Faith, Failure, and Redemption: A Journey from Addiction to Grace - This Is My Story

I'm talking about the guy sitting in front of you right now who has a ministry , a lead pastor of a church , has a podcast and now YouTube channel .

I have thousands of dollars of equipment in video and photography and all types of gear and now microphones and a desk and chairs and this whole setup and I and that was , let's see , 2014 , I was arrested for possession of a control substance . 2014 is 2023 . Nine years ago . Let me tell you my story . So let me tell you my story .

Sorry , I just had to use it one more time . I just had to . It's fine with sound effects , so I started off . Let me go back a little bit further than 2014 . My childhood was significantly better than any other persons on the planet that I knew . Let me explain that . So I started off on . You know what an evangelist is ? They travel from church to church .

So my mom and dad met while my dad was traveling around . I believe he had a little motorcycle that he was pulling a little trailer behind and he would travel around . He's from Southeast Missouri . If you look at on the map , if you look , I guess you could look on a digital map . Now I was going to explain what a paper map is to some of you youngsters .

But if you look on a map , there's a little boot looking thing they call it the boot heel sticking off from Missouri . It's there . There is nothing but farmland and you can see as far as the eye can see . There's no trees or so nothing . It is just perfectly flat . So all you flat earthers probably would feel very at home there .

Then they meet , they marry , they are traveling , they're preaching , they're singing , they're doing all these things in ministry and then they find out they are having a little child and she was with child and so that right there started them slowing down a little bit .

Now I'm not 100% sure on the timeframe of when they stopped and when they decided to become pastors or when God moved them in that direction . And when I say God move , if you aren't familiar with that language , we believe as Christians that and we submit , as Christians , that God orders the steps of the righteous . That's his word .

So we're very we're supposed to be excuse me , we're back up . We're supposed to be led by God and everything in our lives . I'm going to tell you a little bit about how crazy I allowed God to be in my life in just a second . So they , they slowed down , they became pastors .

I was , I think , an infant in their first church and in this first church all of the fun stuff happened . The first church was their how do you call it ? Let's just call it a Jesus boot camp , and it was terrible , but they learned a lot of things . Well , moving on , let's fast forward a little bit .

We're now established and living in Missouri from K through sixth grade for me at this time of frame . I have a little younger brother . He's four years younger than I am . He actually has his own live stream and podcast on rumble and he , not he and we had the perfect established family . Now , what do I mean by that ? My parents . They had jobs .

We never went without food . We weren't rich by any means . I mean , my dad was a pastor . I don't know if he worked other than the pastoral ship outside of the home . But I think my mom worked a job , I think sometimes two jobs , like at a doctor's office or something like that .

So all of that being said , in all of the kids , and then you go on and from seventh grade to graduating high school . Now God moved our family to Texas . That's where we lived here in East Texas , and I never , I never , I rarely , knew anybody else in my school that had the stable Christian , always in church , parents that were still married .

You name it good biblical principles to live my life . Some of you may think that the Bible is stupid or invalid or whatever , but I guarantee you , if you never turn to Jesus but you use the Bible as good principles to live by , you're going to have an amazing life . That's just facts .

All this to say that I and this is this is my high school , my high school thing had girlfriends , you know whatever kind of the typical teenage stuff , but I didn't go out , I didn't drink , I didn't go out with anybody .

Some of the kids that I knew they smoke marijuana , like our senior , like our senior night I guess it was a little senior party thing , someone rolling up blunts and things like that and I'm like that's just . That is so stupid . I was raised that drugs are dumb and they only make you dumber . So , with that being said , I graduated .

I went to a college in Waukesha Hatch , you call Southwestern , and somebody got in university . What I was doing was what I thought I was supposed to do , and it wasn't a bad path at all . I was actually going to get excuse me , going to get a degree for becoming a youth pastor and so , anyways , I went there . I made some very close friends very quickly .

I was serving in a church there during the week and then on the weekends we'll come back home to Palestine . Is it family ? My mom specifically , cause I'm a mama's boy and I'm also her favorite , ain't that right , mom ?

And then , yeah , so I was doing that and I ended up falling head over heels for this girl and she kind of broke my heart and betrayed me . And then I ended up betraying a friend with this whole mix up stupidity all around . Very immature , I backstabbed someone just for a girl that ended up backstabbing me to go back to him . Is this drama , drama ?

So I go back home , I take the youth pastor position at my dad's church and I'm thinking in my head oh well , I got to skip all of the studying because I did not graduate all of the studying , and blah , blah , blah . And then there was a time where I messed up royally and I had to step down from being youth pastor .

That's why I highly , highly discourage Not that it's impossible or not that it can't be done but I highly discourage anyone , especially youth pastors , but primarily any ministers to do ministry and be in leadership somewhere where they have the authority to do things , to not be single , because it can lead you down a path that will only lead to destruction .

If you understand what I'm saying to you , before I step down or close to the end of it I don't really remember , honestly , the framing of it Probably pretty close at the very end had to be because I started drinking like a fish I decided , hey , I'm in my early 20s . Why is everyone else having fun and living their best life ? Why am I not doing that ?

Why am I not having any fun ? I ended up meeting my first wife at a party that I threw while my parents were out of town . Now , mind you , I'd already lost the youth pastor position that I really didn't deserve in the first place . I didn't earn it , didn't just bad decision ? Well , not bad decision on my dad's part , he was .

I mean , he was , he was on point . I was the one that messed it all up . Then I meet my first wife at a party I was throwing and I had to move back in with my parents . So after marrying her , we got , or I had a plan to now go to studio engineering and this college was in Orlando .

So my brother I mentioned a minute ago he was , he was all on board and kind of wanted to do stuff in the same genre that this school offered for film and things like that .

So he actually moved with me and my new wife and she was pregnant and so in that whole situation of being in Orlando I decided apparently somewhere along the way that being a good new father and husband that I was going to start going out to clubs because I was making friends at the college . Now , this is not in the Southwestern , there was drinking there .

I mean , obviously , just because you go to a Christian university does not mean you are Christian . It probably means your parents are and they're paying for it . So you kind of go wherever the money is . So going to Orlando , bought a house . Actually , excuse me , my mother bought a house .

I told her I was a mama's boy , I have great favor in her eyes , but she was doing . She got sick and they ended up winning a lawsuit for something that legally I can't say , but it made a way where they could be able to furnish a home for us . So we were able to go .

It was my brother's first time in college , it was my second time , and while I'm going to college I'm making friends , friends that are not Christians , and so my point with telling that part of the story is just like that first video we watched , where she grew up in a good home , that she did not want to follow the rules , so she left .

I had no , no rhyme or reason why I went the way that I went , except for and listen to me , if you're a parent and you're having issues with a younger child or a teenager or a young adult child , whatever , there's all kinds of situations and avenues you can go down and that if it could be a failure to launch issue , which means you babyed them their entire

life and now they're adults and they don't know what to do , or situations happen divorce , chaos , all kinds of things , to move back home . I think in the total of my adult life I maybe moved back home for five . I'm not even a hundred percent sure .

I was a I'm not going to say loser , because I don't want you to think that I'm saying that about those people , but for me I was a loser in a deadbeat all around my husband , terrible father , terrible son , terrible favorite son . I just I was not fit to be anyone's favorite .

That being said , in Orlando started going out to clubs because the friends I made , they knew Orlando , they were from Orlando , they were around there and I was coming from Palestine . I don't know what the population is of Orlando , but I know that the population of Palestine is like 17,000 .

So you go , take a boy who has never lived in a big city , that never really spread his wings or sown his wild oats , and you take him to a big city where there's a club on every corner and I don't know if you know what dubstep is , but it reminds me a little bit of this , honestly .

But like whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , whoa , like that whole wobble , wobble , wobble , and I thought that music was awesome and then , on top of that , I could drink forever and I would never get hungover . It was the perfect combination .

So , as I'm ruining my marriage and ruining also my education , because it's hard , I wasn't hungover but I had that kind of you know feeling in my stomach . So I was going out a lot . It wasn't . It was to the point where it wasn't a weekend thing .

In my justification on this not not going out , but justification on not working which , if I was working I wouldn't have had the time to do that is that my part of it was my mommy Helping me and then my wife at the time . Part of it was the shoot . She worked at Walmart .

So she worked at the Walmart across the street from where we lived and and then I was going to school full-time but then I ended up having time for the clubs anyways . So pretty much you get the gist . I it was both sided , but I played a major role in selfishness and pride to ruin that first marriage .

And then there was a lot of other things that Happened that's none of your business . And then , after she left Because she , she left she took her son Tristan left , went back to Palestine . Well , I mean , at that time Now I really had no anchor to reality or reason to act right . Whatever open the floodgates , here we go .

So because of that , or not because of that , in addition to that happening , I had no regard for myself at all . And so what ? What happened was that I started making friends that were now the club owners , club promoters .

I started making a name for myself and not really anything , except I would go out and get drunk and crazy , but it's , it's kind of weird . Even in the depths of our sin , sometimes the gifts God gives us still there . So God , god gives me favor with people .

I don't know why , but I can talk to anybody and I can make someone Feel close to me and I feel close to them without much effort at all .

Like making people a part of my life is very , very easy to me , and that's why I can look at a camera with not much training , and I can talk to you like you're sitting in front of me , talking to me , because I feel that you're a part of my conversation , like I don't , I can't see you .

There's a few of you watching , I can't see you , but I feel like you're here with me . So to me , it's very easy to include somebody in my life and make it where it's about us instead of just me .

And so this guy that I met maybe twice , he sends me a text . He's like hey , come to the bathroom . So it was a large club , he could hold about maybe 500 people , something like that , and by this time I had all Access to anywhere I wanted in the club . They had a VIP section up where the DJ was that I could walk up to the DJ .

I even played like , did a little on the DJ's thing . I didn't know the guy , but because I knew the owner I could pretty much do whatever I wanted . And so this guy text me , says hey , come to the bathroom . I go to the bathroom . By this time obviously I'm drunk , I'm at a club .

And he said I hate , I had long hair and a big beard and and I did not start this and it's a little ironic but they , for some reason I got the name Jesus , I don't know why , and it wasn't Jesus , I don't look Spanish , but Jesus . They started calling me Jesus and he said hey , man , you want , you want some of this . I said what is it ?

And on the , you know , in a kind of commercial setting , in a bathroom , there's kind of that double roll of toilet paper . It's like a housing of it . Well , on top of there it's flat , and he chopped this little white stuff up and he said man just . And he rolled up a dollar bill . He says snort this man , just breathe it in .

So I did it and it burnt a little bit , but it was like all of a sudden I didn't want to drink anymore , I just wanted to dance . And so from that moment on I begin to go down this dark path of cocaine addiction , drinking constantly and then doing Molly , which I don't know . If you know what that is , md may , it's kind of a , what do you call it ?

It's not a hallucinogen , I don't remember exactly what it does , but it messes you up . I was in the in the middle . I was outside of someone's house at a party . Once I snorted some cocaine .

I snorted half of a Molly , and you know the old VHS tapes or the , the players that you could push once fast forward and you go , oh , it kind of , you know , real fast .

I'm out in the front of this house and I'm going like this to my hand , like this , this slow , like this speed , but to me , through my eyes , it looked like it was going over and over and over again real fast , but it wasn't . It was like slow motion , like this , and that night I touched a snake , which I've never done that ever again .

But it was cool because you could feel it makes your hands like cool and feel very weird and everything is very heightened sensitive . And so I started down this dark path of experimenting with different drugs . And then it got to the end of my Orlando excursion because my mother decided , for some rude reason , she wasn't gonna pay for my stuff anymore .

Oh , oh , I forgot too while I was in Orlando . I also , after my ex-wife left and she took the kid , and I started down this path . One night I ended up rear-ending this car , leaving the club I was taking a friend home .

I was supposed to go the other way , but I went this way and Because the guy asked me to take him home instead of go to the party that I was supposed to go to , that I was actually a part of making happen , and this girl either either slam on her brakes in front of me or Didn't go when the light turned not a hundred percent sure , because I could

barely walk straight . I had spent all night at the all night at the club , and I I'm the one and she was on her phone I was the one who had enough mind to tell her to pull off the main road and go up into this gas station that was closed down , and so I called the cops and the ambulance stupid , but .

And I sit there and waited to make sure that she was okay . And I got arrested . Not only that , but there were about 50 beer cans in the back floorboard of my little car and it wasn't that I was drinking them .

Then , just over time , we throw them back there and they , for some reason , they said they could charge me for each one that was back there to say that I was drinking them . But they knew that I didn't , that I'm a cold . There was no wet , they weren't wet at all . They were all dried out . It was just trash , is what it was .

God spared me on that , but I did get arrested and so court the judge . Next morning I got on probation . They sentenced me and all this stuff . Well , then I ended up getting in trouble , finally getting out . Well , then they put a boot on my car and then they took my license , and so , because they took my license , they put a boot on my car .

Well then , I couldn't get a job . But a part of the probation was I had to get a job . I had no one that lived around there . Everybody that I knew left . So went to my mom and I said , listen , I've been stupid for too long and I didn't tell her all the depths of everything that I was doing , which I think my brother did , jonathan .

But it was time for me to start acting like an adult , and by that I meant come home and move in with mommy again . So my great cousin dropped everything . His name is John . He's actually preached in my church , which is pretty cool . He came , he helped me move , he loaded up a trailer and we headed back over to Texas from Orlando .

Oh my , so my son was born in Orlando . He's a Florida baby , so he's he's cheering for the Santas , I think . But I get back to Palestine and there's some unforeseen circumstances of things that I at the time hated , had no control over .

I thought I was gonna fix some things that I messed up in my life and ended up Not having control over whether we're gonna be fixed or not . Well , and because , of course , like a good , a good alcoholic trying to fix her life and now a cocaine addict .

I thought that Because she meaning my ex-wife wouldn't fix things and that the way things went that I had every right to then start drinking again . But now I was back home at my parents' house , so let's just start this bad boy over again . Let's throw a kegger . So we start . I start on the alcohol journey again . I'm just seeing old friends .

I'm inviting anybody I could . My parents had this massive 4,000 square foot house with the big in-ground pool and hot tub and the perfect remedy for a bunch of morons to get together and get drunk . And there's this guy I don't know how long I've been doing the partying thing .

There's this guy that came and he came back to one of the counters in one of the bathrooms and he said hey , man , have you ever tried cocaine ? Of course I did . He knew I did . He said here , you're probably like this , try this . So he took his little knife or whatever and crushed it up and it looked almost like glass . So what is it ?

He said well , you like cocaine , you like this . It's just like cocaine , except it lasts longer and it's cheaper . And so I'm like well , that's a no brainer . I like a good deal , just like the next guy . And so that started down my path , hooked on meth . I didn't know it was meth . At the time I had never seen meth .

I never , as far as I knew , never seen anybody on meth . I've never heard really any stories on meth , had no context of what meth was at all , except for the little story I was given in the pitch of it's cheaper and it lasted longer than cocaine , which was , hey , right up my alley .

And so I can't tell you how long it was from that day to the day that I got arrested . I have no clue , but I do know that I got super skinny in this before I got arrested . I'm not sure how long my dad could probably tell you . Praise God for that relationship that was fixed . But he kicked me out .

So , without putting anybody else's personal business , pretty much I didn't have my mother's protection anymore , and that left it wide open for my dad to kick me out , because he didn't necessarily know that I was on meth , but he knew that something was wrong .

Like I was a key point factor of my parents arguing because I would get high and then I would start doing stuff to help around the house . You can't get a job if you're hooked on meth , because for what ? You don't take showers , you don't care about hygiene anymore . Two , it's hard to pass a P test when you have that trash in your system .

Three , you just look like it , like my hair was down to there , my beard was down to here . I didn't care what I looked like , my hair was always greasy because I didn't take showers .

My reality I one time took a little video camera and argued with my dad that there was a snake crawling in the little thing on the bottom of the TV , a little speaker thing . And I went back and I played it for him and I said , look , this is what I'm talking about , see . And I played it for him .

And this is the first time I realized I went off a little bit on the deep end because I watched back with him and showing him . And when I looked at it on the camera , I didn't see anything . And I was just like , and I argued with him and I said and I'm dad , I promise , I promise it was there .

So , long story short , my dad ended up kicking me out because I couldn't . Now he kicked me out with kind of the stipulation of if you , since you keep acting like this , you can't come back until you stop . So if I needed to shower or I needed to close or whatever , he let me come back , like he wasn't like mean about it .

But I remember the moment he kicked me out , he was screaming . I don't remember if he was crying , but I know I was , because I was . So if you don't know this about meth , when you're coming down you're very emotional , like extremely emotional .

Anything can make you just cry or stupid , angry , and I was like bawling , like screaming at him , blaming him , for there was no justification for me yelling at him . It was me acting like a moron . And he was saying not in my house , which was kind of fair Now that I am a dad , now that I have a house .

So , that being said , he kicked me out and I was homeless . I had some drug dealers that would .

I would make the connections , I would sell drugs , I would do anything I could to provide and get money for my cigarettes , and so that right there I was homeless for a while and because I was out on the streets , because I didn't have a place to go or to stay , my car was full of stuff . My dad did give me money one time .

I don't know if I still owe him money or , dad , let me know if I still owe you money he gave . He wrote me a check . I think no , you didn't write me a check . He gave me cash Before my acoustic guitar that I now play in worship all the time .

So what he did is he technically bought it from me Let me hold onto it but bought it from me so that I could have money to survive out there and eat and stuff like that . And I always held onto my camera . I had my first professional camera . I had had it by then , because I started my company in 2012 and all this happened probably 2009 , 2010 , 2011 .

It's kind of the whole when everything started going south , moving to Orlando and stuff , because Tristan was born in 2008 . So , anyways , and so he gave me it got me cigarette , money for purchasing the guitar .

Well , because I was out , because I was staying in a hotel every now and then I had a hotel that I was staying with a couple of people and this guy needed me to take him to a couple of towns , over back to his house , to regroup , to re-up , whatever he was gonna do that day . And the cop that pulled me over said I had a tail light out .

I don't know if that was true or not I was too high to have a clue , but we were all out .

I thought I did not realize that there was a Altoids container in my left pocket that had one little bag unit and one little shard left in If you don't know shards kind of like a little splinter of a meth pretty much , and so this is what sent me down the path to get back to where I needed to be , to be where I am today , and when they arrested me ,

I was in Palestine

. One of the most embarrassing times in my life was when one of the officers that showed up on the scene of my arrest was a guy I went to high school with Then . So as I was getting arrested and processed back in the county jail , he came up . He followed I don't , he didn't take me . He came back . He came up to me and he started talking to me .

He said man , stephen , what are you doing ? He's in my , not at my , face , but he was right there and he just was talking soft and he was like Stephen , what are you doing , man ? You gotta stop this .

You gotta stop , of course , being the big boy I was , you know mainly , I started crying and had to strip down naked to go into there , had to hold myself and cough so that they can make sure I wasn't smuggling anything in or had , I guess , anything hidden .

So I get into holding cell and then they I guess they get a room ready for me , and the room was actually with seven to nine of the guys , and I was arrested with a guy that I thought was my friend , and so this dude was probably three or four years younger than me .

He was freaking out and he was saying oh man , if we go in there , you know we got to help each other out . You know , if you get out first , you got to make bail . You got to figure out a way to get me out . And I got you and I got you . Well , within 24 hours he was out and I never heard from him again .

Listen to me people that you think are on your side when you're in the depths of your sin will be nowhere to be found when you really need them . It's a lonely game . So I'm in there . I call my debt man upset me so much because I think my mom changed numbers because she was in Arkansas at this time and I could not remember her number .

I could only remember my dad's number because he had the same ones as I was a kid . There's this one moved to Palestine . So I called him and man , I cursed him out , I yelled at him . It was all his fault . Of course , if he wouldn't have ever kicked me out , I wouldn't be in the situation that I was in . All his fault , not , not , not mine .

Well then I was in the cell and I started . A few days later . I started sobering up . I took a shower . It was , it was crazy . After I got done yelling to my dad , I went and I lay down . I was on the top bunk , I covered my head up and I was . I kind of cried myself to sleep and for the first time in a long time I had peaceful sleep .

And a few days went by and my dad always told me listen to this . My dad always told me . He said if you ever get locked up , you're going to find your own way out . My dad is not a liar , let me tell you .

He stuck to his word and I don't know , I'm the softer one , I think between me and my wife being parents , I think she's the one that sticks to the rules . I'm the one that's kind of like , yeah , whatever , you know , as long as it's not killing anybody .

And I don't know if it's because I'm a guy and I'm just like , whatever he's not dying , or you know , I don't know , walk it off and whatever . Put duct tape on it that heals all wounds , right , it's in the Bible , and so I don't know . But if my son was in that position , I don't know if I can leave him in there .

So for my dad to do that to me , I think it probably was some of the hardest self restraint that he was going through to just say sorry , you got to sink or swim . So let's fast forward a little bit . The cell had this Bible and by this time actually let me back up , this is important story , important part of the story .

So inside of the cell I found a Bible . I started writing scriptures . You ever done that thing where you're like you're reading the Bible and you like flip it over to a specific thing and you point and like , oh , that's exactly what God's saying . I literally did that six times and it was a exactly what God needed to say to me .

And then I started writing it down on paper and I started handing it out to people in the jail cell below me , like in the , in the , in the bunks , and this new guy came in . So we're bringing new people in , getting people out .

This new guy came in and he comes in and all of a sudden these guys like group around him at the table in the center , and he said , or I hear somebody say , hey , jesus .

I don't know why they started calling me Jesus too , but it just I guess I look like him , I was trying to be Christ , like apparently they said hey , you want to , you want to come over here ? Apparently the guy had a bag of meth that he had in the toe of his shoe on the inside and he ended up smuggling it in and they didn't catch it .

And that was the first time I knew visitation was coming up and I wanted to see my dad through sober eyes . And that was the first time I ever said no to meth since I started , and that was a pivotal point for me . I didn't know how to say no to things . If everybody else was doing , I'm like , yeah , why not ?

I'm the party guy , let's just do it , let's , let's party it up , yo . So that began to turn the the wheels in my head . So I met my dad . Of course I was crying again , big man crying , and I'm in the line with these other guys at glass looking to their people .

And I'm seeing people in there that I went to high school with , that had promising athletic careers , and now they're in there . Same thing with them . They were hooked on stuff .

Well , long story short , god orchestrated where this guy that was in the cell with me , his dad , was a bail bondsman , and so I ended up selling my car to them and signing it over to them to get out of jail . Well , when I got out of jail , it didn't take nothing but a day or two to be right back at it .

I didn't have a car now , so I got delivered to the house and then I got picked up . I got taken to this , this drug lord's house and in the area , and I had a little bit of cash and I gave them the money and said , hey , go get me some more , let's , let's , let's get a little 60 worth . You know , whatever . I fall asleep .

When I wake up the next day , the guy who went to get it is back . He doesn't know where my stuff is . There was a girl that was laying on a bed over in the corner . She said she had no clue where it was at , but she was wide awake . They will lie to you . Well , nobody ever found it , nobody ever knew what .

And all of a sudden something clicked in my head and I'm like why am I doing this to myself again ? The people that are supposed to be my boys ? Someone is lying , someone stole from me and they took the last money that I had . Why am I hanging out with these people again ? So I called my brother . He was in town .

He came and picked me up and I never went back . So you remember the cousin that came and helped me move from Orlando back to Palestine . They dropped everything . They knew him and his wife and he had two little kids about the same age as my son .

They knew I was struggling , they knew I was having issues and fresh out of jail and apparently they had talked about it before he came up and offered and he said hey , you know , why don't you ? We're about to move to White House , so it's about an hour away , because they were leading worship at a church over there . Why don't you come with us ?

I don't know , man , I just let me think about it . And so I thought about it and I was like you know , the reason I keep going back is because I'm not . I keep going and staying around the same group of people and expecting different results . I have to eliminate these relationships or these relationships will eliminate me . I have to .

And so I went with them and he actually this is a , this is a cool part of my new story he baited me to come to the church in the first place by saying there's a little blonde girl that was over there that he thought I'd get along with . I'm like okay , blonde girl , I just got out of jail , what's up boy ? So I went multiple times .

I even went to their stupid rehearsal , their worship practice , and she was nowhere to be . And she was on the worship team , nowhere to be found . I don't know where she was at . She can't even tell me where she was at . She said maybe she had to work , maybe she was in the back with the kids , I don't know . The church was not that big .

The chances of me not seeing her or her not seeing me are slim to none , unless it was a God thing . Let me tell you this God got ahold of me in a service and let me tell you this same , the same wallet , right here in the back , right here Now , where I carry guitar picks .

I had a bag of meth in my pocket when I went down to that altar and nobody knew it , and that night I cried and I cried and I cried at that altar . I got up , but when I went home I justified , because I spent my last money on this little bag .

I put it on a creased tin foil , I hauled out a pin and I lit underneath it and I smoked it and I cried . We oftentimes will justify going back to some sin for whatever reason , filling the blank with whatever you want , and it's never worked .

I didn't even get to enjoy it because I felt so guilty and so dirty , because I knew it was not what I was supposed to do , but I did it anyways because I tried to justify it . Well then , fast forward . My dad .

Every time he saw me because I had the long hair you know , he's old school , he's the pastor with the comeover and every time he saw me he would say , hey , wanna get a haircut Every single time , wanna get a haircut . Well , when I saw him again I said , dad , let's go get a haircut . He actually , a few months ago , sent me that photo .

I wish I had it right now . I'd show you . But a photo of when I was sitting in the chair the barber's chair about to get the haircut , and I looked , looking with sober eyes to that guy , at that guy . It looked so disgusting . I was like ew . After I got that haircut I went back to church , cut my beard down about what it is right now .

And that's when my wife was there A kid you not . I shook her hand . I asked what her name was . She told me and I was so dumbfounded I couldn't even remember what she said . But she told me later she's like if I'd have saw you like that , the way you described that , I never would have looked your way again .

But here's what happened when she was walking across the stage I sat in . The pastor's wife at the time was sitting next to me up in the sound booth and I said I'm gonna marry that girl . I said it out loud , I knew it in my heart . All that to say the gospel of Jesus Christ .

There's nothing after all of the evil and dark things that I did , nothing that I think that I could do could ever earn back my right in the good graces of God , except for Jesus . And now you fast forward . We just passed , in April , eight years of being married , and now the son that I almost lost lives with us full time .

And now she is pregnant with a little baby girl that's due the 1st of October . You can't tell me or convince me any other way that Jesus Christ , the gospel of Jesus Christ , the good news of Jesus Christ , transforms lives in ways that you can never imagine . We're now lead pastors of a church , a new church that's about three or four years old .

The building is three or four years old . It's a remnant from a much larger church later , and now it's been rebranded and completely redone , just like God has done to my life . And now he's set us up in ways . He's given me a passion for photography and video work .

He's given me a passion for sharing the gospel with people online , even the ones I make mad . The gospel of Jesus Christ is something that every single person that proclaims faith in God should be sharing , because it has the power to transform lives , and you never know you never know the person you're sharing Jesus with , where their story can lead .

You never know what lives and what the echo , what the ripple , will do for two people from the story you shared of Jesus across generation to generation , from person to person , people you'll probably never meet , but because you decided to be faithful and to share the gospel and to share the good news of Jesus Christ , that lives were changed , transformed ,

regenerated , renewed and restored . That is the power of the gospel . Thank you all for watching today . Make sure that you go to our YouTube channel and you subscribe . We've reached over 1,100 subscribers right now on the YouTube channel . Make sure that you go . You hit the bell notification . What that does is that tells you when I go live .

That tells you when I post videos . It tells you also Instagram I'm on the grams now . Facebook if you're a part of the Facebook group . We're almost , I think , to 800 , 800 people in the Facebook group . So a lot of good things happening .

Every single day we're putting out brand new videos and every month we're putting out new interviews on the podcast or wherever you consume that content . So make sure you go subscribe there as well . God bless y'all . Thank you and I will see you next time . Faith and Failure's podcast .