An Empty Hotel Room And An Empty Heart

Both my mother and father were alcoholics. My sister was suicidal and my brother died from a crippling disease at a very early age. At the age of 13, I witnessed the stabbing death of my father. It was these traumatic experiences that caused me to harden my heart against the world. I got involved with drugs, alcohol, and prostitution, and yet I knew there was something missing in my life. I just didn’t know what it was.

An aunt would come by my house and take me to church with her, but I went reluctantly. I soon began stealing money from the collection plate to support my drug habit, and when I got caught, I didn’t have any more use for that church.

Back out on the streets of Philadelphia, I got more involved with all the destructive vices but that emptiness was still there. I decided that joining the military might be the answer and enlisted in the US Army. However, having gone AWOL twice within eight weeks, I ended up a military reject.

By the age of 30, I was on my third marriage, still searching for something to fill that emptiness in my life. My third wife had come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and she would tell me how Jesus could change my life, but I told her that nobody could change me. She began holding a Bible study in our home, but I did not like the idea of Christians coming over, so I would call my friends, determined to run those Christians out of my house. After a period of time my wife said, “I can’t live like this anymore,” and she packed up all of her things and moved back to Illinois.

Words That Performed Surgery On The Soul

The next day I got up early and began my usual drug routine, then went for a walk in the county park. I sat down on a park bench and began reviewing my life and thinking about all the things people had said about me: “You are useless,” “You are no good,” and “You will never amount to anything.” As those thoughts continued to run through my mind, I came to the conclusion that I would be better off dead. I decided then and there that I was going to go home and commit suicide—but God had other plans.

In the park that day were some faithful men witnessing to the homeless and giving them little New Testaments. One of them walked up to me with a big smile on his face and said, “Do you know Jesus?” I said, “No, and I don’t want to.” When he began to tell me that Jesus loved me, I said, “If you knew all the things I’ve done, and all the people I’ve hurt, you’d see that nobody could love me.”

When I pushed him aside, the Bible he had under his arm and all the Testaments he was carrying fell to the ground. When I reached down to pick up the Bible, my eyes fell on the following Scripture passage in Isaiah. I read, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land.” Those words did surgery on my soul. I began to cry as I fell to my knees, and that man took one of the New Testaments and showed me more of God’s Word.

That day, I learned that God “...so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son...” Then the man turned to the book of Romans and showed me, step by step, how I could be saved. That was the day I prayed and asked Jesus to come into my heart, forgive my sins, clean up my life, and make me somebody. The Lord heard and answered that prayer, and I was instantly healed from my dependency on drugs.

When I returned home, I immediately called my wife and shared with her about my life-changing experience. She said, “I can tell there is something different about you, because we have been talking for 45 minutes and you have not used one curse word.” The Lord had even taught me how to speak proper English.

I can share my testimony today as a result of one little New Testament in the hands of one person asking the question, “Do you know Jesus? Have you accepted him as your Lord and Savior?”

-Leroy