Brother Erik’s Testimony
My parents have been divorced since I was 2 years old, I have no vivid memory of them together. It wasn’t the best place to be for a kid because it was constant fighting between them and me and my 2 brothers were caught in the middle.
I have always been a very quiet and reserved person, never talking a lot but always listening.
When I had friends I would usually just hang out around them following them around but always the quiet one of the group.
When I reached high school that’s when the trouble started. My oldest brother had just gone out of the house into the military and my mom moved away to Texas for the second time, I was given a choice of who to stay with my Dad or go with my Mom but I never could make the decision because I felt like if I picked one I would disappoint the other so they eventually made it for me, so I stayed with my Dad.
After my first year in high school which wasn’t the best because at the end I didn’t care anymore about the studies I didn’t do homework and I took the end of the year test and just bubbled random answers and put my head down to sleep.
During all this I was into video games a lot, the online ones like World of Warcraft. It was all I wanted to do, it was my place of peace during my troubles, and it eventually became my home.
So after my first year of high school into my 10th grade year, I would stay up late playing games all night and be tired for school and I eventually dropped out early in the year.
All I wanted to do is play video games, and so I got what I wanted. It was like a dream come true to a teenager. No school, got to stay home and play video games all day. Later down the road, not too long after I dropped out I went to go get my GED because I slowly started to feel like I shouldn’t have done what I did.
I got my GED but I didn’t even really care because it was so easy to me at the time I felt like I was just handed it, no feeling of accomplishment. So I kept on playing my video games.
Eventually a few weeks turned into a month, then a month turned into a year, then a year turned into 3 years. All this time I was getting up at random hours during the day because I would stay up all night and I was just all over the place.
After 6 years of this I really hit my crash and burn, all this time I was dealing with depression taking medication for it but the medication didn’t work for me, everyone else said they saw a difference but now I think they just saw what they wanted to see because it was what they relied on for their image of me.
So eventually what I loved and what I only wanted to do for the rest of my life was slowly fading away, constant game playing for 7 years all day every day. I felt empty inside what I loved was taken away from me and I had nothing, at 23 years old I was at the same place when I was 16.
I didn’t know what to do with my life, I had no interests it’s like I was dead inside. I would get on games and play one game for 10 minutes, then swap to another one for 10 minutes, then go back to the other one. I was desperate to keep my fake happiness going.
In the middle of all this I started studying the Bible because I was looking around Youtube one day and found some material that was talking about the end days and taking everything from the bible, it all strangely made sense to me. I was hearing something I never heard before but some how I knew it was true.
But even that didn’t last too long. But I know now that a small foundation was being made for the truth and looking into the bible for myself and not to take it out of context or listen to people that cherry pick passages to sound good.
Over time I kept trying to move on with my life, kept hitting wall after wall and going right back to the bottom, I was still neck deep into video games. Eventually I was getting so frustrated with everyone, I wanted to move on with my life, I was totally reliant on my parents for help to move on but I never got the help I wanted. So I would stew in anger a lot, eventually I started having dreams of harming everyone and just being consumed with my own self because I felt like I was being thrown under the bus.
I was turning into a monster and over time I started to bleed into my video games, I would toss people away to do what I wanted in the video games and didn’t care who I hurt as long as I was doing what I wanted.
Then in the summer of 2017 after years of stagnation and no hope in my mind, I felt like this was it, this is the peak of my life. sitting around all day playing video games with no friends outside of my house and video games, it got so bad that when I would go outside my eyes would hurt and strain from the sunlight. I found Michael in a youtube video, with the small foundation that was already laid.
But something was different with this guy I thought, he’s speaking from the heart, it’s not fake.
And I was a person who was so stubborn I wouldn’t listen to even my parents advice and I would tell them no person could help me, I even gave up on myself.
Over time I kept listening and kept learning each recording was a blessing, with tears down my eyes constantly agreeing with everything, knowing what I became and where I was going.
Most of all thinking on the Cross hurt me the most, because I knew in my heart over what I was doing I did not deserve to live.
The pain was so great during my depressions that I would cry out to just kill me now Lord. I didn’t see any escape from my mind that the only thing I could see as an escape would be to be completely removed from existence itself. In my mind it was better to be gone as if I never even lived.
Over time I kept getting into the word. I wanted to repent from my ways because in CoT I found a love I never even knew existed. I finally found the truth, knowing that I needed to change my ways because time was getting shorter and shorter in the world.
At first it was a bit difficult because over time I knew I needed to get away from the video games, but it was getting easier because I wasn’t enjoying them anymore anyway, I only played to be with my friends online. I was used to sitting around doing nothing, but this next step was bigger because now instead of playing games I was studying the Word, but also there’s a lot of sitting around doing nothing.
Even then through all this the Lord was working patience into me because I made up in my mind that even if my situation doesn’t change, I’ll still follow in the Word in my room.
Now I sit around content with where I am, no worries about getting out in the world to “live” because none of that gives me what I truly want anyway, it’s just a distraction from our loving Father. Slowly doors have been opening up to me, because I still want to be able to go out now but to walk and apply what the Lord as shown me through CoT. But the biggest key for me is patience and love, no longer blaming others for where I am, because I’m here where I am because I chose to do what I did.
Now I’m doing what I thought I couldn’t even stand to do anymore, waiting on the Lord patiently for his will to be done with my life, no longer wanting to do things for me but for the work I’ve been sent here to do. Loving my family even the greater, but most of all loving Jesus for getting me out of my death and renewing me unto life.
Even when all hope was lost I would cry out to him and wanting his will to be done, giving up the life I wanted to live, for the life he wants me to complete. To me you don’t have to be doing things in the world to walk, walking is applying love and becoming what we are supposed to be, lights full of life and love no matter the situation. By loving and not doing the ways of the old creature we plant seeds, it’s not up to us when they start sprouting. What we sew others might reap.
Submitted by Brother Erik
February 3, 2018
brother Eric, thank you for your heartfelt testimony. There is a world of young men out there that are just dying to hear this word. Your story was so real I could feel your hopelessness. So happy Jesus is your Savior, and has filled your heart with His love.
love in Christ,
Fern