AT ODDS WITH GOD

I was never a church person, although I did tell people I believed in God, when in actuality I opposed him at every point in how I lived my life.

DEVOTED TO DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

I was a heavy drinker, and I did any drug I could get my hands on. Strangely I was able to keep a steady job and not let the drugs get the best of me, at least that’s what I thought. Then I started doing heroine. That drug took over my life, to the point I lost all my possessions and nearly my soul. I had a house, cars, just about whatever I wanted. I would sober up for a while, then fall. And when I would fall I would fall hard, losing got worse and worse.

LAYERS OF IMPOSSIBLE

About ten years ago I was shocked by a daunting diagnosis on top of the wreckage of my drug use: Stage 3B Hodgkins Lymphoma. I was devastated. I had recently cleaned up too, and my wife and I couldn’t figure out how to handle what we were hearing, sadly I still made no effort to get to know God.

After a little over a years worth of chemotherapy, the cancer starts to go I to remission. My use of pain medication brought me back to using heroine. Still, I didn’t have God in my life.

BETRAYED BY DRUGS AND ALCOHOL

Having slipped back into my dangerous use of heroine, my wife and I became homeless, again, and we ended up staying anywhere we could find that would fit our disgusting addiction. We ended up staying at an abandoned house with our drug connection who ended up trying to stab my wife. We wrestled, and amid that mess he ended up dying. We were arrested and taken to jail looking at life sentences, while kicking a 1 to 2 gram a day heroine habit. I knew I needed to change but didn’t know how.

COMING TO MY SENSES

Somebody recognized my state of affairs. He asked me if I knew who Jesus Christ is. He told me about Him, the God of the Bible, that He loves me, and that He proved it on the cross, and that He wants to care for me. It was then I began to realize Jesus Christ conquered sin and death, and is the Savior of the world. I recognized my sin. I had always been taught that I wasn’t as bad as the next guy, or that there is always someone worse. It was a system of self-justification that just crumbled in the presence of my Holy God. But it took my lowest point to remove my blinders, I ended someone’s life, one of God’s own creations. I thought because I was “good” in my mind I could get by. But look at the truth found in Isaiah

64:6 “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness’s are like filthy rags.” In the book of Romans, the Word of God tells us that no matter what we think, there is not one righteous person, and that I’m deserving of death, but that Jesus Christ paid the price for my sin. I lived wrong for the first thirty years of my life. The brother told me the that Bible (the Word of God miraculously preserved from the Ancient of Days until now) teaches Christ will change me if I would allow Him into my heart. That atonement for my sin can only come though faith in Christ alone.

I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Before this I was separated from God, living in sin, heading for the point of no return, eternity shut-outside the Kingdom of Heaven! After receiving the Spirit of God into my life and making the choice to allow Him to lead me in an excellent path, I began going to Bible studies and learning more and more about my Heavenly Father.

BAD NEWS FROM THE DOCTOR

I had a yearly checkup with the doctor. They determined the cancer had returned. After running some tests, doctors determined that my lymph nodes in my neck and groin were in need of surgery. Back and forth I went to court and the hospital. When the cancer came back, it was like it had never gone into remission, stage 3B again except the doctors wanted to perform surgery on my neck and groin. I wasn’t sure what to do. I was really getting to know God and all I could think is, “why me?” and, “I can’t handle this God.” Romans 8:28 explains that God will make ALL things work out together for good for those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose. I may not see it, but GOD IS GOING TO BE GLORIFIED IN THIS. All this helped me to rely on God. For when we are weak, He is strong!

FREE NOW TO SERVE MY TRUE SAVIOR, CANCER FREE!!!

Exhausted from the trips back and forth to the courthouse and e hospital, I finally went to sign a surgery liability waiver. My doctor ran one more scan as a pre-operation procedure before I went under the knife. Up to this point I had learned how to PRAY, not only that, but really what it meant to wait on the Lord. After two years of the back and forth trips and seemingly no way out, the last scan came back clear, NO CANCER. Just before the surgery, doctors cancelled the whole thing because they could not find any cancer in my body!!! Here I am six years later and they have stopped checking on it. Every time it came back a CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH!!! The heavens declare His glory!!! (PS 19:1)

MERCY’S VICTORY

To me Mercy’s Victory is the victory we get from Jesus when we ask for Him and truly accept Him into our lives. Without Him we are goners, wretched sinners, separated from His Kingdom forever. The Bible says the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life! I made the choice to receive that free gift. Romans 5:8 & 9 says that, “God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.” Mercy is what God shows us when we accept Christ, we cannot earn it, and we definitely don’t deserve it. Every time a sinner repents and asks Jesus into their lives, MERCY HAS A VICTORY OVER THE ENEMY!!!

TIM’S artwork of Lion of Tribe of Judah w/ Crosses & Mercy’s Victory

TIM’S NEW SONG: HIS STRENGTH

Chorus

When I am weak, then you are strong
I need Your strength to carry on
When I am weak, then You are strong
My hope in You will never be gone

Verse 1

When the darkness sets in
An all hope seems like it’s slipping away
The shadows of the past have come
And all you see is trouble today
The trouble of life comes upon you
And it feels like you’re all alone
He’s waiting there with open arms
To pick you up and bring you home

Verse 2

In the end there’s only One
My King will have the victory
And when you feel you can’t go on
Is when I’ll ask Him to take the lead
Our King is risen from the dead
He’s here to help those that have need
All who are broken tired and lost
Jesus is here to set you free

Branden E Shumate