Saved from several years in prison

I was just a regular guy but one who had no sense of purpose in life. I had a decent job but I was motivated by money and so one day my brother, uncle and I got together to research how to make more. The enemy planted a seed in my head that selling drugs would help me make lots of money and from that point, I began researching details on how to sell weed (including how many grams are in an ounce; how many ounces are in a pound etc). I didn't know anything about drugs prior to this point but I started effectively training myself on how to be a drug dealer. At the time I had a $15,000 credit card so I used it to withdraw a substantial amount of money (about $12,000) and started running ads on Craigslist. I ran ads in Oregon, California, New York, Florida and many other states and was asking people if they were willing to ship drugs for me. I finally found someone in Colorado who agreed to ship stuff to me and from that point, I became a drug dealer. I started off by selling a couple of pounds a week and before you knew it, I was a king pin. Within 6 months, I had made of $150,000 and I kept going. I remember my last shipment I sent out had a value of $36,000.

The night I got caught was September 6, 2012. I was going to my friend's house and I just had a feeling that something was going to happen that night. I was on my way to pick up $36,000 from my friend and I was also going to give him some more product. That day also happened to be my brother's birthday and earlier that day, we had gone to the shooting range. I ended up buying some pistols and becoming a member of the shooting range and I still had the pistols on me as I was driving to my friend's house.

That evening, every authority was waiting for me and as soon as I pulled up to my friend's house, they all pulled out their guns and started shouting at me to get on the ground, just like you see in the movies. I co-operated with the police and got put in a jail cell around 2am. It was impossible to see at the time but God was still working in my situation.

Whilst I was in jail, I met two guys - one guy was called Justice, who had just given his life to Christ and another guy who was a bishop and had ended up in jail because of a ticket from years back that he had failed to pay. They asked me why I had ended up in jail but as I was in complete shock that I had been caught, I kept saying that I didn't deserve to be there. The bishop told me to go to bed and we'd speak in the morning. The next morning then arrived. The bishop came up to me and told me that he had been thinking of me and encouraged me to read the book of John. I was confused. To provide some context, I was familiar with God but I didn't have a personal relationship with Him. All I knew was that there was this guy called Jesus. I had also never really read the bible prior to this but I decided in this moment to read it - I had nothing to lose. As I read, I became more interested and asked the bishop lots of questions. By this point, I had been in jail for 4 days. The bishop then told me that the Lord told him that my fourth day in jail would be my last day in jail - in otherwise, I'd do 4 days and then I'd do no more time. At the time, this was hard to believe. Because I had 3 felony charges (I got caught with 2.5 ounces of marijuana and 3 pistols in my car), I was in fact looking at a potential sentence of 15-30 years!

I did, however, get released after 4 days and awaited my trial which would decide my fate.

When I came out, I started to live better but the temptation to start selling again was strong. I had so many fees to cover (e.g. legal fees) and I knew that selling drugs would be a quick way to make this money. The guy in Colorado knew I got caught and even offered to give me enough product to get me back on my feet. I fell into the trap and was talking to my brother one night, but had lots of product wrapped up and ready to sell. That night, however, my brother felt uneasy and started saying that he didn't think we should go ahead with this. As he was telling me, a black cat walked past us and I just felt like this evil spirit was attached to it, as if the devil was walking right by me. At that moment, I told my brother to take the weed and throw it into a bonfire in front of us. Immediately after this, I felt a spirit lift off of me and ever since then, I've never felt the temptation to seek money, to be greedy or to sell drugs.

I still had a court case to face and I remember my lawyer telling me that I needed to do a few things to demonstrate that I was of good character and trying to better my life. So I did. I enrolled into and completed a course for drug abusers, I went and got my JD but most importantly, I tried to use God. I'll never forget how the Lord intervened in my life when I tried to use Him. I joined a church and said to my lawyer that I was going to try and use the pastor there to get a letter to show I was a good person. I went to a service one day and wasn't even paying attention to the message. My sister invited me back to the evening service and to be honest, because I needed to get this letter, I went. Again, I wasn't paying attention to the service but then the pastor starts coming to a close and said that there was someone in the room that the Lord had a message for. People started praying in tongues and interpreting it and I felt the Holy Spirit come upon me. People started telling me that the Lord was going to allow me to be victorious in the court case. I was in complete shock and gave my life to the Lord that day. Since then, I've been baptised and I actively seek the Lord and have also started a YouTube page where I share scripture and teachings (I've also uploaded a fuller version of my testimony there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIzyeKGYasA).

At this point, my court case is still pending. Now I knew God, I was praying and fasting and declaring this was His case but truly, I was still scared because I never knew what would happen. I distanced myself from my family and my daughter and started gaining weight (I thought that if I was going to go, I'm going to enjoy as much as I could!). The court date kept getting postponed which also made this time more difficult. I then remember being asleep one night and the enemy tormenting me that I had to go to court the next day and I took control and declared that I would be victorious. Once I started to believe the scriptures, I knew that I was victorious.

In the end, they dropped the gun charge, reducing another felony and dropping the last felony. By the grace of God, I was surrounded by believers in the court room too! My prosecutor was a believer, my parole officer was a believer and I had spoke to them prior to going into the court room about the Word. I thank God for moving in these people's hearts because the judge recognised that there was a change in me. I was able to get my old job back as a welder and I became a better employee and started to spread the gospel.

God met me when I was at my darkest moment and the Holy Spirit cleansed me from the inside out. My life is so much better now and I'm grateful for God reaching out when I thought there was no hope.

One thing I need to add at this point is that I was forgiven by so many people in my family for what I put them through during this time. The police raided the house, there was so much shame and stress and they forgave me and this is part of the reason that I forgive people now.