MY OUTLOOK CHANGED
By Ian Willis
My life used to be all about me I had no time for anyone else, I was a user and an abuser of relationships. I did everything for a reason and that was usually to benefit me. However, I was a worrier. I used to worry about life and about my future. I wanted everything the world had to offer. One evening, I suddenly remembered the New Testament given to me by the Gideon’s in school. I turned to Matthew chapter six and read from verse 25 to 34. It was all about not worrying about your lives because God loves us so much and wants to provide for us in just the same way as He provides for everything else in creation. One verse stopped me in my tracks, verse 27 which said “who by worrying can add a single hour to their life.” I realised that worrying can only take away from my life and not add. The book also had a prayer in it which I prayed : ‘Dear Lord Jesus, please
help me to understand that I cannot possibly know everything but to rest secure in the knowledge that you are the source of all truth:
Suddenly I felt the presence of God in my room, I now know it was the Holy Spirit. The weight of worry within me was lifted off me and was replaced with such a sense of peace, which I had never felt before. I went to bed that night knowing God had a future for me. My outlook had changed and I began to go to church.
I DRIFTED AWAY
I began to work in the building trade, I had money, property and began to have a good social life and a few girlfriends. I started to drift further and further away from what the Bible had taught me and inside I was becoming empty because nothing seemed to compare to the encounter I had with Jesus and the peace I once had from God. One of the relationships I had led to having a child, I wasn’t committed to the relationship and I’m not proud of myself either, but at that time life had become all about me, I was the most important person in my life. The one good thing about having a child was that I did value his life which led me to become involved with going on aid trips to Romania to help neglected orphans.
Whilst in Romania I met Heather and fell in love with her. Heather was from Leicester but before long was living with me in Wales with her two daughters Samantha and Lucy. Having a readymade family was fun for a while but the novelty soon wore off, let’s be honest, the truth is that it was Heather I wanted and the children were simply getting in the way. I was totally selfish, the peace of God didn’t exist anymore, I had dug a spiritual grave for myself and the walls were falling in around me. I had decided not even Jesus would want to know me after the terrible way I was treating Heather and the children. My life was a mess, after many arguments and the way I was treating the children, Heather was now considering moving out.
IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO SAY SORRY
One evening while taking my parents to the airport to go on holidays, my mother said “I think I’ve forgotten my Bible” like a flash out of the blue everything became so clear to me. My life had gone wrong because I too had forgotten my Bible. On the way home I thanked God for Jesus, I felt that He still loved me, the Bible says, never will I leave you and never will I forsake you. One thing Jesus said was; ‘I have come to give you life and life to the full.’ Could this be true for me I wondered. I rushed home to Heather, she was expecting another argument but I simply said sorry and asked her to forgive me. I explained to her that if we allow God to take control of our lives and relationships everything would be OK. I said sorry to Samantha and Lucy for being so horrible and we prayed together and I asked Jesus to forgive me in front of them. Up to this point in our relationship Samantha and Lucy only ever called me Ian, but shortly after Jesus came back into my life they began to call me Daddy and to this day I take it as the biggest compliment I could have when they say Dad to me, God gave me a love for them in my heart and as far as I’m concerned they are my children and I thank God for them.
We started to rebuild our family, and a little while later Heather put her faith in Jesus as her own personal saviour and we got married. I was so grateful to God because after all I had done, including turning my back on God, He still loved me; all I had to do was to return to the way the Bible told me to live my life and to ask Jesus to forgive me, it wasn’t too late to say sorry. With His help we can all do that and rebuild the bridges we so often destroy.
Ian and Heather Willis now worship at Gosen
Christian Centre, Treorchy.