My Testimony

[Author's note: While I realize the article below is very long, I
believe that the details are needed for you to get the real picture.]

I was born in May 1974 in Springhill a community in Northwest Louisiana
of about 7000 people. My mother was the church pianist of a small
Southern Baptist church and had been for the last 4 years. My grand
father was a deacon in the church and they (my grand parents and mother)
were all charter members of the church. With my mother as church
pianist, I was involved, as much as I can remember, in all church
activities as a child.

At age 8 I walked the isle, said the sinner's prayer and was baptized
along with some friends. I thought I was saved, but at such a young age
wasn't really sure. About the same time, my father walked the isle, made
his public profession and was baptized. Looking back some years later I
feel like this was probably the reason I went.

On January 16, 1986 our lives were turned upside down. My father
committed suicide. He had been out of work for over a year and had bad
problems with arthritis in his back. That left me at age 10 to become
the "man of the house". While I never really allowed myself to grieve
until several years later, my grades did slip some during that time. I
tried my best to "be a man" and not let my feeling show through.

My mother did what she had to do and started to college. She knew that
she had to be able to support us. I spent my afternoons with my
grandparents and seemed to get even closer to them. In April of '89, my
grandmother died of cancer. She fought the battle for about a year. I
spent a lot of time after school helping to take care of her.

Around the spring of '90 I met my first wife. We had grown up in the
same neighborhood, but never had anything to do with each other. We
started out as friends and then started dating each other. She was my
first in everything. We had a rocky time as she would go back and forth
between boyfriends, playing us against each other, but I was young,
stupid, and lonely and would take her back each time. During one of
these times that she was playing us against each other she started a
rumor that I was gay because given the choice of being friends with her
or me on of her boyfriends chose me. I never really though about how she
was using us to get what she wanted, I thought like a typical teenage
boy and let something else do my thinking for me. I am not proud of this
fact, but you cannot change the past.

About the same time, I started working in a grocery store after school
and started smoking. It was the only way to take a break and goof of. I
didn't really think anything about it, although she had quit, my mother
and dad had both smoked when I was growing up and hey, my friends were
doing it to. Nothing like giving in to peer pressure. At the time, I
would only smoke at work. I did a good job of hiding this, or if I
didn't mom never said anything.

I believe that it was about '91 that my grandfather had had a stoke and
spent several hours lying in the floor one day because he couldn't get
up. This once again changed our lives, or at least mine. My grandfather
spent a good bit of time in rehab after he got out of the hospital and I
pretty much moved in with him when he got home. Details of this time is
kind of sketchy, but in February of 1992 my mother and step dad were
married and I "officially" moved in with my grandfather rather then move
20 miles and change high schools. I was 17 at the time and though I knew
everything. I took over running my grandfathers house and started
driving his car. He eventually gave me the car as he could no longer
drive. I ran up a lot of debt on the gas cards, going places I shouldn't
have been and skipped a lot of school. Looking back I was probably given
to much freedom, but I was a man and was going to do what I wanted to
do. In '93 I dropped out of school and got my GED. I spent most of the
year working in a grocery store where I started smoking again. Along
this same time after breaking up with my girlfriend for about the
seventh time, she got pregnant and married. While we remained somewhat
close, I figured that it was the end. She ended up in an abusive
situation with a husband that would openly cheat on her and after the
baby was born the ended up divorcing.

I had taken to drinking while working at the grocery store, and had
become pretty much a social drinker; although I would occasionally drink
by myself it was pretty much just with friends. I had a nightclub that I
liked to hang out at on the weekends. I would go after work and drink
with my coworkers, but seemed to have a high tolerance for alcohol and
never got drunk. I would be sober before leaving the bar, or at least I
thought anyway. I was friends with all the local cops and wasn't really
worried about it anyhow.

I started to college in spring of '95 and lived on campus. While I
enjoyed being away from home I was still homesick and would come home
with a buddy on the weekends. I still drank at college, but not near as
much as I did before hand. I still smoked, but would actually smoke a
lot more then I had. Although I claimed it was to relax me, looking back
I can see where I could control when and where I smoked, I wasn't like a
lot of smokers and did it because I had to, I believe I did it because I
thought it was cool and had never been cool about anything.

In October of 1996, while home for a local festival that I worked each
year I ran into my ex girlfriend. We had not spoken in over a year. We
decided to meet later that night and go talk to catch up. After talking
a while that night, I did something out of the blue that now I think was
done out of loneliness, but I proposed. I don't believe that I honestly
thought she would say yes, but she did. In January of '97 she moved to
Natchitoches with me and we moved in together, we made plans and married
in March. The first few months were pretty good until the "new" wore
off, and then I started to realize how much she had changed. I had not
married the girl I thought I loved for so many years, the woman I had
married was tough and bitter. She had been able to hide it for a while,
but it started showing through. We had a lot of problems that alone we
just could not work through. We frequently fought although I would not
hit her because I was scared of going to jail.

While living in Natchitoches, she became friends with one of our
neighbors who would frequently invite us to her Pentecostal church, but
raised Baptist; I wanted nothing to do with it. We did attend a Baptist
church a time or two, but I just was not interested. I was being
rebellious and just didn't want to go. I couldn't feel anything,
although thinking back, I don't ever remember feeling anything in a
Baptist church.

I thought that maybe more money would help fix our problems and so I
changed jobs,  as we were living from check to check with me being the
only one working, of course with daycare being what it was, it wasn't
worth it for her to work. After a few months we moved to Winnfield.

This was 1999.  Most will remember 1999 and the year of preparedness for
Y2K. I worked as the Information Services Coordinator for the local
hospital. My job ended up taking more and more of my time, which I
became thankful for as we fought more and more and I worked some 60 to
80 hours a week near the end of the year. New Years came and went and I
staffed our "command center" at the hospital and worked 72 hours
straight. While I was doing what I had to do for work, it put a major
strain on an already flakey marriage.

In March of 2000 she walked off. I came home form work one day to find
her cloths gone. While I can't say I didn't see it coming, it did hit me
by surprise. I had been taught you don't divorce; you stay as long as it
takes and work things out. Thinking back, we didn't have anything to
work out. We had not had sex in over a year and she would stay on the
internet until just about time for me to go to work, then she would come
to bed and sleep all morning while I got up and took her son to school.
I believe that this was on a Wednesday, by Friday I had closed all the
joint accounts and had been to see a lawyer. While I didn't start
things, I was certainly going to finish them. I had been given the way
out that in the back of my mind I had been looking for.

She came back in a week or so to pick up her belongings and brought with
her a guy she had driven to Michigan and picked up. I found out later
they had been talking on the internet. While she claimed that nothing
went on between them while we were together, I just have never been able
to believe her.

About May or June of that year I begin talking to one of my coworkers,
Tammy, who had just started working and we began to become friends. She
was Pentecostal and had been someone there to listen when I needed to
talk. I didn't see what the Lord was doing, but he was preparing me.
When July rolled around, she invited me to Camp Meeting. I didn't know
what I was getting myself into, but agreed to go one night. I sat there
amazed that night, not really sure what to think, here I was, a
backslidden Baptist sitting in the middle of several thousand
Pentecostal shouting and jumping. I could also feel something that
night, although I had no idea what it was. The next day at work she
invited me back, and I told her no, I didn't want anything to do with
it. She didn't push or anything, she just let it drop. When Friday of
that week rolled around, I met her when she walked in the door to the
hospital and asked if they were going back that night, I wanted to go. I
was still scared that night, but not as much as I had been.

I started going to a local Baptist church as I knew I needed to get
myself back in church. I found one that halfway worshiped, by that I
mean that people were not afraid to raise their hands. I had never seen
that in a Baptist church, but after camp meeting, wanted something more.
Tammy would invite me to her church every few weeks but I would turn her
down. We got to where we were spending more and more time together and
we got to where after church we would go eat. I got out before her most
Sundays and would wait on her. After a few Sundays of this I started
going and sitting in the parking lot at her church and waiting on her. I
didn't realize what the Lord was doing, but he was drawing me. I begin
to feel that there was something more to church, something that I was
missing, something that just wasn't quite right.

Within a week or two of this, she invited me to a revival. I went the
first night and remember crying and trembling during the alter call. I
wasn't sure what I was fighting, but I was fighting. The next night, I
believe it was Wednesday, I went back, and most of the sermon I was on
my feet crying and trembling. I remember just praising the Lord and
thanking him. I remember Tammy grabbing one of my arms and removing my
death grip from the pew and lifting it up. Someone else did the same
with the other arm. I can remember hearing several around me praying.
Then I remember this tingling feeling all over my body from head to toe.
The only way I can describe it is like when your leg is asleep. Some
also refer to this as a burning sensation. All this time I am praising
God. While I have no recollection of it, I was told that I did speak in
tongues, I did not hear myself, but I do know I experienced the most
wonderful feeling I have ever felt. I know that night that the Lord did
fill me with the Holy Ghost.

The next day at work the devil came against me. My boss and myself were
cursed at "up one side and down the other" by a member of our medical
staff. I cannot even remember now what it was about, but I remember
telling the devil that he wasn't taking what I had.

Tammy approached me latter at work and told me her brother, who was the
pastor of the church wanted to talk to me Sunday if I would come to
church. Sunday after church Bro. Montgomery sat down with me and gave me
a bible study. He explained baptism in Jesus' name and oneness. He asked
me if I had any questions and then asked me to think about being
baptized in Jesus' name. He still likes to talk about my answer. I
answered "what is there to think about". That night after service I was
baptized in Jesus' name. I would later tell the church in testimony that
I had been bathed twice in a Baptist church and Baptized once. Thinking
back, I never really grasped the concept of trinitarianism, it just
never really fit in.

Tammy later decided to go back to her ex-husband, but I thank the Lord
for sending her my way. He knew just what I needed and when. I tell
people that I lost my family, I about lost my job, and may have been
about ready to lose my life before he could get me to open my eyes and
wake up.

I tried one time after I was filled to reconcile with Shelly before we
divorced. While I did get her to come to church with me one weekend,
things were just beyond our repair. She was just not interested in us. I
did find out a lot about her previous marriage that she couldn't tell me
when we were married. I had not realized how bad things had been for
her, how hurt she had been. We realized that we just needed to go our
separate ways and in November 2000 we were divorced.

Over the next few years I dated a few people, I found out time and time
again that I just needed to wait upon the Lord, I kept trying to speed
up his time table, but we have to wait on him.

In 2002 Janine started to come to our church. I didn't pay a whole lot
of attention to her as they were a family. Although she is quick to
point out that I chewed her out one day for setting a bag of trash on
the ground outside when the trashcan was full. In my defense, I had
moved into what should have been the parsonage, which was a 14x60
trailer right outside the back door of the church. People were always
setting trash out and the dogs and other animals would get in it and
then I would have to clean it up, but anyhow, on with the story.

But anyhow, in 2003, the Lord decided to call John home (see Janine's
testimony). It was through this that Janine and I got to talking,
through a situation that I never would have seen myself in. Things
progressed from there and in July we were married.

We now have two kids together and are raising her two kids. I had never
seen myself with a large family as a single child. It's hard for me to
deal with a lot of the time, and I know that I am not doing as good of a
job of a father as some could do. I pray for guidance and direction.

I pray for the Lord's guidance as we attempt to embark on paths that he
has shown us. I have had a desire for several years to enhance my music
ministry. I am now attempting to gather the needed equipment to make
this a reality. While I do sing occasionally at some of the local
churches, I cannot help but feel the desire to be able to branch out. He
has also laid some other ministries and outreaches on my heart, that
while I am claiming them, I just do not feel it is prudent at this time
to list them on here. I will update this at a later date.

I am now in a local church that has a pastor that is really fired up for
God; he has had a vision for outreach placed upon him. We can see the
beginning of a revival that is going to rock this community that we live
in, a revival that our doors cannot hold. I am so looking forward to the
awesome and mighty works the Lord has for us.
 

Bro. Cory Lee

BTW: I have not had a cigarette of a drop of alcohol since 2000. Thank you Jesus.