The summer that I turned 12 was one of the worst. By then, my dad had returned home for a few months but was still drinking heavily. Our car had been repossessed and we were living in a rented, run-down mobile home in Charlotte, N.C. My parents discovered that my mom was pregnant. Dad was not happy.  On August 3rd, he came home and with slurred, drunken speech, announced that he wasn’t going to have another baby. He stated that he was going to take my mother into the bedroom and kill her. He began beating her and throwing her around the small trailer’s living room. When she was on the floor, he kicked her so forcefully that each kick thrust her body forward on the floor and then into the narrow hallway leading to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Afraid, I ran to my bedroom and grabbed a .410 gauge shotgun, a gift from the previous Christmas since I loved to hunt.  As my dad passed the doorway, I told him to stop. Mom was still crumpled in the floor. Dad was holding her wrists, still kicking her with each step.  I was in the corner of the room with the gun pointed at my dad. He dropped my mother’s wrists and walked toward me. The next thing I remember is seeing smoke roll from the end of the barrel of the gun, blood splatter everywhere, my dad grab his face and then fall forward on my feet.  I ran from the room. In minutes many neighbors, the police, an ambulance and TV crews arrived.

My mom and I were taken to the Juvenile Division of the Mecklenburg County (Charlotte) Police Department. We sat in a room with two detectives for hours telling of past events with my dad and everything that led up to the incident that day. I was then asked to sign a statement saying that I understood that I was being charged with 1^st degree murder. Until that moment I didn’t realize that my dad was dead. That night I was released into my mom’s custody.

A couple of weeks later I returned and was introduced to a man named Rick Hulse. He asked about every detail of the day that dad died. I answered every question. After the meeting I was told that he was the prosecuting attorney and that he had determined that my actions were in self defense. He decided not to try the case in court and would drop the charge against me. It was a huge relief to hear the news, but this was the point where my life began to spiral out of control. Within months I had become an extremely rebellious teen. I began smoking and dabbling into drugs. My friends encouraged all the wrong things and I was headed in a deadly direction.

By the time I was 16, we had moved to Concord, N.C.  The Youth Pastor from a local church began to visit me. He became like a big brother. One day he asked me to come to camp with the church youth group. This event changed my life. On the second night at camp, I responded to an altar call to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. I felt I had nothing to offer. I was a rebellious, hard-headed 16 year old who had quit school in the 10^th grade. I remember the minister saying that God had a plan for my life - but how could He? I was a mess.

As the week at camp wore on, I felt the call of God very strongly on my life. I told God that I was His and that if He wanted to use me, do it. Through a series of what I know to be God’s amazing hand at work, I finished high school, then applied and was accepted at a Bible College. While I was in college, my youth pastor took a position as pastor at a church in Macon, Georgia. He asked me to come work with him. While there, I learned from him and his wife what a Godly marriage is and how a man should love and treat his bride. 

Jumping forward to now, I know that God has been so faithful to me. He has allowed me to build and manage a network of Christian radio stations throughout the southeast. I have been married to a wonderful, Godly woman for nearly 25 years. We serve in ministry together. We have one child, Kellan. He is a junior at a Christian university.   For the last five years He has allowed me to serve as one of the staff ministers at First Baptist North Spartanburg.

 While I know that God has brought me a long way, I know that I am nothing without Him. I am so blessed and undeserving of the goodness that He has shown me.

Then at the age of 28 I accepted Jesus Christ again because I wanted to be certain. I was married and had 2 children, and my husband and I both felt very strongly about being baptised for a 2nd time. The feeling was so much stronger than when I was 13. My husband became a deacon, and we were very active in the church. I sang in the choir, we were both Sunday School teachers, worked in Bible School, etc. My life later took a turn for the worse after I lost my father to cancer.I became angry with God for not healing him. I would go to church and would have to leave because I couldn’t quit crying. Finally I quit trying to go, and my husband didn’t go because I didn’t, so we ended up in a divorce that should of never taken place after being married 25 years.

Today I am still struggling to get back what I lost. I married an alcoholic who was very abusive, and who beat my self-esteem down very low. But that same alcoholic became saved 5 years before his death, and he showed me the true meaning of what it was like to be a true living Christian. People looked up to him, and they would say ” I want what he has.” I know without a doubt that if we don’t have Jesus Christ in our lives, and truly live our lives for him we can never truly be happy or have peace in our lives.

I heard the preacher say that we could have eternal life, but only through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. All of a sudden I realized that this wasn’t something I could do myself. I needed help. I needed a Savior. Right there in the pew I bowed my head and prayed along with the preacher. I told God that I knew I had done things that He hadn’t wanted me to do; that I had believed that I could live this life by myself. Now I knew that wasn’t true, and I wanted to give my life to Him, let Him have control and let Jesus live in me.

Immediately, I could physically feel a difference within myself. However, that difference is still being played out in my life today. Before this time, I hadn’t experienced many hardships, but since asking Christ into my life, I have experienced many: the death of my mother, two cross-country moves, and many other heart-breaking disappointments life has to offer. Through each of these trials I have experienced great peace, knowing that I have something much greater than myself and my own strength to lean on. I am a child of God, and I can do all things through Him.

My teacher, Bill B. Brown, taught us that we need to accept Christ as our Savior and that if we didn’t we would not go to heaven. He did not try to scare us but lovingly taught us. Through his teaching and my conviction that I needed Christ, I accepted Jesus when I was 11 or 12 years old. But this was just the start of the journey.

As I got older I knew I was not doing what God wanted me to do. After I graduated from high school I drifted away from God and fell out of fellowship with Him. I was not happy and knew I needed God, but the world was very enticing. A friend of mine invited me to a small church, and I actually went. Through His fellowship and God’s grace I have found peace and happiness ever since.