life stories
"I am definitely convinced God isn’t psychological nonsense"
Tom, psychology and law student
"I wasn’t born into a Christian family. I had no belief in God whatsoever and I didn’t feel that he had a huge part to play in my life.
"When I was 14 my life changed, I fell in with the wrong crowd and regularly did drugs and drank alcohol. One day I decided to avoid school, and to smoke and get high. Me and two friends went down an alley, where we met a group of older guys/men. We got talking to them and suddenly, out of nowhere they pulled out chains and hammers from their pockets, they then struck me in the back of the head nearly knocking me out. They proceeded to beat my friend until they fractured his skull, ribs, eye socket and damaged his jaw. I was convinced he was dead. There was no motive for this apart from an old phone and three cigarettes. The police became involved and needless to say the people who attacked us came looking for us on numerous occasions with a variety of weapons.
"A year later, they went to court. They were sentenced to four years each, with one of them received nothing. Whilst all this was happening I took a lot of drugs and told no one. My personality began to change and I would become extremely agitated paranoid and aggressive. On one particular day I was getting high when I collapsed and was totally convinced I was going to die, I could breath and kept passing out whilst my heart was going very strange. Not knowing what to do I decided I should pray, because if I was going to die I did not want to go to this supposed hell people talked about.
"I survived, but was left constantly fearing death. I couldn’t sleep properly, and spent a lot of time convinced everyone around me was plotting to kill me, that any illness ache or pain, was going to end my life. I still didn’t believe in a God as I thought it was all psychological brain washing.
"However the worries got worse and I could no longer stay in school, the paranoia left me feeling under constant attack and anyone who I thought was endangering my life, I would have to stop no matter what.
"Studying at home for a year, I found the worries were worse still; suddenly I was plagued by thoughts of demons and possession. All the time I still believed in no God.
"Having got a minimal amount of GCSEs. I was convinced that there was little hope left for me. So I might as well be dead. I had seen psychologists and psychiatrists for over a year, whilst providing some relief, hadn’t dealt with everything. I became suicidal and convinced that these weird devil dreams were a sign there was little hope for me and if there was a God he didn’t care.
"My Girlfriend, who happened to be a Christian decided to take me to this summer camp, I thought if I was going to be dead then why not give it a go. A speaker in one of the evening meetings started to claim there was someone in the crowd who had a fear of death, who had smoked drugs and become convinced they were going to die. I ignored him. He went on to say they feared sick evil things would happen to them. He said this person should stand up.
"Thinking it was someone else I ignored him not convinced there was a God. He went on to describe this person, still no one stood up. Eventually it became so unbearably accurate and awkward that I stood up. He told me to put my hand on my head and pray. I still wasn’t convinced of a God.
"Suddenly I felt a huge wave of weird peace in me. I then started to shake like crazy and uncontrollably twitch. This huge sense of relief was in me. I couldn’t have imagined it as I myself didn’t believe in a God up until this point. This went on for a long time and eventually I came round and opened my eyes. Instantly I knew these worries weren’t there. I hit myself in the face to prove I wasn’t going to have a brain haemorrhage and my brain wouldn’t be shoved down my spinal cord. From that moment on, I felt completely free of all the worry.
"My life is now much better, and I do believe in God and I do believe Jesus is real and wants to sort out a lot of bad things in people lives. Even though I have very few GCSE’s, I managed to get 3 A’s at A level, and am now studying law. I am definitely convinced God isn't psychological nonsense."
