The Beginning of the End

The year of 2002 is significant to me. It is the year I beat death and gained new life. In that

year, I was delivered from drugs and many other bondages after running from God’s plan for my life.

Over the years, my wife would ask me over and over again to go with her to church, but I would not go. One weekend, I began to get a strong sense that I would either die or go to prison soon. I had recently stolen checks from my wife’s purse, and she was not aware of it until checks began to bounce, to include her tithe check. After the ministry called to advise her about the bounced check, she came home and approached me about it. As I looked at her face filled with disappointment, I would have rather her hit me in the face than to see how much pain I caused her.

You would think that would be enough, but that weekend I had ten blunts laced with cocaine to numb the pain. I began to smoke the blunts. Typically, people will hear things and hallucinate while under the influence of cocaine; however, as I began to smoke, out of nowhere, I was visited by the Spirit of the Lord. His words to me were, “Terrell, why are you doing this to Me? Don’t you know if you die right now you are going to hell?” I know you are thinking, “He was getting high and just hearing things,” but I beg to differ. I heard the voice of God and my whole life changed.

A New Day

The next day, I got dressed before my wife and children to attend church with my family. My wife could not believe that I was dressed and going to church without her even asking. After the sermon, I was the first person to the altar, but nothing happened. I walked halfway back to my seat and spoke to the Lord. I did not care who was looking at me. I said, “Lord, if you don’t save me today, when I get home, I am calling the dope man.” I turned around and went back to the altar. The minister led me through a prayer of salvation. This time, something did happen. I felt love come into my heart from Jesus. The Lord took all hurt and replaced it with love… but this was only the beginning.

In January 2002, I gave the Lord my life in every meaning, I held nothing back from him. He gave me peace, love, and joy like I never experienced. This is how I know the Lord will meet you where you are. I was delivered from drugs and more from that day and I never went back. (John 8:36). I thought I would die or go to prison. I did not know that the Lord had another plan for me. You may be like me or in a worse situation than me, but the Lord has a better plan for you that you can’t even see (Jeremiah 29:11). As I began living a new life in Christ, I could not have been happier. This does not mean I did not face difficulties. I did. However, in this new way of living, I did not go to former habits for resolve, I went to the Bible to receive strength and direction.

It Aint’ Over

A few months after I got saved, the Spirit of the Lord visited me again through a dream in 2002. He told me that I would preach. I did not release the dream to anyone for awhile, to include my wife. Throughout the years, while visiting various ministries, the dream would come back to my memory. As time went by and after receiving counsel of others, I pursued the dream through training and studying God’s word. Every time I thought I was moving forward, there were a few setbacks, so I remained still and just prayed. The longer I stayed still and did not move to pursue God, pressure began to rise in my household. We experienced financial, marital, health, and family issues like never before.

I began getting more confirming dreams that the Lord was calling me, but I did not want to do anything on my own. I continued to seek more wise counsel but to me there was no breakthrough on what I needed to do going forward. I kept saying, "Lord, I need a sign." In a dream, the Spirit of the Lord told me, “I am not giving you no sign, you already know what to do.” I told my wife the dream the next morning on the way to Sunday service. Before we could get out of the subdivision, a radio ministry was on the air. The pastor on the radio ministry said, “You keep asking God for a sign, the Lord said, ‘He is not giving you no sign.’ At this moment, my wife and I took note of what was being said. When we arrived at the Sunday service, the sermon for the day was centered around ‘the Lord is not giving you a sign to do what He already told you to do.’ My wife and I were like, “What in the world is going on?” Yet still, I did not make a move or honor the dreams God had given me.

Things went back to normal in our life for a little while then out of nowhere, our children were constantly in the hospital for reasons the doctors were unable to find any explanations. One of the children was injured in a sports activity which caused him to undergo major surgery. With all of the stress, our marriage was at a point of divorce. Still, my wife and I would do events in the community with teenagers. This service to our community caused us to be invited to receive an award. We attended the award ceremony not knowing what to expect. The award ceremony was held in a church setting. What many people don’t know is that prior to going in the church, we were sitting in the parking lot making final decisions on our divorce plans. We received the award and there was an impartation given to us at that time. The impartation was confirmation to me stepping into the role of pastoring and the impartation dissolved the divorce plans we were discussing.

Give God a “Yes”

A week after saying “yes” to the call of pastoring and speaking to the right people to get a release in ministry, I went to a hotel to get approval to do ministry. I left the hotel excited because everything was moving forward. Hours later, I fell from a 7-foot-ladder doing yard work. I broke four of my ribs and punctured a lung. I stayed in the hospital for a few days and came home to recover for a few weeks. As soon as I was able to regain my strength, I began having services in our home with my wife and children in October 2014.

The Best Is Yet to Come

From that point on, all the bad was used for my good. In April 2015, I stepped out on faith to have services in Regency Park Apartment Complex. The Lord has proven himself faithful and true. I am here now in 2019 and as the Lord led the children of Israel through the wilderness for 40 years to humble them, to prove them, and to see what was in their heart, I can confidently say the last four years have prepared me even the more to obey the Lord. Obedience to the Lord means that you must be sold out to His will and His way. When you obey the Lord, it will cause many people to not understand you or what you have been assigned to do. There will be mistakes made, but there will be a whole lot more victories! Always give your commitment and obedience to the Lord.

This is my testimony of obeying the voice of the Lord. My encouragement to you is whatever the Lord tells you to do... DO IT!

The process is not just about you. You must endure to help others.