John Davis, lead singer, guitarist, and songwriter from the band Super Drag tells the story of his turning point, when he hit rock bottom, and when Jesus stepped in.

Watch the video here.

By Larry Nevenhoven

Temecula, California

In 1985, I ran into a brick wall with my life. I needed thousands of dollars to start a publishing company and bail myself and my family out of debt. Credit cards and financial sources were tapped out. There was no one to turn to, not one drop of hope left in my tank. I was finished.

The one untouched asset that I had was a $125,000 life insurance policy. My solution seemed obvious – suicide. As for killing myself, this was not a moral dilemma to me because I was an agnostic. No God – no problems with eternal judgment, right? So, suicide just seemed to be the right business decision to make for my family and me.

My plan was not complicated. I would enjoy one last weekend with my wife and two children; and then, commit suicide via an auto accident on the following Monday evening.

So, on May 20, 1985, I finished up a few loose ends in the morning and early afternoon. Then, for some reason, I stopped at an insurance agent’s office. Though Bill and I knew each other from our children’s athletic interests, we were not intimate friends and had never really talked with each other. But this visit was a divine appointment.

Bill invited me into his office. We chatted about the Chicago Cubs and our children’s sports careers. Then in the midst of our conversation, he looked at me and said, “You are thinking about committing suicide, aren’t you?”

His words hit me like a sledgehammer. How did he know? I told no one. It was my secret $125,000 payday. I was speechless. As I sat there, a vision played across my mind of my car ramming into a bridge viaduct and killing me.

Tears rolled down my cheeks. I tried to regain my composure, but I could not.  ”How did you know?” I asked.

“Oh,” Bill said, “the Lord told me while we were talking to each other.”

His words shattered my unbelief. God was alive and cared about me. Bill and I continued talking for a time. Then, he gave me a book entitled Power in Praise by Merlin Carothers and suggested that I read it.

When I arrived home, I began reading the book. After a few pages, I walked into the bathroom, closed the door and knelt in front of the sink. Looking into the mirror, I prayed, “Jesus, I’ve tried everything else in my life, and they haven’t worked. I guess I’ll give You a try!”

Instantly, I was changed. No longer were fear and shame my comrades, but joy and hope filled my heart. Bowing and worshipping my new King, I prayed almost verbatim the poem, Footprints in the Sand, as a promise that I would never let go of Jesus. Never.

For the following two weeks, the Lord performed one miracle after another in my life. Investors appeared with $50,000 for the publishing company. The stockholders elected me the president. A new car was purchased. Our mortgage payments were paid up to date. When God arrived on the scene, things happened quickly.

If my story were a fictional Hollywood movie, perhaps it would resemble “It’s A Wonderful Life.” Jimmy Stewart could play me; Donna Reed could be my wife; the angel would get his wings; and everyone would live happily ever after. The end.

Sadly, my life has not been a work of fiction. It has been a day-by-day journey, filled with some good experiences and many mistakes, false starts and failures. I have trudged through a marital separation, divorce, loss of friends, numerous firings from sales positions and countless low-paying, dead-end jobs. Poverty, rejection and loneliness have filled most of my twenty-three years of walking with the Lord.

And yet, it has been in the valleys of despair where the Lord has truly revealed Himself to me. He became my loving Father. I learned to trust Him.  I learned that His grace was sufficient. And I learned that God is a good God.

This week, we featured Thomas Hurst, a journalist and photographer who’d reached the end of his rope and was ready to take his own life, when God stepped in.  Read his story here.

For more Changed by Jesus stories, you can find the series on the Mars Hill Blog.

These testimonies were submitted by the people who attend Mars Hill Church, in response to Pastor Mark’s request for examples of times when they’ve faced persecution for their faith.  While many of them are uplifting and end on a high note, several aren’t your typical “happy ending” testimony story.

You can read all the tesimonies here.

If you’d like to listen to the sermon that includes the testimonies, you’ll find that here.

Click here to listen to the program and the interview in windows media format.

Woodley also has resources available on her site to minister to women who have been victims of childhood sexual abuse and who have undergone abortions.  You can find that information here.

Have a tissue ready for this one.

Bellevue, Washington

When I was given my first full-time teaching assignment, I was ecstatic. After a year of substitute teaching, I was finally in charge of my own classroom. I spent hours tirelessly setting up the room and preparing for my students. On the first day, my feet hardly touched the floor as I welcomed each child to our classroom.

After a couple of days, my principal came by my room after school. With honesty and regret, he told me that the school’s enrollment was lower than expected and that it was likely I would have to be let go as I was the newest teacher.

Within two days, my excitement turned to sadness as I walked my students to their new classrooms. After school let out, I boxed up my teaching dreams and supplies and moved them back to my one-room apartment where they sat in plain sight along one wall.

As I stared at the boxes, I felt my desire to teach was crammed into them along with my teaching materials. I had trouble finding any bit of hope.

Suddenly, God reminded me of His promise in Isaiah 43:18-19, “Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”

As hard as it was, I whispered God’s Word and believed He could and would bring an opportunity. He gave me this desire. He would create a space for me. I clung to this belief like a life raft that stays afloat in turbulent waters.

A couple of days later, my phone rang. On the other end was a different principal who knew me from substitute teaching at his school. He needed to hire a teacher immediately because his school’s attendance was higher than expected. My first principal had given me a glowing recommendation. Combining that approval with his own observations, he hired me.

Two days after closing up my first classroom, I was setting up another classroom. God made a way even when the future appeared to be a desert wasteland.

Seattle, Washington

Mars Hill Church: West Seattle Campus

During my sophomore year in college at the University of Washington I had a bike accident in which I broke my neck (C2 vertebrae), dislocated my jaw, and fractured my face in four locations. I like to say that I’ve only broken one bone in my life – my neck! Though initially there was thought that I may need to have plastic surgery on my face and perhaps learn to walk again, neither were required. However, I was resigned to over three months of wearing a halo while my neck healed, which meant no showers and learning to sleep in a recliner. There is something incredibly clarifying about almost dying. It sharpens the senses and brings the brevity, frailty and worth of life into crystal clear focus. Every day, every breath, every shower (which I wasn’t able to take), every turn of the neck (which I wasn’t able to do) was a gift. Sitting in that recliner for three months, I had plenty of time to think, particularly about how we can live our lives in such a way so as not to waste them. A phrase that struck me during that season of life is found in 1 Tim 6:19, “so that they may take hold of that which is truly life.” (NASB – life indeed; NLT – real life) Paul was saying that there was something that is “truly life”, and the inference is that there is life that is not truly life. Even more, “taking hold” of this was something they could do now, in the present. What is life that is truly life? How are we to live life that is truly life in junior high, high school, college, as newly married, amidst midlife, during retirement – and not waste it? Don’t wait for a traumatic event to seriously consider this question. What is it? How do we get it? How do we know if we’re living it?

To listen to, watch, or read the sermon notes from the sermon in which Pastor Adam told this story in full, visit this post.

Granger, Indiana

Fear is a miserable companion. It begins in the pit of my stomach before my mind even registers it’s existence. It cloaks itself in depression and sometimes anger. It insinuates itself into every response, masking it’s true position as an idol in my heart with euphemisms like “worry” and “concern”. The reality is that I have some major trust issues. The fact that I’m an oldest child should not justify my unwillingness to relinquish control but it’s an excuse I often spout with just enough of a smile that I seem transparent and able to laugh at my own foibles.

Last night, our worship pastor, Ryan, slipped a song into the set that we hadn’t rehearsed the night before. (We have Thursday night services during the summer.) It was the hymn (updated and accompanied by electric guitar, of course) “I Surrender All”. Ummm. Yeah. Can we just skit that one?

Here’s the thing. I don’t want to. Surrender all, that is. It’s too frightening for me, especially when what I see looks hopeless. I look at the fact that our house has been on the market for 9 months…that’s right. NINE months… and it hasn’t sold in a market where other houses are selling in just a few months. I mean, it’s not like we’re in Southern California where the market is tanking. Our house is gorgeous and in one of the best, most coveted developments in Granger and no. one. will. buy. it. Meanwhile, our family is apart 2-3 weeks out of each month while Larry travels to work. This puts serious strain on our family dynamics as we readjust every few days to different schedules and expectations. We also have one car. With brakes that need to be fixed. Then I find myself worried about arriving in San Diego and having nowhere to live. Or having to settle (something an oldest child absolutely hates to do). There is something in me that absolutely rebels against taking our children away from a beautiful home that they love and moving them into something less. I know it’s shallow but it makes me sick (how’s that for transparency?). Without selling this house we will not qualify for anything and even with selling our house, we qualify for very little (a result of a couple of very difficult years here in Granger). My fears start to compound and I am unable to see God working in any of this.

Now, I should make it quite clear that I know things could be so much worse. And you should know that Larry is an incredible father and husband and takes take of us in ways that I believe most men would not. Without his wisdom, the circumstances that blindsided and crippled us could have resulted in much more dire consequences. Because of him (and certainly not me because I have not the discipline nor the financial acumen) we have avoided bankruptcy, foreclosure, delinquencies, loss of medical care and much more. I know that God carried us through those times with a clarity that I wish I could hold onto for more than a brief moment.

So, returning to last night… we came out of communion singing “I Surrender All” and I was fighting it. My attempts to disengage started to erode somewhere around verse two:

All to Jesus I surrender
Humbly at His feet I bow
Worldly pleasures all forsaken
Take me, Jesus, take me now

Slowly the layers of resolve began to peel away despite my best efforts to stayed pissed at God. The set was orchestrated to move from “I Surrender All” into “Sweetly Broken” (Jeremy Riddle) with me leading. By the time I hit the chorus I had to drop out. I broke. The tears streamed down my face as I was reminded anew that ‘God is love and God is just.’

At the cross You beckon me
You draw me gently to my knees, and I am
Lost for words, so lost in love,
I’m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered

I was so beautifully brought into recognition of His sovereignty despite my willful distrust. I am praying this morning as the pit in my stomach takes up it’s normal residency that Christ will invade my space moment by moment today. That He will reveal himself to me in ways that assault my selfish nature and infringe on my comfort. That He will continue to humble me and transform my yearnings until they align with His will. That His kingdom will come, His will be done in my heart and life as it is in heaven.

A testimony can be as simple as your salvation story, how God saved you from your sin and brought you to a relationship with Jesus. But it can also be many other types of stories about the ways God has demonstrated his love to you in your life.  To learn more about the different types of testimonies, please visit this page.

If you’re interested in submitting your testimony story to the site, visit this link to learn how.