My Testimony

Before I was saved

I was raised in a home that did not claim to be atheist, but did not actively peruse God. Like so many other families in this great nation, we lived life as if God was not important. From time to time we would go to church on special holidays, like Christmas. Church for me when I was young was confusing. I would either spend my time in a Sunday school class learning about obscure characters from a dusty old book, or sit in the adult session and try not to fall asleep.

Another important factor to my youth was my parents divorce. This was a life altering event, that scared me. I struggled with understanding why my father decided to leave. I took this personally, as if he left me. My mind was unable to understand the reasons my dad decided to leave, and I began to think he left because of me. This planted a dark seed inside of me that would quickly grow into one of the most destructive forces in my life, depression.

The idea that I was unlovable had crept into my young mind. No matter what someone would say, the words did not change the facts. My father left. I could not understand why. If he loved me, he would have stayed. To me it was as simple as that. I did not understand how my father could love me and yet leave me at the same time. The proof of this was very hard to shake.

Over the next few years, I grew to become a teenager. This idea had become full blown depression, and I experimented with cutting. Cutting, for those who are unaware, is a form of self harm. With cutting you cut some part of your body, inflicting harm on yourself. Some may ask why I would do that, and the answer is actually very understandable. I was hurting. My self image was badly damaged and this caused me pain. In order to drown out this pain, I introduced an even louder pain.

I did not realize this at the time, but by cutting myself I was also experimenting with drugs. You see the body releases natural pain relieving chemicals to combat physical damage. These chemicals act as a drug in many ways, and can even become addicting substances. So addicting that people have continued to cut themselves, not to drown out their depression, but to chase the high. I had learned of this shortly after being saved, when a friend of mine accidentally committed suicide by cutting. She was just chasing the high, but took it too far.

I struggled with this kind of depression for many years, many times cutting myself in visible places. I would carve pictures into my skin, and then cover it up, hoping someone would ask me about it. It was a cry for help, and I just wanted to feel like people cared about me, to be loved. Sadly not many people took the time to ask. In fact, I once flat out told my father what I did. “Dad, I cut myself” I proclaimed in a fit. I was hoping he would do something; punish me, hold me, take me to the doctors. Anything that showed he cared about me. I remember what my father said, even to this day. “Good!, why don’t you just finish the job?” I was hart broken! How could my father feel this way about his son? It further pushed this devastating idea that I was unlovable into my head.

After that particular event, I began cutting with the intent to commit suicide. Previously, it was both a cry for help and a means to overcome the depression. At this point I figured that it would be better if I were dead. No more pain. No more depression. I remember attempting suicide several times, and crying myself to sleep. I would recite a list of people in my life, and ask myself if they cared. Pleading with myself to find a reason to live, trying to find just one person who would genuinely miss me. Some nights I was successful, and on a few occasions I was not. Leading me to put the knife to my skin. No longer wanting to cry for help, but instead end it all.

How I got saved

I was struggling with depression. In fact the night before I got saved I tried to kill myself by cutting my own wrist. I was at a place where I knew that there was something wrong. I knew that there was something missing. I was not a big leap for me to understand that the bible says that I am a sinner. I very much understood that something, some force, had devastated me. The bible just put a name to it.

I was invited to visit a local baptist church, where they were hosting a special event called the power team. She explained to me that it would be a fun knight out, and I had no where better to be. It was here that I first heard the Gospel. I am not saying that no one ever talked to me about the bible or even about Jesus. I am saying that this was the first time that 1.) The gospel was presented to me in full. 2.) I was receptive to hear it.

At this event strong men would break large blocks of ice with their head, and rip phone books in half. For a young teenager, this definitely got my attention. After they did their strong man performance these men talked about the power of the love of God. That God loved me, and proved his love by dying for me. Sacrificial love is powerful, because it backs up the words with actions. Actions that are undeniable.

It was this speech that lead me to accept Christ. I knew I was a sinner, and now I knew that Jesus dies to save me from my sin. All I had to do was to cry out to him, and accept by faith this free gift. It was so simple. I was so moved by the idea that I was loved, that I made the choice to accept this offer from Jesus. It was an emotional time, and I felt the love of God as if it were physically tangible.

The church I was visiting did an alter call, requesting all of those in the audience who just accepted Christ to come to the stage. I was initially uneasy about standing up in front of so many strangers, but after a brief hesitation I decided to move my feet. Jesus stood up for me, and saved me from such misery. How could I now stand in the crowd, and not stand with him. I could not, and I did not. I proudly walked up, and stood in front of the crowd.

After that day I new something was different. I could tell, because the loneliness and feeling of being unloved was gone. I had a sense of God’s presence in my life, almost as if a tangible person were living with me. I was on fire for the Lord, as they say, and I began my journey of spiritual growth. God was sanctifying me, from that point forth, setting me apart unto himself. I was his, and he was mine.

After I got Saved

After that night the depression was gone. Well not entirely gone, but it had become a much lesser beast. Akin to the types of bouts with depression I imagine everyone faces. I no longer had the urge to cut myself, because the idea that I was unlovable was proven with out a doubt to be false. I could not deny what Jesus had done. The evidence of his dying love for me had won the day.

Over the next 2 years I began to go back to life as usual. Unfortunately, the church that hosted the event was not near me and I was not a driver yet. No one from the church reached out to me. I had fallen off the map.

2 years after I got saved my brother started to date someone who attended an assembly near us called Carrollwood Bible Chapel. My brother was able and willing to take me to church with him and his girlfriend. At this I began to see men and women become students of the Bible. Not only were they deep in the word, but they lived it outside of church. They were not hypocritical, or judgmental. They were each of them on a similar journey of becoming more like Jesus.

Over the next few years I attended Carrollwood Bible Chapel, absorbing as much of scripture as I could. Eventually I graduated high school, and started to work. Finding work in web development, I also became the chapel’s lead web developer. God has given me the gift of teaching, and I have been a Sunday school teacher and speaker. I met my wife Joanna Coker at this church, and we have a son Jude Coker and a daughter Eden Coker. God has blessed me in many ways. Transforming my life, pulling me out of the dark depths of depression and given me hope. Hope that I will see his face, the one who loved me enough to die to prove it. God be praised!