(1) Childhood
My family background, is that basically of a typical Christian family, my mother was a Christian when she met my father, but my father wasn’t but I believe that he made a commitment before they got married. After they were married and us kids were born they both became too busy and stopped walking with God, so the younger years of my life were difficult for everyone in the family. As parents they were struggling because they didn’t have Christ to lean on, my father was sent to boarding school when he was child so he did not know how to respond to us and our childish ways so he found it hard to put a arm around us, and mum was struggling because dad was never home he was always away in the truck. As you could imagine our family was falling apart, it got so bad that when I was about five and my brother was three my mother had had enough and she snapped, she kicked my brother and myself out, not permanently but it was frightening for us all, she spent the day at home crying and thinking what have I done. This proved to be a turning point for the family, it was after that my mother decided that she needed the support of her husband, and in hindsight it saved their marriage, so she started to travel in the truck with dad quite a lot, and us boys spent a lot of time with my grand parents and this is how life was until I was about eight years old, when financial life got to much for my parents and they sold everything and we moved onto a relatives land were we had no electricity and no sewage, and a pile of debts that you couldn’t jump over. We had hit rock bottom but at least we had each other. As we all know sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we look up, and so my family started to go back to church.

(2) Baptised
When I was about ten years old I got baptised and I believe that it was a very real commitment. I don’t remember what my inner most thoughts were but I do remember incidents, like I had a dream, and I was frantically running all over Buderim, were I was living at the time, trying to get people ready for the rapture, telling them that He was coming and to pack their bags and be ready because He was coming like Santa in the middle of the night. Another incident was when I believed that an angel appeared to me, I was riding my pushbike at the time over a wooden bridge when I came up with a bright idea to pull some of the boards up and make a jump in the middle of the bridge. It was then that a man suddenly appeared and asked me wether I thought that was such a good idea maybe someone might fall. I turned to fix it and the man disappeared as quickly as a had appeared. These incidents, along with my personality, helped me form the very strong views on Christ that I still cling to today.

(3) Walked away
My strong views on things combined with my perfectionism, was to be my downfall along with normal teenage rebellion. As is with most teenagers, they rebel a bit, it’s apart of trying to work out who they are and I was no different. People started to talk behind my back, I started to hold grudges and because of this I started to lose my way and to make things worse, this was the same time that I moved out of home, I was only fifteen, but I thought that I knew it all. This only helped snow ball the situation, the worse that things became, the worse that I would rebel. Eventually I found my self in a world of cars, bikes, women, drugs, and alcohol. Although looking back at this time, I believe that God never let me out of His sight because I could never bring myself to cuss the Lord or His name. Even so the Lord let me endure eleven years of hardship. Looking back there are two main reasons that the Lord let me go through these experiences. The first was so that I would call on Him to lift me out of the mess that I had got my self into, and the second was so that I could relate to those that have hit rock bottom the same way that I did, and of coarse neither of those two made any sense to me at the time so when my mother would tell me this I would think to myself what does she know, and I would withdraw from the family even more.

(4) My Calling
1996 was the year that I hit rock bottom, I had not long come out of a defacto relationship and was driving interstate with a company that was renowned for keeping their trucks going all the time, so I was never home. I practically lived in the truck, was lonely and had an enormous chip on my shoulders, all this time I was immersing myself in worldly things trying to get contentment,( was having a good time I thought but was never truly content ). But all this time my parents had been praying for me and never giving up. Then I meet Catherine and the Mackie family. Catherine caught my eye straight away, my mother had nursed with hers, and when mum and dad were in Sydney they would invite me over to have tea or even stay the night, knowing that they were Christians I would refuse of course, but the Lord had other ideas, this was all in His great plan. When we finally met not only did Catherine accepted me, but her family did as well, this blew me away that they would accept me, as I was a truck driver that smoked, drank and was rather quite course at times. All this hit me rather hard as you could imagine, but it also softened me and allowed the Lord to start His work in me and change my life. People often say how the Lord changed them but they often forget to let you know that it’s not all rosy as soon as you accept the Lord into your life. This decision cost me all my friends except one, but I would still make the same decision again, because I have gained so much more.

(5) Today’s life
If someone said to me that I would be married, have three beautiful children and live in Sydney seven years ago, I’d ask them to share the drugs, how the Lord changes our lives. The Lord is continuing to work in my life; He has taken me on a true journey. After I gave my life back to Him, He taught me what true faith is, you see it is not enough to simply believe in God, because even the devil does that, in the same way it’s not enough to just love the Lord your God, you must have complete faith in Him. When you have both love and faith in Him, it is amazing what He can do in our lives. After I made a positive step of faith in the Lord, He really changed my life. I felt a real sense of freedom come over me, because I didn’t have anything to worry about, all the burdens that I’d been carrying about He lifted off my shoulders. I just felt relaxed knowing that He was in control. Although I must confess that I still try to worry about different things from time to time, but then things seem to go wrong and I’m reminded to hand it back to Him. I suppose that it feels like He has given me a second chance, and you better believe that this time round I’m going to lean on Him. At the moment the Lord has given me a real opportunity, He has helped me to have more time to share with others through the CMA, where I am the Co-ordinator of the Sydney area and also the Vice-chairman of NSW which means that I now get to go out and tell others about my journey, so they know that they aren’t the only ones to do it a bit tough at times, but all this would not be possible if I didn’t first have faith in the Lord.

(6) Big Picture
It doesn’t matter what heartaches we go through here on earth it will be worth it in the long run, because Gods glory will far out weigh any issues that we may have here on earth. I find it hard to remember this at times, but it is true, the Bible tells us so, and if we are to believe any part of the Bible we must believe it all. We are not the only ones to experience hardships, think of Joseph in the old testament, he was sold by his brother’s then thrown into prison then after all this he was rewarded, when we sit back and look at the big picture you start to understand why God allows some of these horrific things to happen at times, it’s because he wants us to come to Him and some times we may need to hit rock bottom or He may think that we are strong enough to be put in certain situations like Job was, so that we might help others that are at rock bottom, even if it is four thousand years later. As you can see sometimes the prayers that we pray may not get answered straight away but the Lord will answer them in his timing as He did with my parents, if at age sixteen the Lord had answered their prayers I would not have gone through the events that I did, and would not be able to encourage others in the same way that I can now, but He did answer their prayers only when He thought that it was best. And the exciting thing is that He is not finished with me yet!