Last Sunday, Derick shared his testimony of how Jesus changed his life. You can read his testimony below.
“My name is Derick, and this is the story of how Jesus changed my life…
I went to a junior high where my principal was jumped by two students in my lunch period. My dean was attacked in his office by another student. Drug dogs were sent to our school to sniff out the lockers because there was a marijuana problem. And one of my friends committed suicide by hanging himself at home. We were at his house the day before killed himself.
Growing up, I learned to survive by being tough. I hardened my knuckles by punching my dad’s metal filing cabinets in our garage. I was in my fair share of fights. I was tight with the jocks because I played football and ran track. My best friends were two of the toughest guys in school, and because one was a star athlete and the other was the homecoming king, I was popular too. For the 8th grade yearbook, I was voted “best artist” and my girlfriend at the time was voted the prettiest girl in the school.
Between 8th grade and freshman year, a few of my friends went to juvenile detention over the summer, including one of my two best friends. It was a turning point for me – but not to God – to different friends.
High school was great for me. I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of friends, and I went to a lot of parties. I was tight with the jocks through sports, the creatives through my art, the smart kids through my grades, and the party crowd through partying. For our senior class, I was voted “best dressed” and my girlfriend at the time was voted “most likely to succeed”. As a high school senior, I was going downtown to clubs with my college friends and staying out till 3 or 4AM… But even with all the partying, I graduated at the top of my class and was headed to the University of Illinois.
By this point in my life, I thought I was a really cool dude. I was popular, had a girlfriend, etc.
At U of I, I was your typical college party kid. There was a time when my roommates and I went out to the bars and clubs every week. It was a ritual. We also hosted parties at U of I and other schools. We would have a DJ and a lot of alcohol… I don’t want to get in to too much more detail here, but a lot of things happened in my college years that I am not proud of.
However, throughout my college life, some strange things happened:
- My freshmen year some guy I played basketball with tried to witness to me and invite me to a Bible study. I stop talking to that guy.
- As my roommates & I looked for an apartment during my sophomore year, a guy witnessed to me and took me through the four spiritual laws right there in his apartment. I did not accept Christ.
- My junior year, my girlfriend got saved, and we broke up over her faith. She tried to share Christ with me, but I rejected it. She later transferred out of U of I to go to nursing school. (Bessie and I got married 7 years after this, but that is a story for another day).
Throughout all of this, I had become very hardened toward Christianity. I mocked Christians. They had become a joke to me. I was bitter over what happened with my girlfriend, and I thought Jesus was a crutch for the weak. I was a very prideful guy. I had a bad temper, spoke in vulgar language, and I lived for the pleasures of this world. I was part thug, part scholar, part nightclub junkie, and by my senior year in college, had become a cynic, and a mocker of Christ.
On a cold, rainy October day during my senior year in 1991, I had my roommate drive me to the college of commerce to turn in a homework assignment. On my way out of the building, something caught my eye. There was a small pamphlet with the picture of a grim reaper on the cover. I grabbed it thinking it was something that was going to make fun of Christianity since I had seen some other anti-Christian material that looked similar.
The pamphlet told the story of a construction worker that mocked his Christian co-worker for his faith. Then one day, the mocker fell off the scaffold and died. In hell, the mocker pleaded with God to let him go back and warn his friends and family that God and hell are real. But God told the mocker that he has already revealed himself to the world and that every person who hears the Gospel has enough evidence to know that God is real…
That day I knew that if I died I was going to hell because I was just like that mocker.
I believe that the Lord knew that I was too prideful to accept Christ with another person. The Lord met me one-on-one through that pamphlet and opened my blinded eyes to the Gospel.
That day, everything changed.
I went to find a Christian and I asked them to take me to church. Once I found a church I could attend regularly, I also joined a Bible study and was discipled by my Bible Study leader. I remember going to church every Sunday and just crying through all the worship songs before and after the sermon because I was so overwhelmed by God’s grace to a sinner like me.
In that single semester before graduation, the Lord changed me drastically. I was becoming a completely different person. What I lived for and wanted in life was being transformed. Even my demeanor and personality began to change.
But the road was not easy for me. None of my friends back home were Christian, and my parents rejected my new faith because I wanted to leave the Catholic Church. Some family thought I joined a cult, and some of my friends thought I was a religious freak. There were other challenges with work and relationships when I came back home. My faith did not hold up very well. There was a short period of time when I fell back into my old lifestyle, unable to resist the temptations of the party scene after college and giving into the pressure from friends and family.
However, God is faithful, and He used a bad car accident and a series of wild situations to get me back on track.
It is difficult to recount all the Lord has done in the last 19+ years since I’ve accepted Christ. I cannot begin to measure the change the Lord has made in my life. All I can say is that I am completely different from the person I used to be from the inside out. It’s not just that my behavior has changed, but who I am at the core of my being is completely different. My hopes, my desires, what I value most in life, what gives me the deepest amount of pleasure, and who I desire to please above all… are all being sanctified, by God’s grace.
When I think of my life, I think of Galatians 2:20. “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
Am I there yet? Far from it. But with the Lord’s help, I think I’m learning more & more about what it means to live by faith – that I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
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