Corey's Testimony
My testimony involves almost all of those things....My testimony explains HOW God changed me, and used what the devil tried to use for evil to help me grow spiritually
I was filled with the Holy Ghost when I was 11 but at the time, I guess that did not seem like enough for me because it didn't take me long to backslide. For one reason or another, I wanted to fit in, wanted to be loved by the world I guess I started hanging out with the wrong kind of people, and that lead to me becoming extremely far away from God. I had always been a nerd growing up through elementery school so I guess one day I finally got sick of it, and caved in to what the world thought I should be like.
I suppose I can't really say that it all sarted AFTER I was filled with the Holy Ghost because the event that started it all was when I started smoking at age 10. I had some friends that smoked, and I told them that I did even though I had never picked up a cigarette in my life, and so when it came time for me to prove it, I "had" to pick up smoking. I guess because I was caught in a lie, and in order to fit in I did what I thought I had to do. Receiving the Holy Ghost changed my life, but not all of the sudden because I wouldn't let God talk to me, I was running from Him.
Anyways it didn't stop with cigarettes, it soon turned into marijuana, and other drugs, would have been alcohol too, but I never liked the taste of that stuff it was nasty, so after I had my fist beer, I really never had a desire to pick one up again.
But my drug involvement lead to drug dealers, and eventually to gangs, though I never officially joined a real gang my best friend did.God must have sent him to protect me though because if not for him I could have been sucked into a gang myself. He would always tell me how he didn't want me to see the things that he had seen, and how he was going to make sure that I never had to, which he did. the kid got me out of a lot of trouble, but, just the fact that I hung around him got me into a lot of trouble as well. For example, one day we were walking home from school, and we heard a voice. They called his name, that shouted "come here". He looked back at them, and then at me, and said "Listen we have to run NOW, and if I tell you to duck, or to drop to the ground, you'd better do it as soon as I tell you to, because if you hesitate even a fraction of a second you'll be killed. So we ran, and while we were running, I was praying. ( I still was going to church through all of this, and people there just thought I was an ordinary member of the youth group ). We made it to his house safely. Shortly after that I got into a bad drug deal, my friend warned me not to trust the people I was buying from, but I didn't listen to him, or I did but by that time it was too late because when I decided to back out of the deal they wanted to kill me.
So my friend, and I did our best to avoid them, and we did for about a week or so, but one day we were walking down a street, and we saw their car pull up, one of them got out of the car, I told him that I would still pay him because I messed up his deal, and that was only fair, but he told me it was too late for that. my friend told me just to run so I did, and he talked to the dealer, gave him $5 from me for waisting his time, and told him that if he ever layed a hand on me, or tried to deal with me again. he was going to make sure that him, and his whole group wer "taken care of". The next time I saw the dealer, he told me something to the nature of that he was sorry, and that he over reacted.
Anyways one day I finally realized the road I was headed down, and that it was not what I wanted at all. I realized that it was not necessarily me that was bad, but it was my friends that were dragging me down. but I didn't want to just drop them, I thought that I could witness to them, and that God could use me to bring them to church. But the more I tried to stay, the worse I got, and finally came to the point where I asked God to take me away from my friends, ( for a little while ) so that he could prepare me, and when I was ready, bring me back so I could be a witness to them.
Shortly after that we moved, and I got some new friends, that helped me along with my walk with God. and God started revealing His call for ministry in my life. It has taken some time but you know that saying you can take the kid out of the street, but can't take the street out of the kid? well apparently whoever made that up did not know God like I do because He started working on me, and was patient with me. the more I gave up from my past, the more He blessed me.
I still have a long way to go but when I look at where God has brought me, from a kid who's life goal was to grow up, and be a drug dealer, who was probably going to get killed before he turned 20, to someone who is on the brink of discovering, and launching into what God has in store for them. I know that God will see me through the rest of the way