Church Voices

This is the first entry in our Testimonies series. It is the testimony of Shawn Isaacs, a good friend of mine at Northern Hills. I did not edit any part of it except to add paragraph spaces. I found it to be very powerful and moving, I hope you do too.

When I was little I was taken to Catholic church until I got to an age when I could tell my parents I didn’t want to go and they’d actually listen to me. So, I’d say around the age of 8 I stopped attending church. (It may’ve been a little later than that, but it doesn’t really matter.) The only thing I learned from Catholic church was that I could not stand church.
So around the same age, 8, my mom started drinking and much to her surprise she turned out to be an alcoholic. At first I only felt sad for her, considering I was little and a momma’s boy. However, as time progressed I slowly could no longer feel anything in regards to my mom drinking, and seeing her passed out in her own throw up no longer had the hurt on me like it once did. I must say, her drinking did and still does have a huge effect on how I feel, and I hate alcohol with a deep passion I didn’t know existed. So this was the first step to me becoming depressed.

I was able to drag my way through middle school, getting by on my grades, but all the while I was becoming more and more discontent with the world as a result of my mom drinking and the lack of affection from the opposite sex. I couldn’t understand what was so wrong with me that not a single person could stand me.
So during the summer between middle school and high school I got to know a girl that drove me deep into lust, though nothing ever happened with her, I was becoming fixated on porn and I could barely go a comment without saying something sexual. I was sex-driven, and it was one of the only things on my mind. I also learned the pleasure that one could find from cutting themself and seeing the blood run down their arm, it was the only thing I could do that truly reminded me that I was still alive, because I so desperately didn’t want to be, and began thinking about killing myself frequently, and I still recall falling asleep thinking about which bottle of pills I wanted to take.

In September of 2002 my uncle shot himself in the head. There weren’t many immediate effects on me, but it slowly took a large toll on me. My mom drank A LOT more as a result of this, and it was becoming too much to bear. I started to cut myself more frequently, and even found out how much I enjoyed staple gunning my arm.
This culminated in February 2003, when I put around 110 staple gun staples into my arm. Very shortly after Chris Bruckmann, who had been asking me for quite some time to attend church, asked me if I wanted to come with him to church. I figured I’d either sit at my house and want to kill myself, or sit in a church and want to kill myself, so I came to the conclusion of “Why not?” and went.
I didn’t really know anyone there. That night the teaching was by Ben Walker and Avery Halter on the topic of martyrs, and it was the first time I had ever heard anything about such things. I had no idea that kind of this occured, and I was blown away. That night, with little faith in God I went home and prayed one of the most sincere prayers I can remember.

A couple weeks or so later I decided to go to a Sunday service, and when seeing Ken Nichols preaching the thought “This is what I’m going to do with my life” came into my head. I immediately tried to deny it, but there was something about it that I knew was true. So in the months leading up to June 2003, I still struggled with cutting and didn’t have much faith in God, but I at least had some shred of belief. Then in June 2003 I went with Northern Hills Christian Church to CIY. My expectations were low and the night before I hadn’t slept due to a ridiculous pain in my stomach that kept my screaming all night. I wanted to go home before I even got there.

We arrived, and I was bored. That night there was what felt like a very long worship service, and seeing everyone so happy and joyful disgusted me, and made me jealous. I just wanted to sit down, but because everyone was standing I figured I had to.
The niext night rolled around and there had been a softening in my heart over the previous 24 hours, because for no reason I began singing (and I DON’T sing) and crying with the worship, and it was such a struggle because I had no idea what was going on.
Wednesday rolled around and I felt depressed all day, and I was just in a crappy mood. There had been a session about porn and I reognized how detestable it truly was, and it was difficult to face. That night I once again cried during the worship and Tony Salinas decided he wanted to be baptized, so we all went to the pool. I knew too that I wanted to do the same, but before I had my shoes off Kate Monroe was in the pool. Next Ben asked if anyone else wanted to go, and I was in. I honestly didn’t know truly what baptism meant, but I KNEW it was something I had to do. So that night, I was baptized and I felt a peace inside that I had never experienced before, and for the first time I think I can say I was happy. The next 2 nights of worship I cried until it hurt and then cried some more. Christ was showing me all of my sin and for the firstm time I recognized all the sin in my life, and it was overwhelming to think that I was forgiven.

Since that night I’ve had my struggles, but I now feel a peace that I didn’t know was possible. I feel loved, and I know that I mean something. I am not useless, and I am not an insignificant piece of matter uselessly wandering a random planet in the universe. I am a child of God, and because of Him I can cry right now and know that every tear has been wiped away, I know that this is not my home, I know that this life is but a blink compared to eternity. Above all, I know that I am not my own and I am no longer the same person because Christ has made a change in me. He was proven through me to me that miracles happen, and He alone has given me reason to live. Jesus, thank you, I love you and there is nothing I will ever be able to do or say that will thank you enough, and for that I thank you.

Lord, thank you.