My Story (2)

		When things didn’t work out with a girl I liked during my first year at university, instead of turning to God, I puffed myself up ever more; quite literally, as I turned to using anabolic steroids. Drunken nights out were a staple of my life; I experimented with marijuana and ecstasy pills, stupidly taking three in one night on one occasion; I thought nothing of the immorality or harm of pornography, masturbation and sexual promiscuity; the beta-blockers went from one pill to four or five at a time; and the steroid use culminated in me injecting myself

twenty times over the course of one thirty-day period during my final year at university (please don't be fooled by the smile on my face in the photo). Most ashamedly of all, at times throughout this period my attitude became increasingly dark, disrespectful and hostile to those closest to me. I will also add that at this point I viewed faith and religion as nothing more than psychological coping mechanisms developed through the ages by man.

I thank the Lord, though through no merit of my own, that it was around this time that my parents discovered a deeper faith and became involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal. This new-found faith was to include a deeper, more-committed prayer life that was to have a great impact upon me. My final year at university paved the way for a new life for me. During this year I sought out therapy for the anxiety I was experiencing, which helped a little. It was also a year in which I met some good friends and fell for a girl once more, though this time, for the first time in my life, for a reason other than just good looks. At the end of my final year at university I knew the gym had had its day, and what had consumed every waking hour of my life for the past eight years, what had in effect been my own personal form of religion and devotion, was to be no more. This was not yet the end though, and having finished university, it was only after I hit a complete emotional abyss and realised the true emptiness of my life, that the beginning of the end could finally begin. This I now believe was God clearing out the old, to make way for the new.

I’d like to be able to have an easy option to take by saying that I then saw a bright white light and returned to church immediately, but it wasn’t like that. Instead, over the next four years, though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, I was slowly being prepared not only to be re-introduced into the Church, but to be introduced anew to a personal relationship with Jesus. First of all I was truly blessed with the opportunity to travel around the world for five months; a time in which my friend and I met some good people and saw some both awesome, as well as humbling, sights. After returning from travelling, though not attending church at this time, I specifically remember praying that whatever job I get, it be the best for my long-term future. My Grandmother was also taking a keen interest in my employment situation before she passed away, and it was on the very day after her death that I was offered an interview for a job in Winchester, about 70 miles south-west of London. I secured the job, moved down to live in Winchester for the next two-and-a-half years, and by the time I returned home to London, I had also returned home to Church.

There are five main things throughout my time spent in Winchester that I believe lead me to return to Church and on to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The first was prayer – the continued prayers of my family and those closest to me, as well as my own sporadic efforts, without which I do not believe I would be writing this now. The second was my own personal search for peace and fulfilment in life – through different hobbies, through reading psychology and philosophy, through voluntary work, through different friendships; I slowly came to discover that all roads were leading to Rome. The third was the excellent day-to-day witness that my manager at work bore to his Christian faith. The fourth, the straws that broke the camel’s back and finally got me back into church, was a couple of relationships that I wanted to work out but that despite all my best personal efforts didn’t work out. And finally the fifth; the shortest, simplest and least intellectual of all, was a prayer that I prayed with a Christian man at an ecumenical church outreach event during my work lunch hour. In that prayer we asked Jesus to come into my life (though on my behalf I wasn’t really expecting much to happen), and it was this short and simple prayer that I believe was the most significant in opening up my life to Jesus and a baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Since that time it hasn't all been plane sailing and, like us all, I am still challenged and tempted from time to time. However, the life I have now is one I am far happier with, far more at peace with, and one that I pray that by the grace of God, I am able to keep.

To read a little about the role that prayer and the Sacraments now have in my new life, please click here.

If you are interested in how the movies fit into all of this, please click here.

To read about the role that prayer and the sacraments of the Catholic Church played in bringing me back home, and also for my own spiritual observances and experiences since I have returned to the faith, return to 'Why Jesus?'.