by sgordongreen on Tue Apr 07, 2009 1:55 pm
My name is Shane Gordon Green born September 21st 1979 to Bradley Eugene Green and Desiree Holland. I was born into a family filled with anger physical and mental abuse. Alcoholism and Drug addiction. Most of my youth was spent in feelings of fear, loneliness and confusion. At eleven years old a neighbor invited me to church, Rich BIBLE Church. I spent the next couple of years riding 5 miles with my brother on our bikes to that church every Wednesday and Sunday. It was a refuge, a safe haven and were I first gave my life to the Lord. Though I didn’t understand all he was or all he could do in my life I believed in all I heard the preacher preach. Of his acceptance of our sin, of his desire to change our lives. I asked him into my life and I prayed he would take away all the bad around me. I prayed he would remove the abuse the anger the hurt and the drugs. I prayed most of all for a normal family.
We moved across town when I was 13 and I stopped going to church. I stopped praying and I forsook GOD because he had not answered my prayers. I wanted things now and did not understand that all things happen in GOD’s time. Not my time.
Things got much worse in my family my fathers drinking and drug abuse was worse than ever the beatings my mother and older brother endured were more frequent though I learned to avoid my father and even slept with my door locked and the radio turned up so I couldn’t hear it all. Worse than that was what I was becoming. I was beginning my own cycle of drug and alcohol abuse. I began having sex with girls looking for comfort through them. I was lost.
My whole world was abruptly changed one night when my father came home and beat my brother and mother so badly they had to go to the hospital. The police were called and I was awakened by 5 officers kicking in the front and back doors to our home. There was blood in the kitchen and dining room drugs on the coffee table and I watched as they took my father away in handcuffs. My mother and father were divorced shortly after this. My father went to a dry out clinic I went to live with my Aunt and my mother older brother and younger brother stayed in our old home.
Over the next year I saw my brother sent to prison, my mother date some other guy and my father stay sober. It would take 5 years but he and my mother remarried and my father beat his addiction to drugs and alcohol. My family was looking more and more like the normal family I had prayed for all those years. The drug and alcohol abuse was gone. The verbal and physical abuse was gone but as for me I was still lost.
I was drinking excessively, doing drugs as often as I could and having sex with a girl I had been dating for a few months.
When I was 19 I tried to commit suicide by driving my car off a 30 foot embankment. My car tore through trees as it flew through the air and landed upside down 40 yards from the road. I walked away with a bruised hip and a cut on my forehead. The most amazing thing about it all was I remember every second I can still see the branches breaking the glass shatter and see the car turn from right side up to upside down. The only thing I could hear however was GOD. It’s as if he was cupping me in is hands and I could hear him say your going to be alright, I’m not done with you yet.
I spent the next three days in an insane asylum. Three short months later I left Mayville Michigan and moved to Texas. I moved in with my Uncle Gary who had recently been released from prison. We spent every Sunday and every Wednesday at the Potters House Hearing the word of GOD. I read my BIBLE every day. I wasn’t drinking I wasn’t doing drugs and I was at peace for the first time in a long time but I was isolating myself from the world. I spent six more months like this before the Lord moved me again.
I was rained out one Tuesday and the Lord told me to drive home to Michigan and join the Air Force. I did. I continued my walk with the Lord into the first year of the Air Force. I was baptized and Lockland Air Force Base and serving in the Church there. Slowly I drifted away again.
It would only take another short year for me to totally return to my old ways. I was drinking excessively, sleeping with different women on the weekends and doing drugs. All the while I appeared to be fine. I was serving in the military, had bought a new home had a nice truck and rode my Harley on the weekends. Outwardly I had an appearance of having it all together. Inwardly I was lost. I hated what I saw in the mirror and I was constantly being convicted for the things I was doing. You see now it was worse because I knew better.
I would spend the next few years like this. You see I was trying to live my way. I wasn’t living the way GOD wanted me to live. I wasn’t going to church. I rarely read my Bible and I never shared my struggles. I was ashamed of who I was and hiding from GOD. I was hiding from myself.
I left the military and moved back to Texas. I began to slowly get back in church and read my BIBLE. Though it would be a few more years before I really gave my life to there Lord. I ruined a few more relationships drank when I could and did drugs on occasion. I rationalized it was o.k. because I was a good person I wasn’t hurting anyone but myself and I was going to work every day and paying my bills. Still I was miserable and lost.
August 2008 I began to really get back to where I should have been. I attended Church (IBC) regularly with a girl I had been dating for about 6 months. She left me in October and this is when GOD really started working on me. I told GOD alright I’ve tried it my way for years and it’s not working what is it you require of me. He began to show me all I was holding onto I didn’t need anymore.
I began to lay down the vises I had been holding onto for so long. The first was anger, the resentment I held for the years of my childhood spent in fear and anger. Then hatred, the hatred I felt for my father for being the one to cause that fear and anger. The anger I had at my mother for allowing these things to happen. Slowly at first one by one GOD took my burdens and lifted the weight from me. Then faster and faster he asked for more. Why are you still drinking you don’t need that anymore. Why are you still smoking pot, you don’t need that anymore. Why are you still having sex when you’re not married, you don’t need that anymore. He took me in a few short months were I should have been years ago.
If you’ve read this far you may be wondering why I’m sharing all this. Well there is a reason. The Lord requires I share my testimony so others may see what he has brought me through. I tried to live life my own way but it was a failure and I was miserable. Today I feel at peace. I have surrounded myself with people who are seeking the Lord as I am. I read my BIBLE day and night. I attend Church regularly and I pray like I’ve never prayed in my life. I am sharing this with all of you so you may see what can be overcome when you put your trust and faith in Jesus.
Proverbs 3:5-7 (New King James Version)
5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
7 Do not be wise in your own eyes;
Fear the LORD and depart from evil.
To some of you I’m living life with now this is my testimony so now you know. To others who I send it to who may have been there through my years of sin and struggle I tell you there is another way. To some of you I say thank you for being there when I was weak and believing in me, I’ve made it. Though there are still struggles in my life and much I’ve left to do. I finally feel as though I’m on the right path.
Here are a few more passages that I’d like to share.
Galatians 5:22 (New King James Version)
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
John 15:12 (New King James Version)
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
John 21:15-17 (New King James Version)
Jesus Restores Peter
15 So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Feed My lambs." 16 He said to him again a second time, "Simon, son of Jonah do you love Me?" He said to Him, "Yes, Lord; You know that I love You." He said to him, "Tend My sheep." 17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep.
God Bless you all.
