Finding Community and Purpose After Hitting Rock Bottom
When I came to Christ, I was not aware that the consequences of life or consequences of sin would eventually catch up to you. In my case, I used to take the morning train to work, and I used to listen to this radio station. I think it’s 99.5 WDCX radio. I wasn’t a Christian, but I was hearing more about the word of God, about 6:00 AM every morning on my commute to work. Little did I know that my life would be changed even though I had not made the decision, as yet to follow Jesus. But when I did, that’s when I started seeing the challenges manifesting in my life.
I had a reckless past. I was empty inside, so I was looking for constant things that would temporarily make me happy, to comfort myself. That was my life before accepting Jesus. I accepted Jesus after hearing a song about a guy singing about somewhere in the Bible, Isaiah 51. At that time, I didn’t know what Isaiah 51 was. I started reading the Bible on the train or on the way home and just wondering who is this person was in this scripture. After realizing that it was Jesus, I was blown away after learning that Isaiah was written like hundreds, maybe thousands of years before Jesus came on the scene. I believed, and it convicted me of my sin. The second I believed, I became aware that I wasn’t living according to the way I should have been living, a holy life.
After accepting Jesus, my wife – our situation, deteriorated. I lost my wife, got kicked out of my home, and I had lost my job dealing with the stress from that. Soon after that, I started going into loneliness and depression and financial burden. Those were some of the challenges that I had to deal with at that time.
So, I had lost my job after being stressed out. I went to an employment center, and they had flyers there. Some of the flyers, we’re reaching out to people who were in some pretty bad situations like myself. I took one of the flyers, and while I was driving home, I had a breakdown. I couldn’t deal with the pressures that I was under. I was under severe financial difficulties; there was barely gas in the car. There were so many things going through my mind. So I pulled the car over on the side of the road, and I looked at the flyer, and I said, “I’m going to call.” So when I called, I got in touch with a Christian lady who said that she was aware that some workshops are going on and that she could put me in touch with someone who would be able to register me. So that’s how I became a part of the support group here.
The most significant impact my group made on my life was that I realized that it’s normal to be broken. There are others in the world that are going through pretty much the same things that you’re going through, and you’re not the only one. So it was a way to feel somehow accepted, not judged. It was also an excellent way to interact with different people with different testimonies. You also have the opportunity to make some friendships out of the hurt. So every day when we had our meetups, you got to cry with your group mates and show compassion – something that you don’t often see in the world these days. And to me, I think that’s the most significant advantage of being in a support group.
It doesn’t matter if you are a Christian or not. You might be at a place right now where you need someone to listen to you. You never know what you’ll get out of the support group unless you take that step. So sometimes, after doing the support group, you realize that it was probably the biggest decision you’ve made in whatever circumstance you were in. It was the most significant decision you made because you’ve made friendships from that and you’ve had opportunities to help others. In my case, I was the only male in my group, so I was able to lend a different perspective to my group mates who were all female. So you get a chance to share your testimony with others and also learn from others in the process. Thus you’re helping others, and you’re helping yourself. Whether you’re Christian or not the lessons that you learn are life lessons, and you can’t lose by hearing the truth.
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