Christopher grew up with a lot of anger in his life. He suffered through many hardships and tragedies, including the accidental death of his youngest brother and physical abuse from his stepfather. “I never got mad at God,” he explains, “but I was so angry.”
Raised in a strict religious home, something about the church his family attended didn’t feel right. Christopher went through all the church rites but remained spiritually disconnected. Around 10 years old, he just stopped going. But his anger didn’t go away. He began drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes at the age of 11.
When Christopher joined the Army at 18, he was already married and expecting a child. While in the military, he started exploring different religions and philosophies in a search for meaning. He even tried Buddhism, but it didn’t stick. “I knew I was praying to an idol,” he says. “I didn’t like that.”
A year after leaving the Army, he was in a high-speed car accident and was thrown through the windshield of his truck. His vehicle flipped over and slid along the ground, pushing him along like a snowplow. Then right before the truck collided with a large concrete block, which would have surely killed him, something pulled him safely back into the truck. “God saved me that day,” he says. “I remember praying, ‘God, forgive me. Here I come.’” But even this miracle didn’t bring him back to God, so his fruitless search continued. He eventually gave up hope, banishing all religious thought from his life. He raised his children without any religious training at all.
A New Home
Nearly two decades after God saved his life, God stepped in again. While at the movies with his family, Christopher saw a coming attraction for the film 2012, about the supposed end of the world. The thought frightened him. “I knew I needed to be right with God before something happened,” he says, so he resumed his search for truth. Unfortunately, as he explains, “There are literally millions of Internet hits for ‘true church of God.’ I didn’t know where to start or how to tell what was true.”
But God soon directed him to a website featuring a video of Pastor Doug’s conversion testimony, The Richest Caveman—and he was powerfully moved. He recognized elements of his own search for truth in the story, and he looked for other sermons from Pastor Doug. In this way, he learned about the seventh-day Sabbath.
Christopher then found a local Sabbath church and planned to attend, but he wanted to see it with his family before he went there to worship. They all climbed in his truck and drove by the church. It was a small building, but something about it felt right. He said, “This looks like home to me.” And it was.
Christopher and his family were warmly received on the first Sabbath they attended. By the second week, the congregation knew his and his family’s names. When he stopped attending for a while due to some difficulties he was facing, some of the members came to his home to make sure he was okay. “I was stunned,” he says. “They missed me. I realized God loves me and didn’t want to lose me again.”
He joined a Bible study at the church but realized he didn’t have the basic knowledge of the Bible that he needed to keep up, so he began studying the Amazing Facts Study Guides. Shortly afterward, he and his wife were baptized together.
Christopher knows that God used Pastor Doug and Amazing Facts to reach him and pull him out of darkness. To Pastor Doug he says, “God has blessed you with a special talent to reach out and touch peoples’ lives. You have touched ours. God bless you and your ministry as we look forward to the coming of our Savior.” His prayer is that Amazing Facts will be able to reach many others like him who are searching for the truth of God’s love and forgiveness. Will you help us do that today?
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It is God’s desire to love and forgive His children,
and Christopher is now rejoicing in that truth every day.
And you, through your support today, can play a huge
role in sharing that truth with so many others.