Seans Story

"I have felt God's hand and his healing touch has always been there in the hard times - I am now excited in faith for everything that God has in store for me."

I first started going to church from the age of six when I joined the Boys Brigade at Southwick Methodist Church. The Boys Brigade gave me many great and memorable experiences in the Church and I made many friends. As I grew up in the church I carried on going to Boys Brigade and joined a youth group when I was older.

I first became a Christian at the age of 16 on the beach. I was asking one of my friends a lot of questions about Christianity and who this God is and God started really speaking to me. That night I prayed the prayer of allowing Christ to come into my life and repenting of my sin. Afterwards I got really excited and saw myself going on a great adventure!

After a couple of years things started to go wrong for me, and my youth group split up. The care force workers in my youth group, who had a huge influence on my life, both left the church, along with many of my friends. A few months later I failed my A-Levels. I was really angry with God for allowing things to go wrong in my life and I walked away from church at 19 feeling very bitter for a couple of years. It was at this point that my dream of going to university was shattered. During this time things got worse for me and I got in with the wrong group of friends and I started drinking heavily.

I have felt God's hand and his healing touch has always been there in the hard times

Also during this time my sister and a couple of her friends who were Christians were praying for me and for the first time I decided to go to Soul Survivor. It was at Soul Survivor that God really spoke to me and changed my whole life dramatically. He healed me of a lot of pain and I re-committed myself to God. From then on God started doing some amazing things in my life and I enrolled on an Access Course. Whilst I was on this course I got given this verse from Jeremiah 29 v 11 which says: "For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for disaster to give you a future and a hope".

God spoke to me through this verse really powerfully and my whole world changed when I passed my access course with the highest grade and I achieved my dream of going to university. I realised at this point that God was healing me in a very BIG WAY.

I read this analogy in the Student Life Bible about picturing our lives like a door and before we give our lives to Christ our sins were like nails being pounded into this door. When I asked Christ to forgive me of my sins, Christ removed all of the nails in my door that I had collected in my life. However, what was left was a door full of holes that is not very pleasant to look at or very useful. But God began to change that by patching up the holes in my life by truly making me into a new creation with a door that doesn't have any holes in!

I still have times when I don't always understand Gods ways but I know that they are always right for me and that there is a God in heaven who loves me and wants the very best for me. In Psalm 32 v 8 the Lord says ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise and watch over you'.

On looking back with hindsight on my journey, God led me through those times for a reason so that I could completely depend on him. I have been amazed but also eternally grateful for how God has changed my life.

God is teaching me to be more than a conqueror when temptation strikes and lures me into sin. I now am praying more in my daily walk for the full armour of God to be on me and God is teaching me that temptation is an opportunity to choose to do the will of God.

I have felt his hand and his healing touch has always been there in the hard times and I am excited in faith for everything that God has in store for me. It is my desire to keep praising and seeking God all the days of my life!!