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#171. In His Way

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 Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

When I was born and the doctor spanked me, he said I had the loudest set of lungs he had ever heard. He said, “He’s going to be a preacher!” My mom always took me to church growing up, and that was the greatest thing she could do as a parent. At 16, I received the Lord and was saved. For the next two years, I was a model young Christian man. I sang in the church choir and attended services regularly.

I always loved sports growing up. I was cut from the basketball team in high school but played baseball and was pretty good at it. I played baseball in college and also helped with the college basketball team. The head basketball coach was one of the youngest college coaches in the country and he became my best friend.  He was one of the winningest coaches in the history of the college.

Unfortunately, I got hooked up with the wrong crowd. I started smoking and drinking. Sin is pleasurable for a season, but when the season is over it’s like gravel in your mouth. I quit going to church. I stopped seeking God’s will in my life, and I became my own god. Any time you take your life in your own hands, it’s going to lead to failure.

My dream was to be a head basketball coach. It was all about me. I wanted to build my name up. When I graduated college, I got hired as an assistant basketball coach at a high school. The drinking got worse and I missed a lot of work. I developed a gambling habit and missed almost every Friday to go to the racetrack. I was let go from this job and got a job at another high school as assistant coach and was there three years. My dream was still to become a head coach, and the opportunity presented itself when there was a head coaching positon open in the mountains of Kentucky.  

I got recommendations from my college coaching friend and ended up getting the job. I thought my dreams had come true. I was finally a head coach. Everything went wrong, but it was all part of God bringing me back to Him. When the team started losing, I started cussing out the players because they were not fulfilling my dreams. I couldn’t move up in my career with a losing record, and I blamed the players for our losses. My drinking got worse. For three years, everything went downhill. I got a reputation in the community and there was a push to remove me as coach. Finally, the superintendent said, “There isn’t support for you. We are going to have to let you go.”

I was at rock bottom. I had been fired and had a bad reputation. I bought a 12-pack of beer and was going to drink my sorrows away. That night the Lord spoke to me and said, “Come on home. I love you.” I prayed, “Lord, I have made a mess of my life. Take my life and make something of it.” I recommitted my life right then and asked God to do whatever He wanted with my life.

I started going to church again and got very involved. God took drinking from me. I knew every time I took a drink it was breaking God’s heart, and finally I just threw it away. I was out of work for eight months after I got fired. I got a job sacking groceries. My first check was $60 from the A&P grocery, and I put $6 in the plate. God has truly blessed me. I eventually got a very good paying job. I got hired full-time by UPS as a 32-year-old, and that was such a miracle because at that time they were hiring people younger than me.

One year after I was fired, I married the librarian from the high school where I had been the basketball coach. I thank God for her. She is a wonderful woman and has been a true blessing to me.

God transformed me so much that the high school invited me to preach the baccalaureate service in the gym where I had been cussing the basketball players just two years before.

God also called me to preach. I realize now that He was preparing me to preach through all of my background. I had been a teacher for seven years at three different high schools. You must be a teacher to be a preacher. I was also a coach, and coaching a team is like pastoring. You want a team to play together in unity as one. A church is successful when everyone works in unity.

I was ready to preach but didn’t find a church for two years. In 1990, I accepted a short-term job at a Baptist church, filling their pulpit while they looked for an interim pastor. They liked me and asked me to also preach at their Mission Church, a very small church way out in the country with only 12 people attending. I accepted and was preaching two services on Sunday morning and two Sunday evening. My wife and I fell in love with that little mission church, and one day the parishioners asked if I would become their main pastor. I was still working at UPS when I became their pastor and kept my job at UPS, working as a bi-vocational pastor until I retired.

I have been at this church for 27 years. I’m the only pastor they have ever had. It has been amazing what God has done at that church. We now have over 200 attending. We started a Christian school in the building 15 years ago. Since I have retired from UPS, God has opened up many other ministries. We want to take God’s love beyond the walls of the church. We go to the homeless shelter in a bigger community nearby and have seen many come to Christ. We run a bus from this shelter to our church, welcoming our homeless friends to our church and showing them the love of Jesus. We have a prison ministry, a ministry at an assisted living facility, a high-rise complex ministry, and a ministry at a drug rehabilitation center. 

There is nothing in our little town—even the post office got moved. But God is reaching many people through media. Our services are on the Internet, and we have two television programs airing in five states.

I still love sports, but God took that away as an idol. God has used my love of sports for good. Years ago, the radio station asked me if I would do some play-by-play on a radio sports program. I ended up doing a sports talk show as a hobby. Many people got to know me this way, and this helped when I began preaching and we began airing the services on television.

Now my life is about Him and not me. God took everything that I desired and gave it to me, but it was in His way and I had to surrender to Him first. It was kind of like the wrestling of Jacob with the Lord. I was totally broken that night, and God blessed me. What I thought was the worst night of my life, was really the greatest night of my life. He totally transformed me.

God is loving, gentle, restoring, and long-suffering. He is forgiving, forgiving, forgiving. He doesn’t look at our faults; He looks at our faith. He saw my heart even in my wild and undone times. He knew what He was going to make out of me even when I couldn’t see it. I cannot praise Him enough for everything He has done.

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. Hebrews 12:11 KJV

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.

#170 God Knows My Heart

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 Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

My parents were divorced when I was 3 years old. My mom was married nine times and we moved every two or three years. I was surrounded by drugs growing up. I was 5 years old the first time I saw cocaine being used. My dad wasn’t involved in my life in a meaningful way, and as time went on he spent less and less time with me. Many times, I can remember having my bag packed and watching for him to come and get me for the weekend and him never showing up. To fill the void, I ran to the streets. I started smoking cigarettes and hanging out with kids that huffed gas and White Out. At about 15 I met a friend who introduced me to alcohol and acid. Our moms would buy us alcohol thinking it was safer for us to drink at home. I needed money to buy a car and went to my dad. He gave me marijuana to sell. I started smoking marijuana with my mom and dad. When I was about 20 I was introduced to cocaine.

In 1998, I had a car wreck while speeding over 120 miles per hour. This is the first time I went to jail, but the charges were dropped. In 1999 I went to jail for possession of marijuana. This was the year my son was born. His mom and I had both been meth users and he had serious health issues from birth. His lungs were not producing oxygen. He was in the hospital for weeks but thankfully he responded well to treatment. We took him home and two hours later Child Protective Services came to our home. We had periodic drug tests after that. In 2000, my son and his mother were in a bad car wreck and she was killed. Miraculously, he only had a few scratches. I wanted to be numb after this. He went to live with his maternal grandmother and that gave me the freedom to do what I wanted, which was to indulge in meth.

I went to prison in 2001 and was in and out of prison for over a decade. During this time, I learned to manufacture meth, and my relationship with my son was non-existent. In 2013, I was put into solitary confinement in prison. There was no window and no interaction with people for five days. It was unbearable. I prayed, “God, if you are real, get me out of this room.” In two days, they moved me to another room with a window. But I felt this was a coincidence. Again, I prayed, “God, if you are real get me out of this jail.” Not even 36 hours later they came to get me and moved me to another jail. There I met a guy who convinced me to read the Bible. I read the Bible for about two weeks and this softened my heart. On August 18, 2013, I cried out to God and received Christ and the Holy Spirit. I had a spiritual experience that night that changed my life. The experience was like liquid love. Everything was broken off of me. I no longer had the desire for drugs after that. Everything was changed. Another inmate said to me, “I’ve never seen a change in anyone like I have seen in you. I want what you have.”

In 2014, I got out of prison in one state but I was facing a 20-year prison sentence in another state. I asked the judge to lessen my bond and he cut my bond amount by 90%—from $10,000 to $1,000. My dad and a friend posted my bond and I was able to spend time in a halfway house and spend some time with my son before going back to prison. My 20-year sentence was cut in half and I began serving my 10 years in July 2015. This was the best time I had ever spent in prison because I went back saved and I met some wonderful people. I witnessed to my roommate and prayed for him and for his release, and he was paroled. In two years, I had the opportunity for parole. Everyone was skeptical because it was so unlikely given my history, but I felt strongly that I would have favor and that they would grant me parole. When I went before the parole board I told them if I was paroled, my plan was to go back to the halfway house. They granted me parole.

 

I spent six months in the halfway house, and as soon as I got out I started going back into the jail to minister. I am now a part of Residents Encounter Christ (REC), an organization that has three-day weekends with inmates to teach them the Good News and bring them into a relationship with Christ. God has prepared me for the ministry I am doing now, offering hope and bringing people to Christ and discipling them. I spend time with the Lord every day. The power of the Holy Spirit is the only way I have the strength to live the life I am living now. It is an honor to bring Him glory and exalt Him.

 

God knows our heart and wants to give us the desires of our heart. He is restoring my relationship with my son. I am so thankful for the many ways God protected him over the years. I can now see all of the little and big things God did to save me and draw me to Him. I’m so thankful for God’s love that is beyond our understanding and that He answered my cries for help and changed me. I am a new creation and His power in me strengthens me every day.

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

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.

#169 The Little Church by the Creek: Surrender

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Photo by Brianna Rapp

I have been a Christian for 23 years, and about four years ago I started attending the little church by the creek. In this four years, God has used this place to expand my perspective and revelation of who He is and how He works. Each year our church holds a tent revival in our town, and each year I have been blessed and challenged by the messages which have come forth there. Last year I was coming out of a particularly long and difficult season in my personal and professional life. My father had become disabled and I had been caring for him. Our daughter had nearly lost her life to her longstanding drug addiction. I was beginning to feel that my job of 13 years was no longer appropriate for me, but fearful of change and loss of income, I continued to stay. As the tent revival was coming to an end on Sunday night last year, I was powerfully touched by the Holy Spirit. I felt that God was calling me to a new level of surrender to Him. I remembered my baptism that night as a symbol of my willingness to surrender and go deeper. Since that day I have been able to let go of the feelings that I must keep everything together. I have let go of the illusion of control. I found a good caregiver for my father. I have been able to turn my daughter completely over to God, knowing that He loves her more than we do and is reaching her in ways we cannot. I left my job at the end of last year and have been able to begin serving God within my church, and most recently, my community, as an ordained chaplain. God has provided and I have peace that I am in His will and He is more than able to lead me. None of this would have happened without the 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.

#162 God Like A Safety Belt

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Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

Two days before college, I was driving way too fast! I wasn’t under the influence but I was a little anxious to get down the road. I had stolen the car.

In a curve, I’d always crossed the line but this time, I hit another driver. Head-on, 65 miles an hour and my dash board was in my lap and my pelvis, fractured. I didn’t have a safety belt on. I broke my right arm in eight places and my fresh young face hit the windshield.

No one was with me. Thank God but just prior to colliding, someone entered the car.

“Hold my hand.”

What? This was totally foreign. I didn’t have spiritual encounters and I didn’t grow up with people who did. If someone had asked me about the accident, I wouldn’t have mentioned a voice but I put my right hand in the middle of the bench seat and felt a hand take mine.

I have no memory after that. I don’t recall seeing another vehicle, loosing control of the car or skidding 250 feet. I don’t recall impact. I don’t know where I was in the road.

My college plans had been arrested! My doctor said, “You’re on doctors’ orders not to go to university.” I rebutted, “I will go to school if I have to go in a wheelchair!”

Then he gave me a choice, “You can either stay in this bed for ten days or I can put you in a body cast?”

Great! I chose to stay in bed and he scheduled my surgery for the day I was to start classes. Now, I had pins in my arm and I was confined to bed. “Your recovery will be six months,” he stated.

As they wheeled me out of the hospital, my high school drama teacher stopped by. She had retired and was starting a community college in our hometown. “I know the doctor told you, you can’t go to university but you can come to my school.”

There was some hope.

Not long after I was released, I reconnected with Teeny, a widow with no children of her own. We’d connected when I was a girl and became close friends through my high school years. She’d recently moved within walking distance of the new college. I moved in with her.

The first time I walked in, I noticed it. The air in Teeny’s place was thick. It was like liquid air, heavy and loving. I never told her, it felt like liquid love. I don’t know how to describe it except to say I was weighted down in peace and felt like that most of the time.

I never said anything to her about what happened in the car. I wouldn’t have thought to but almost daily she would say, “No one would have lived through that but you. God must have a plan for your life.”

How did she know? How was she so certain God had plans for me? I grew up in a home no one wanted to be in. Everyone of us was ready to leave as soon as anyone could and now my plans to escape had been shattered. How was God on my side?

Once she looked me straight in the face and said, “I’ve been asking God why I’m not dead yet. All my friends are dead but I’m not dead cause you still need a momma.”

Teeney was 91 years old. A frail bird of a woman but her heart was big and strong. I slept in the bedroom on the left side of the hallway. Hers was on the right. At night, she’d take her hearing aids out and I’d overheard her talk. Maybe she couldn’t hear herself but I could. It’s where I learned what God is like. I remember thinking, “Everything is gonna to be just fine because Teeney is talking to God and God lives here cause she’s here.”

After I got my cast off, I quit using the walker and I could do a few things. I made Jello and cornbread or vanilla pudding. We spent days sitting in the sunlit room, watching Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune. I sat on the floor and typed my papers and her chair sat low to the ground. I’d push my body as close to her as I could get. I wanted to crawl inside of her and feel. What was it like to be her?

When I think about religion, I think about complexities. Certain things you have to know or do but Teeny made things real simple. She’d say, “I talk to God like He is a friend. I talk to Him like I’m talking to you right now.” She told me, “When I wake up I ask God to take my hand and keep me from falling and He does.” I knew God was her friend and I knew she was my friend and I thought, maybe, somehow that makes God, my friend.

In January, I went to university. I was in the wrong crowd in no time. One night, the needle was just two or three people away. “If I put that needle in my arm, my life is over. These so-called friends will let me die.” Just like that, I came to my senses and walked 2-3 miles back to my dorm room.

My roommate and her boyfriend were asleep. I quietly came in and clung to my mattress, knelt on the concrete. Teeny had shown me that coming to God was not a complex matter. I quietly said, “I want to know the God Teeny knows.” In that moment, the air in my room became heavy and loving.

I’d never had a hunger to read the Bible but I began to devour it. Within a few months, I moved to an apartment off-campus with two closets. In one, I put my clothes. In the other, I put my Bible. I covered the walls with Scripture. It became my place to meet with God. This new hunger for God was supernatural. I wasn’t like that before. I didn’t want the same things. I began talking with Him like a friend, like Teeny did.

A few years later, I joined a discipleship team. Now, I was studying the Bible day and night. Two days before our first missions trip, God told me to go home and tell Teeny goodbye. At this time, Teeny was 95 years old and in a nursing home. I peeked into her room and she leaned towards me, “Are you an angel or are you the real thing?” I giggled. “I’m the real thing Teeny!”

Teeny was sharp as a tack till she died! She knew exactly what she was saying! Obviously, she was hosting angels. I don’t have a theology for that. I just know I had to walk over and assure her I was the real thing. There was room in her bed for us both. We just hung out for the weekend and shared such joy I forgot why I’d come. On my way out God reminded me, “I told you to tell her goodbye.” I turned around and forced the words out, “Teeny, I want you to know, if you die now; I’m going to be okay. I love you and good-bye.”

Teeny died two weeks later, the day I left on my first missions trip.

I learned a lot about evangelism on the mission field but I learned about Christ in a two-bedroom apartment on Old Lair Road in Cynthiana, Kentucky with a widow on a walker.

Teeney taught me to have a deep confidence and trust in God’s ability to do what He does best: Redeem His Children. 

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

#161 In Awe of the Light

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Photo by Brianna Rapp

When I was 21 I did something that I felt I had to do, something that I regretted the moment I did it. Afterward, every aspect of my life was shaken, and not one moment went by that I did not feel the repercussions in my mind, body, spirit, and every relationship of what I had done.

It was not until seven years later that I went to confession. The priest was so kind to me. I felt so liberated after praying the prayers he instructed me to pray and felt encouraged to talk to God. Now the gate was open.

A few months later at work in the hospitality industry, I was walking from the back toward the cafe counter via the seating area, and I saw a tall man of about nearly seven feet in a suit with neck-length, wavy hair talking to another man. I noticed him, not for any particular reason, but as I was walking past them I felt this man look at me—not in the way we normally look at people but as though he were looking at me through his spirit, and I felt him touch my heart.

As I walked to the barista counter, a latte came up with the docket number four. I turned, and there he was, sitting facing my direction with a black number four waving me in. I walked, looking perhaps a little embarrassed because of what I had felt;after all, this was just a man. But as I walked toward him he looked straight at me and said, “I believe you’re looking for me.” As I placed the coffee down on the table, I replied gently,“Yes, and I found you.” Although I did not look up at him, the power in that moment was magnetic; I felt like someone wanted to get to know me, wanted to talk to me, wanted to make me smile.

I walked away, did another round of clearing tables, and came back out. He was not there, but had left a half-finished latte. And as I approached our barista and asked him if he saw the man at table number four, he confidently said, “Nope.”

That day will live with me always. I know there is no physical evidence of who this man was, but it happened for a reason. I knew what he was saying and what the experience was saying to me. I was so inspired by this moment that I started reading true stories and testimonies of encounters with God, stories of miracles that have resonated with my spirit.

One day I lay on my bed, and spoke to God as though I were speaking to my friend—freely, without discipline in my words, and with no restraint, just purely myself. I fell asleep, and during that sleep He let me see something that is now burned into my mind and heart forever. I heard a voice—a deep, kind,trustworthy voice. In that moment, I did not know who it was, but I felt completely at ease. He said my name. I was in awe of the light I saw. It started off as a small circle like the sun and then grew bigger, slightly changing color in each domain,getting brighter and brighter until it filled my eyes. It was stunning. But that was not the best part. It was what I felt. He was pleased. Happy. Elated. I could feel how much He loves me, how much He loves the world—and it was breathtaking. No earthly pleasure could come close. I then woke up.

Now my soul isn’t as heavy and unbearable anymore. All I did was something simple: I reached out my hand, and in return He granted me His Kingdom.

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.

#160 Completely Forgiven

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 Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

As a young child, I went to church regularly and my parents were very active in church. But I felt like I couldn’t live up to the expectations of God because I was not going to be able to be perfect. I felt I needed to earn God’s love. I continued to go to church until my teens, and then my grandmother passed away and my family stopped going to church.

I remember taking my first drink in high school. I didn’t like the taste. I had to hold my nose to get it down, but I loved the way it felt, the freedom it gave me. It was the only coping skill I had developed to deal with problems in life. I became a weekend drinker in college and then began drinking more heavily. Around this time, my parents divorced. I ended up getting pregnant. Even though I wasn’t going to church at this time, and I was walking away from God, I know that God never left me.

Alcohol and the enemy take you to a place where you can’t differentiate between right and wrong. Life becomes a gray area. I decided to stop drinking while I was pregnant but I wasn’t excited about having the baby. In fact, the only thing I could think about while I was pregnant was not being able to drink. After a year, my family stepped in and took my daughter. It’s not that I didn’t love my daughter, but I knew I wasn’t able to care for her and willingly gave her up. My family wanted me to go to treatment and I agreed to go to get them off my back. I went to treatment for 30 days but afterwards continued drinking. I became pregnant again and made a choice not to continue that pregnancy. Afterwards, I felt I had committed the ultimate sin, that in a moment of selfishness and addiction, I had stooped to the lowest point. This just made the drinking worse. Then came two suicide attempts. I was so emotionally bankrupt that I felt death was the only way out.

I remember one night I was in an empty apartment that I had been evicted from. I had no electricity and no running water. It was just me and four walls. I cried out to God, “You’ve kept me alive when I wanted to die. I am completely broken down. It’s up to You to do what You want with me. I can’t keep fighting alone.” The next morning, I went to treatment, but this time I wanted it for myself. I wanted a genuine life change. My moment of desperation met a window of opportunity and I had a moment of clarity. I thought, “Maybe there is something different for me.” I know this was God. I was in treatment for about a month and found out I was pregnant again. The facility was not designed for pregnant women, and they told me I had to leave because I was a “liability.” By the grace of God, a spot opened up in a facility in my state that accepts pregnant women, and I got a place there. I remained there for a year in treatment. I remained sober for the entire pregnancy, and during that pregnancy I didn’t think about drinking. I thought about my son, and for once I thought that I could be a good mom.

I had asked God to show me if I should stay in that city after completing the program, and I felt God leading me to stay. One morning I woke up and felt God calling me to go home and get the baby that I had left behind. I applied for a job in my hometown to do drug prevention in the school. The job required a college degree, but I applied even though I didn’t have a degree and ended up getting the job because of my experience! I got custody of my daughter and had a stable job. But then, funding ran out for my job and I applied for a job with an addiction recovery organization. Again, I didn’t meet the requirements, but I was hired anyway. I continued to be promoted and eventually I was involved in a discussion with the CEO about programming. I felt God was getting ready to act on my dream that an addiction center for pregnant women would be opened in our area. I told him about my experience of being a “liability” and my dream that no one else would ever be in that situation. I had been praying that God would open a place for pregnant women in my area, and when I talked to the CEO I found out that he had also been praying about this! God took over after this. A year ago, I saw my dream fulfilled and the organization I work for opened a residential addiction treatment center for pregnant women just miles from here.

In the meantime, I felt called to do something in my hometown jail. If you want to carry the message of God’s love, the jail is the place to go. That is where you will find the broken but also God’s presence. I asked the jailer if I could do a ministry in the jail, and he said yes. Fast forward three years and I am now married to the jailer and we have a seven-month-old son with our own home. For the first time, I feel stability. My husband and I work together to help people in jail. We believe they need skills and resources and need to know about the goodness of God—that He is not a condemning God looking for perfection. He is a God that wants to love you. My husband also advocates with the state jailer’s association for giving inmates the opportunity to change their lives through rehabilitation instead of incarceration.

I thought I was a terrible person that made extremely bad choices and was going to burn in hell for what I had done. I now know I am forgiven completely and made new through Christ. He continuously loved me even when I didn’t love myself and saw no worth in myself. I am so thankful for the abundance of God’s love and the abundance of grace He has shown me. 

I share this story of honesty to reach the next person that may feel they are all alone. My past does not define me. My past does not dictate my future. God defines my path and my purpose. I am forever grateful for the life I live today. To get to show up and watch God show out.

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.

#158 Restoring a Sound Mind

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 Photo by Nicole Tarpoff

I was raised in a divided home. My dad was a party guy and drank a lot. My mom dragged us to church every Sunday and Wednesday, but was very angry. Her life didn’t end up the way she expected, and there was a very disappointing feel in our home most of the time. Growing up I thought I would much rather be like dad because he was having much more fun. He was eventually hurt at his job in the coal mine and there was no financial help for us after that. My mom worked with a direct sales company to make ends meet, and this meant I spent more time with my dad and we got even closer. After my dad got hurt, he got depressed. My mom began to resent him even more because he wasn’t providing for our family.

I was a good kid and made good grades, but I always compared myself to others. In high school, I pulled away from the good group of girls, and started hanging out with a different crowd. When I was 15 I took my first drink of alcohol and it was like I couldn’t go back to being good. My view of God was that He was harsh and you had to be perfect to come to Him. I felt like I had destroyed being able to be loved by Him, so I began a downhill spiral. When I was 17, I was in a car accident and got my first prescription for pain pills, and things quickly got out of control.

I used the MRI I had from the car accident as the “proof” I needed to get pain pills. I graduated with honors from high school and then went to college. When I was 19, I met a man at a bar and after knowing him nine days I dropped out of college and moved to Columbus to move in with him. I thought I was okay through all of this. I was using drugs daily, even though I had a job as a dental assistant. I lived with the man four years and the relationship was very abusive. His main source of income was selling drugs, and that became a big part of my life too. His mom died and she lived in Kentucky. So, we moved to Kentucky and were living in a car for six months. When it started getting cold out, I went back to my mom’s home. The man died a few months later.

 

After he died I started getting in a lot more trouble. The next year and a half I worked on and off at a gas station. I became an IV drug user and then could not function. It was then that I realized that I really had a problem. I could no longer hold down a job. I started stealing and getting arrested. In 2010, I was in a really bad car wreck and the money to pay my medical bills came to me and I kept the money. I became worse than I had ever been. I got arrested and then got a DUI and went to court. The prosecutor said, “I’m going to make sure you do a year in jail if you don’t get help for your addiction.” My mom stepped in and talked me into doing drug detox. On December 2, 2010, a residential Christian addiction recovery program opened in my town and I began my journey to recovery there.

I was really scared. I didn’t know if I would ever have a sound mind again. I had racing thoughts. I would read and not recall anything I had read. Things just didn’t click. I had been intelligent in school and it was terrifying to think I may not ever be able to function normally again. But it kept getting better. I can remember the first time I could remember a scripture verse and write it without going back to look at it. I finished the program and was offered and accepted a job at the Christian addiction recovery center I had attended. Eventually, I went back to college and finished my degree in psychology.

Recently, God has helped me discover more about who I really am. I have transitioned from working at the Christian addiction recovery center to a career in business, but there is still a lot of ministry involved in my job which I truly enjoy. I’ve discovered that I thrive in leadership, especially when I am provided opportunities to encourage and inspire people.  

God is so good and so loving and always working things out for good even when we don’ know what He is doing. He never left me through all of the dark days of drug addiction. He was there every step of the way, calling me back to Him. I am so grateful for the changes He has brought about in my life . . . and I am most grateful for His love.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7

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.

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