We have been mission focused from the beginning, and this is still a big part of what we do. We provide pastoral counselors and chaplains and help those going through our program to discover God’s love and grace. The chaplain at the first center we opened is the gentleman who led me to Christ in my office in 2006. The faith-based part of our program doesn’t replace clinical treatment. It comes alongside it. Our model of care is a holistic approach, including spiritual (soul), clinical (mind), medical (body), and vocational (purpose).

Our model is to combine job training and residential treatment in a faith-based environment, and this has been very successful. Every person who completes our recovery program has the opportunity to participate in our staff internship program in which they are guaranteed a job with us at their one-year clean mark. We now employ 200 people at an average pay of $37,500 with benefits, and 70 of those employees are graduates of our own treatment programs!

Each day I continue to seek God’s guidance, wisdom, and provision. I pray often and write down prayers and what I sense as God’s leading throughout the day. When our steering committee meets, we begin with praise and worship music, prayer, and a short message. After this, I share ​what God has given me in prayer. Often, we step out in faith and make business decisions simply because we believe that God is leading us to do something and we trust that He will provide. And He has. God has held us together in difficult financial times. The Lord always comes through just in time. 

One day a month we close the doors at every office at the company. We gather for Convocation, which is a time the whole company, including residents in our treatment programs, comes together to worship corporately. The residents sing and share testimonies. It is very powerful . . . the best day of our month. No business is conducted on that day. It’s when we ge​t out of the way so that God can go behind us to fix our messes. God has the whole company to Himself that day. God is definitely at the stern of this ship. He continues to lead us, provide for us, restore us, and love us.

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#152 Getting Kicked Out Saved My Life

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 Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

I came from a good home. My dad was a coal miner and my mom worked in the school system. I was in church every time it was open. My experience with religion was one of rigidity, based on the list of things you do and don’t do. My understanding of God was that He was nothing more than a task master who was recording my rights and wrongs and keeping score, expecting perfection. I’m not sure I was taught this, but that is the way I interpreted it. The people in that religious system weren’t malicious, they were just doing what they thought was right.

In high school I played basketball, made good grades, and was valedictorian of my senior class.  I am inquisitive by nature and asked a ton of questions about religion—questions my parents and my church were not comfortable hearing and answering. The gist of their answers was “You just need to believe.” Because questions were not welcomed, I developed a level of skepticism. I was also bullied in school which created a sense of not being sure of my identity and self-worth. I started using marijuana my junior year of high school for two reasons, really—to fill a void because a relationship with God wasn’t a part of my life, and also because it impressed a certain crowd and I wanted to fit in. 

The first time I smoked marijuana, a switch flipped and I was immediately psychologically obsessed with getting high and changing my mental state. I wasn’t physically addicted yet, but psychologically the addiction was unleashed the first time I tried it. I do have a history of addiction in my extended family, so I may have been genetically predisposed for addiction. 

I had a scholarship to go to college. The only career options that I understood for my life in 1997 were to become a doctor or lawyer. I was only the second person from my family to go to college and I didn’t perceive a big buffet of options. I didn’t like history, so that seemed to eliminate law. I decided to go the pre-med route.

My first night on campus I tried alcohol for the first time. I loved it just as much as marijuana from the first drink.  By the end of the semester, I had experimented and fallen in love with every drug available in the area. Somehow, I was still making good grades. A friend from my hometown that grew up going to the same church as I did was at college with me and he also had a lot of questions about God and religion. He had a philosophy class and we started meeting with the professor. He was the first person who had an educated and non-confrontational conversation with us about our questions about God and religion. He identified as atheist/agnostic and I began to identify that way as well. Things started changing in my life. I continued to fill the void with drugs, alcohol, and women, and at some point, I began using prescription medication daily. I began to use OxyContin, as this was a new drug introduced in our area.

It became apparent that I would have to stop my lifestyle in order to pass organic chemistry, so I decided to choose a career that didn’t require organic chemistry. Medical school required organic chemistry but physical therapy did not. I got accepted into physical therapy school. While I was there I was a full-blown prescription medication addict and alcoholic. I graduated from physical therapy school in the top 25% of my class. I moved back home to start working as a physical therapist. I was making good money and the addiction went into overdrive because I had more money. I got married in 2005–2006 but it didn’t last long. In less than three years we were divorced. I lost my house to foreclosure and lost two cars. I was living in a house with no running water, no electricity, and five to six people staying the night—it was a drug den. But I continued to work as a physical therapist.  Eventually, I was living in my car, making $107,000 a year with barely enough money to get gas to get to work. I ended up moving home with my parents to try to get some stability. They didn’t fully understand what was going on with me but knew there was a problem. 

During this time, I met the woman who is my wife today. We married in 2011. I didn’t tell her about my past and she didn’t know about my drug problem. She just knew I used to be wild. About two years into the marriage, I stopped caring about everything. Anything that wasn’t nailed down would be at the pawn shop for drug money. Finally, my wife said, “I love you but you’ve got to go. You can’t stay here. I can’t help you anymore.” This was the day that she showed me the most love. I was sick and tired of living the life I was living. I constantly thought about killing myself. When my wife said, “You’ve got to leave,” I was actually relieved because it freed me to go get help. I went to my parents and they got me connected to a Christian addiction recovery residential home and when I walked in (still an atheist/agnostic) the people who were Christians weren’t judging my mistakes. They told me they loved me and they were glad I was there and that God had a purpose for my life. This was a new way of thinking about God for me. One of the pastors at the home taught us what prayer was. Up until then I understood prayer to be not much more than a list to Santa Claus. The day he taught me that prayer was two-way communication between the one praying and God, I was immediately frustrated that no one had ever told me this. I was baptized two to three weeks into treatment. My wife began to visit me at the treatment facility. The first Sunday I was in treatment she went to church and asked God for guidance about how to handle it—specifically if she should she stay married to me. In the message that Sunday the preacher talked only about forgiveness, especially about forgiving people who do not deserve it. She decided to give me a chance.

Even though I had my license to practice physical therapy, I decided that God was calling me to stay at the addiction recovery center and be on staff. After I successfully completed the treatment program, I followed God’s calling, and left a six-figure income to become an intern with the addiction recovery center for $75 per week. My pay for two weeks after taxes was $137. I brought the first check home and gave it to my wife and said, “I don’t care what we do with this, but $15 of this is going to a tithe!”

Miracle after miracle occurred to get us through the nine-month internship financially. Every random dollar that came, I attributed to God. When I reached the one-year clean and sober mark, I met with the CEO of the treatment program and he offered me a position at the corporate office. My wife and I prayed about it and I accepted that position as his deputy chief of staff. His chief of staff had had some health problems and wanted to spend more time at home. Within six months, through a series of supernatural events that I can’t really explain, I became the chief of staff of an organization with over 200 employees. I still serve in this position and just celebrated three and half years of being clean and sober. 

Recently, my wife and I felt called to leave our home church, even though there was no problem. We told our pastor and asked him to pray for us. I felt like I was called to lead a new church but resisted it. My wife and I met with some families who also felt they were to do something different regarding church. We continued to meet each week just that small group of people, then opened to the public as a new church a few months ago. We are trying to let the love of God flow through us onto others. Public speaking was one of my greatest fears. In the past I would have been terrified and paralyzed in front of a crowd, but now God has helped me to get comfortable with speaking. We meet at a locally owned coffee shop downtown. We purchased a baptismal trough and have already had some baptisms which have occurred in the trough on the sidewalk in our little town. We are seeing God work in wonderful ways in the new church.

My wife is a fifth-grade teacher and she has children in class that have difficulties because of the drugs in their families. She uses what she has experienced with my addiction to help her students. She speaks from a place of deep understanding, empathy, and compassion, and students respond positively to her when they don’t respond well to others. 

I have hurt a lot of people and made a lot of bad decisions, but God is using it for good. I have learned about who God really is—that He is not the task master that I thought He was. I have discovered that He is a loving Father who sees us as His sons and daughters and He has a purpose and a plan for our lives. I am thankful for my wife and my family and for second, third, and fourth chances. I am thankful that God led me to a Christian addiction recovery center, a place that allowed me to encounter His true nature. I am most thankful that God is good and that He forgives. He has wiped away my shame and regret.

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#148 Little Church by the Creek

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I grew up in a divorced family and lived primarily with my mom. Although my mom kept us in church growing up, my dad was agnostic and not a believer. I was exposed to pornography early in life and this led me down a bad path, taking more of a hold when I was in high school and college. It was then that I believe it became an addiction. I met my wife my last year of college. At the time, I had so much guilt and shame about my addiction. I was the perfect Christian kid on the outside but was dying on the inside. In a way, I had abandoned my faith and what I believed, even though this is not what I wanted.

God broke through to me through the church my wife and I attended. I was invited to go to a Promise Keepers event with some men from the church. It was there that God broke through my hard heart, and the journey back to Him began. My wife had known there were some issues but she didn’t know everything. I knew I needed to have the hard talk with her. After this conversation, I got connected with a sex addiction program at the church. I attended for three years but couldn’t find consistent sobriety.

What finally broke the addiction for me was a 15-week class called Perspectives. This class wasn’t about addictions. Instead it was about missions, about God’s perspective on the world and what our mindset should be toward ministry. At the end of the class, I feared that my whole life I had been holding back from completely surrendering to God. I had been afraid that if I fully surrendered to God, He would call us away to “Far-away-astan” and this had held me back. By the end of the class I was willing to surrender and go wherever He wanted me to go. I had gained such a heart for the lost. It was at this point that the addiction went away.

Now, years later, I am convinced that anything we surrender pales in comparison to what we get of God and from God. Jim Eliot said it well.

“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
― Jim Elliot

When I think back on my story and what I have learned about the nature of God, it would have to be that He is so gracious. Knowing that I grew up in the church and walked away, but He continued to pursue me and pour out grace until He brought me back. And I am so thankful that He did.

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.”                                   

Isaiah 30:15

Out of the fullness of his grace he has blessed us all, giving us one blessing after another.
John 1:16

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#146 Little Church by the Creek

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Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

When my husband and I were in the hospital getting ready to have our first baby, I was in labor but it was in the beginning and not intense yet. For some unexplainable reason my husband and I began laughing uncontrollably. This went on for a long time. The nurses even came in as my electrodes began popping off of my stomach. They asked many times, “What is going on?” We could not stop laughing and could not tell them anything. We were both in tears from laughing so long and so hard. Now, looking back on this, it had to be the Holy Spirit filling us with unexplainable joy.

Fast forward 23 years, and our son that was born that day is in the battle of his life struggling with heroin addiction. It started four years ago. Since then my husband and I have struggled from day to day with knowing what to do, how to help him. Often the situation has seemed hopeless. He would go to rehab treatment, transformation homes, get better, come home, and then relapse. We have found that there is only one answer. We have to depend on God, to pray each day, multiple times a day, to put everything in God’s hands. Through prayer, God has given us guidance about what to do next for our son.

I remember one particular day I felt God leading me to take our son to a church to participate in a men’s group. I even took off work to do it. He didn’t want to go but eventually said he would go but not in the car with me. He followed me there in his car. I thought he would ditch me on the way and was surprised when he actually followed me all the way to the church. When we arrived at the church, he didn’t want to get out of the car. It was time for the meeting to start and the other men were arriving. I told him he needed to get out of car but he didn’t move. Eventually he got out of his car but wasn’t ready to go inside. Just when I thought for sure he was going to jump back in his car and leave, the men who were getting out of their cars noticed him and came to him on either side and guided him into the church. I was going to leave but felt the Lord prompting me not to. I tried to leave several times but the Holy Spirit kept me there walking and pacing.

After approximately two to three hours, the men started trickling out of the church. Then I could see our son from a distance. He looked like a ghost. Glowing, he came to me and said, “I am overwhelmed and that was a lot to take in.” I could tell he had been crying. I hugged him, told him I loved him, and off he went with the guys from the church to begin a recovery journey with them by his side. I cried uncontrollably after he left. One of the church leaders came out and chased me down before I left and told me that our son surrendered everything that night and that he was going to be okay. Then I understood why God had prompted me to stay. It was so I could see this and hear this news. I cried loud and hard all the way home. I even kept driving past our house because I couldn’t stop crying. That night was the beginning of our son’s journey to recovery. It was also the beginning of me wanting a closer relationship with God. I discussed with my husband about getting into and belonging to a church and for our family to dig deeper, to learn and grow. He finally agreed. We went to several churches, finding the little church by the creek and making it our church home.

But there were many bumps in the road. Our son overdosed a few months ago. It was a terrifying experience for him and for us and our family and friends. We stood at his bedside as the doctor told us a few things were damaged (his hearing, his left side, etc…).  But miraculously he recovered completely. Something changed in him after this experience. He has been drug free since then and we believe he is truly seeking after Jesus. He gave up his previous “friends/community” who were into drugs, and alcohol and now the members of our church are becoming his new community. He has new family and mentors who support and encourage him. He meets with our pastor and some of our church leaders in hopes of learning to become a leader himself. Our pastor believes that our son is called to be in young adult/teenage ministry and/or possibly become a pastor and that he will change the lives of many people through his testimony and ministry. We have kept our faith and will continue to put our faith and trust in our Savior.

God gave us the precious life of our son 23 years ago and He has continually guided us as to the best ways to help him. God has not given up on our son. He miraculously saved his life from the overdose and has protected him from harm again and again. God is working in powerful ways in the life of our son, drawing him to Jesus. His life is transforming before our eyes and we believe that God will use his pain and his past to do great things in His kingdom.

He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. 

Philippians 1:6

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person

#145 Little Church by the Creek

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Photo by Trevor Rapp

I grew up in a house where my mom was a believer but my dad not so much. There wasn’t much exposure to church or religion. I got married when I was 20 years old to my high school sweetheart. I was immature and apparently not really ready to be married. We had some rough times the first year of our marriage. We decided to separate. I stayed in our trailer and my wife moved out.

 
During this time, my brother and I played in a band around town and in bars. I did a lot of partying and drinking. This went on for three months. One night I sat on the edge of my bed and said in my head, “Why did I ever get married? This is the life that I want.” I woke up about four hours later, my eyes wide open and said, “What in the heck am I doing?  I’m screwing up my marriage, and I’m screwing up my life.” I called my wife and said, “What are you doing?”
 

She said, “I’m up. I’m at the apartment. Come up and see me.” I went to see her and when she opened the door we both started crying and hugged. I didn’t know it that night, but her dad had her scheduled the next day to file divorce papers. To me, this was God telling me that what I was doing was stupid, that it needed to stop, and that there was much in the future for my wife and me.  

 
That was my first brush with God. I was thinking the exact opposite four hours earlier. It wasn’t me that woke me up to transform the way I thought. It had to be God. There is no other explanation. That got the ball rolling for me to really believe in God. I feel like when God decides to work in you—He WILL do it. For me to change that much that quickly…it was like being hit by a truck, but that’s what it took—something really dramatic to change the way I was thinking.
 
The life I lived those three months is one of my greatest regrets. My wife has forgiven me but I hate that I hurt her. We have been married over 20 years and have a very strong marriage now. When I talk about it with my friends, I tell them I didn’t think enough of our marriage covenant.  It was like I was dating my wife. I didn’t see it as a covenant with God. But I do now and the experience has actually strengthened our marriage, showing us that with God’s help we can overcome anything. God has used it for good.
 
God wants us to know that even in our darkest times He is still there. He was speaking to me on the edge of that bed even when I wasn’t a believer. He speaks to all of us if we are only ready to listen. He changed the way I thought in the snap of a finger. It was a powerful moment for me and the beginning of my journey as a Christian. At first it was a slow incline, but the last few years it has shot up like a rocket. Once I started putting God first, everything started falling into place.
 
A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#143. Little Church by the Creek: A Billboard Message

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Photo by Nicole Tarpoff 

In 1989, my future husband moved from Texas to the town in Indiana where I lived. I was working as a manager of Pizza Hut at the time and he applied for a job. I didn’t need to hire anyone but the waitresses thought he was cute so I ended up hiring him. We developed a friendship. He had hinted that he would like to date me but there was a no dating policy—so he filled out termination papers and said, “Now will you go out with me?” We went out and have never been apart since. 

We dated for a year and then decided to get married. Neither one of us were churched at that time. He had only been to church three times and I had never been to church with my family. I called a pastor of a church and felt a little bad asking to get married in their church. 

 I asked the pastor, “How do you come back to church?”

“Just walk through the doors.”

“What about this membership thing?”

“No, just walk through the doors.” 

We got married and were thrown into married life, trying to blend our lives. I had children from a previous marriage. God was not in our marriage at that point. We had never invited Him into our lives. We decided to go to a marriage counselor. I remember that on the way to an appointment with the counselor we prayed and asked for a sign if we should stay married. We were driving on the highway at the time and we passed this huge billboard that said, “Loved the wedding, now invite me to the marriage.” 

 -God

It just so happened that the marriage counselor was a Christian and he showed us the love of Jesus. He told us to go back to church, which we did immediately. We attended church regularly and got involved, volunteering with youth. There was a revival at our church and the guest pastor asked, “Do you have a fire for God?” My husband said, “I don’t even have a spark.” But God was working in the heart of my husband, and on the third night there was a transformational moment for my husband. He gave his life to the Lord that night. Two days later he went on an Emmaus walk, a weekend designed to parallel the Emmaus walk of the disciples on Easter. The combination of these two events was life changing. He was a different person after that. He had a hunger for Jesus. He became more sensitive to the needs of others, especially to my needs. He became more patient with the kids and even had a calm spirit when driving. It was like he left “the world.”

Six weeks later I went on an Emmaus walk and Jesus became real to me during this weekend. I knew Jesus was real before, but He became more than a just a story on a page. After this I felt a calling to lead our church’s youth ministry. We had volunteered some before with the youth and had been on a couple youth trips with our daughter. The youth leaders were leaving and they needed someone to step in. In the beginning it was just my call, but eventually my husband was called as well. We have prayed to go deeper in this ministry and God has been faithful to answer. When we started, it was ten minutes of teaching and 45 minutes of fellowship and games, and now we are able to spend more time teaching because the kids are interested and want to go deeper. We have been investing in teenagers’ lives this way for about 15 years. But this is not the end of the story. God had more for us. 

About four years ago, I went to a conference with a friend and saw one of my favorite worship leaders. She had been singing and praying and God’s spirit was so present. I can’t put into words how powerful I felt His presence that night. I felt God was urging me to give my life to worship. My life changed after that. I heard the call clearly from God and this built a confidence in me. I felt God calling me to lead His people into His presence through worship. I wanted people to feel Him and meet Him face to face. I now sing and lead worship for the second service at our church and my husband does all the sound work and is a drummer. We also do worship at the jail, at a drug recovery ministry, at revivals, and at festivals. Our goal as a worship team is that by the leading of the Holy Spirit, we would lead people into the presence of the Lord. I pray for God’s people to be able to feel His breath—that He would be that close. 

We have been awed by the power of God. We have seen missionaries, pastors, evangelists, and youth leaders come from the youth group. We have seen that God can use anybody to accomplish what He wants to accomplish. For so much of my life, Jesus was just a character from a storybook, but God has shown us how real He is. We have seen it and experienced it, and we want others to experience it too.

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#142. Little Church by the Creek: Righteous, Redeemed and Restored

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​Photo by Anna Carroll

In 2007 I was arrested for possession of methamphetamine. I had been married eight years at the time and we had two children. My wife knew I had an addiction problem before my arrest. She just didn’t know it was meth. I was never home and she was ready to leave me. Before my arrest, it was a dark time in our lives and I was very lost. This little church by the creek was on the way to my drug dealer’s house and I would look at it and think, “I need God.” I would go out of my way not to see the church. God was calling me and I was saying, “NO!”

When I went to court, the guy I got arrested with came in with his parents and his pastor. I was upset with the pastor and told him I needed to talk to him. He agreed and I met him at his office. I asked the pastor why he was supporting this guy who didn’t go to church. He said, “My life was messed up before I met Jesus. I am supporting your friend because I was given a second chance and I believe your friend deserves a second chance, and I believe YOU deserve a second chance. If you will come to church and you will listen, I will walk this out with you, and if you fall, I will be there to help.” It felt like he believed in me. He gave me hope. This man was the pastor of the little church by the creek that I had passed on the way to the drug dealer’s. God had drawn me all those years before as I passed by, and now He was drawing me through the pastor. This time I said, “YES!”

I started going to church right after that talk. I sat in the back row. My wife told me that she had also driven past the church for years and she had felt drawn to the church as well. She began going to church with me. I was amazed by everything I was receiving at church. I thought, “I have to get a Bible.” I remember going into my little girl’s bedroom with my new Bible and thinking, “I know there’s something here. But this has just been a book to me. I want it to come alive.” I opened it up and turned to Acts and I couldn’t put it down. It became a light, a mirror, a hammer. I saw my sin, and things began to change in our home. Reading God’s Word changed my life. Two weeks before I was to serve my time, I committed my life to the Lord. 

In jail, I participated in a 12-step Christ-centered program led by the jail chaplain called Stepping into Freedom. When I got out of jail, I was required to go to narcotics anonymous (NA) three times a week for two years. I saw that people weren’t getting better. I felt such a need to bring Christ to them. I asked the chaplain, who led the Stepping into Freedom program at the jail, if I could take that curriculum and teach it at our church one night a week. He agreed and I told people at NA and AA about our new ministry and invited them to come. But we needed to become an “approved” program because it is a probation requirement to go to meetings at an “approved” program, and you must get your card signed to prove you have attended these sessions. There was no incentive to attend our program until we had this designation. For one year, I tried to tell the probation officers that I had started the ministry and tried to get them to approve it. Initially, they threw away my fliers, but I kept going back. Finally, they approved our program. Today, my probation office runs the substance abuse coalition and I am partnering with him in this coalition. This coalition now provides grant funding for our ministry.  

About a year after we started offering Stepping into Freedom at church, we went on a prayer walk and felt God calling us to something more. Mercy Street was born. Mercy Street is a recovery intervention/restoration ministry that provides worship, a meal, and fellowship. My wife and I are co-directors. We started small with peanut butter sandwiches and a man with an acoustic guitar leading worship. We only had about 10 people coming. Prominent people left the church because of the program, but Mercy Street grew, expanding from 15 to 30 people. I was still working full-time at my day job and I began to get exhausted. First the addiction took me away, and now the ministry was taking me away from my family. The Lord started exposing the junk my wife and I had buried. I didn’t want to deal with it but God led us through it to the other side. The leadership of the church pulled me from ministry for three months to focus on my family. I felt God leading me to dive more into His word and pray more. Our pastor taught us that God comes first, marriage second, then kids, then ministry. We renewed our marriage covenant and the Lord honored that. When I returned to ministry, other churches who had not wanted to partner with us initially, said they wanted to start a Mercy Street program. We are now starting our fifth Mercy Street ministry plant. 

God has used my past for good in other ways. I was asked to be part of a meth intercessory prayer team. We were shown a map of areas in the county where there were drug arrests and we would pray that God would begin to take authority over the ground. Because of my past experiences, I knew where the drug deals occurred and we could pray specifically for those areas. One of the biggest dope dealers in a town near here was on a particular street and a pastor invited him to Mercy Street. He then led others to Mercy Street, and now this whole street is cleaned up! God has drawn many people and we have baptized many in the creek by the church. We have felt the Holy Spirit powerfully during these baptisms.

We have also felt the Lord calling us to prevention efforts. We go into middle and high schools and show a documentary on heroin called “Hit of Hell.” We are starting a prevention program with the YMCA. When young people complete the program, the Y gives them a free membership which gives them a place to go and an outlet. We want the kids to not only reject drugs but to become leaders and lead others out of that culture. 

At times life has been very difficult. I have put my wife through so much and she has shown me undeserved grace and forgiveness. Sometimes it is difficult for her to juggle her responsibilities co-directing Mercy Street with me while working and raising our children and taking care of our home. This is made more difficult because she has MS. Words can’t express how grateful I am for her and how much I love and admire her.

God is so faithful. Our marriage was in such trouble and God faithfully walked through that with us. I have experienced God as a Restorer and Redeemer. I am right with God because of the cross, not because of anything I have done. So many times, I want to be right on my own merit. But knowing I am righteous because of Him takes the pressure off of me. This is a messy ministry. Often, I am the first responder—the person a teenager calls when they are high and contemplating suicide. I am dependent on God, relying on prayer and the Holy Spirit’s guidance. It is too difficult and complex and dangerous to figure this out on my own. So many things have happened since that day in 2007 and it’s all been the Lord. God has opened good doors and closed the doors that should be closed to protect us. He brought me through the darkness into light. He drew me to Him at the little church by the creek, and there He has done amazing things. 

For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:21

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

#141 Little Church by the Creek: The Waterfall of God’s Love

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 Photo by Anna Carroll

I grew up the youngest of six children in an abusive home with alcoholic parents. We didn’t go to church often, only when my mom and dad were sober enough. When I was 9 years old a neighbor shot a dove and it fell in our yard. We tried to nurse it back to health but it died. For the dove’s funeral, I put on my dad’s suit (he was a big, strong Army man about 6’4”). The sleeves and pants were too long and I had to pull them up. I performed the funeral for the dove with all my family there listening. My oldest sister said later, “Timmy, you are going to be a preacher.” I believe the Holy Spirit planted that seed.

But from age 9 to 33 I certainly didn’t live that life. I got married when I was a senior in college to a girl I had dated in high school. My life was dysfunctional and I was looking for validation from others. I was 24 when we divorced. After that, I lived with friends for about a year—basically I was homeless. I was working but didn’t have money. I was spending money on other things, mainly alcohol. 

About a year after my divorce, I asked a woman I knew from a newspaper where I had worked if she would consider dating someone like me and she said she would pray about it. She prayed and fasted for five days. She said yes with two conditions: 1) I will always love Someone more than you, and 2) I am a virgin now and I will be a virgin when we get married. 

We married in 1991 and I worked for Ganett, the parent company for USA Today. At age 29, Ganett offered me a job as Managing Editor and then Executive Editor. I was making really good money but working 20 hours a day. I had become a flaming workaholic. In May of 1997, I was at the worst point of my life—depressed and exhausted. I did go to church but I was not a Christian. We talked of divorce. I started making plans for suicide and attempted four times. I was trying to end my wife’s suffering because I knew I was a bad husband. 

I had decided to try again and had talked to a financial planner about how to make financial plans for my family after my death. That week my pastor asked if I would go to a Promise Keepers event. I didn’t want to go to a Jesus event but I didn’t want people to think I didn’t want to go to a good event and said yes only to put on a show. On May 10, 1997, I got into a van with seven to eight guys and sure enough, there was Jesus music playing all the way. I didn’t want to listen to it. My plan had been that two weeks from that day I would kill myself. 

We got to the stadium and there was a pastor that came out and started sharing jokes. Lousy jokes. I kept thinking, this is the biggest waste of time, and got madder and madder. Finally, he stepped back from pulpit and paused awkwardly. I have 69,999 witnesses as to what happened next. He stepped back to pulpit and said, “I apologize. I was brought here to tell jokes but I don’t feel funny. There is a guy here who if he doesn’t get his life right, will not be here in two weeks.” As I sat on the top bleacher of the old Riverfront Stadium, I couldn’t believe what I just heard. A lump formed in my throat and I started crying. The pastor started telling my story. He said this guy is a workaholic, his marriage is a mess, he has hidden addictions, and he doesn’t think God is real. He talked about it being this man’s last chance and that God was calling him right now to believe in Him. There were 70,000 people there, but he preached the service like he was speaking to one person. “What do you have to lose?” he asked. I knew he was talking to me. At some point, I got up and went all the way down to where he was preaching and knelt by the stage. I prayed, “God, I’ve screwed up. If you can do anything with this life, here I am.”

I cried the rest of the weekend and ran the stadium out of toilet paper and tissues. I surrendered that weekend and something happened. I was born again. My mind changed at that moment. I have never struggled with suicide and depression or addictions since then. I went from old to new in that moment. Everything else was just crushed by the waterfall of God’s love. On the way home, I was the loudest singer of the praise songs in the van. 

When we got home from the event, I had forgotten my house keys and had to wake my wife to let me in. When she opened the door she said, “What happened to you? Your countenance… Everything is changed.” I grabbed her hand and we prayed together. The Lord reminded me of my call to be a preacher. The next day was Sunday May 12, Mother’s Day, and we went to church. I told my wife her Mother’s Day gift was that I was leaving the newspaper job and becoming a pastor. 

I attended seminary and became an associate pastor at a large church in Indiana. Four years into this job, I was asked to become the lead pastor at a large church in Kentucky. My wife and I felt like this was the way to go. But then I received a call from church leadership. They said they would like me to consider pastoring a different church, a much smaller church, that was having some problems, but they believed that the Lord could do amazing things at this church. My wife and I went to this little church by the creek to visit. I wanted to see how the Holy Spirit led me. It was early spring the day we arrived at the church. I got out of our van and as I stood in the parking lot of the little white church, it started snowing. The sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. It was like a Currier and Ives picture—a surreal moment. I felt strongly that God was leading us to this church. 

We have been here going on 13 years. We have ten worship services and reach about 1,200 people per week. Last year we had 399 baptisms, 327 of those were first time baptisms. Since 2010, we have had 138 people called from our congregation to ministry. But it’s not me. It is what God’s done here that is amazing. I failed a class at every level of education—even in seminary, I failed evangelism. As a kid, I had a speech impediment, a horrible stutter and a real lisp. I knew what I wanted to say but couldn’t get the words out. I was in special classes even through high school. But God has used me in spite of all of this. 

I owe Jesus everything—my marriage, my kids, my life. I died with Christ and everything I have now is gain. I know that every day my life is His and I owe Him every single moment. This fuels the passion that I live life from and the passion that I preach with. I believe in the begetting principle. Hate begets hate. Love begets love. I love the people of this church and I have a high-octane level of passion that begets passion in the people. I make mistakes… But the passion for Jesus cannot be questioned. God has used me to ignite passion in this congregation. The church leadership was right all those years ago when they asked me to come here. The Lord has done amazing things at this little church by the creek. 

A Million God Stories is a Christ-centered ministry which offers a platform for Christians from all streams of Christian faith to give praise for how God has worked in their lives. Christ heals in infinitely creative ways and we acknowledge that His way of helping may differ from person to person.

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