My name's Wesley. My friends call me "Wes". I was born into an Indian Christian family in September of the year 1989. My parents are sincere and godly people who love God with all of their hearts and brought me up in the fear of God, teaching me the scriptures from a very young age. I grew up in this manner...very protected, very innocent and God fearing. I was the guy who never fought back, never used bad language...was always more of an underdog...the school bully's favorite pastime snack...lol.
I kept living like this until I reached the seventh standard. My grades were always pretty decent….in the 80’s most of the time……..but things were going to change…….and change they were for the worse...
I soon started struggling to exist……I was coming to adolescence. Rushing hormones, crushes, popularity, being cool, secular music, the hep crowd, the up tempo hip scene……. These were the things that characterized my life. My grades soon started dropping but I wasn't concerned in the least. I was becoming "Cool".
One day at school, we (our class) were returning to our classroom after our physical education period and I don’t remember what exactly happened between a classmate and myself, but I think he said something offensive about my parents and I got so totally wild for the first time in my life. I went up to him…and the next thing I found myself doing was punching this guy’s face like it was some bag of tomatoes amidst a tirade of verbal abuse. The poor guy’s nose was bleeding and he was so knocked out that he had to go home in the middle of the day, because of the pain.
That was the day things changed. I instantly felt myself elevating in my eyes and the opinions of my friends - I had become “cool”.
Soon I was in the eighth grade….and my friends changed for the worse. I was a terror in the classroom. I would fight with my teachers and insult them in front of the whole class. I soon started watching filth….fell in “love” with a classmate of mine….got ditched…went into depression, lost out on studies, became exceedingly violent, had constant fights at home, was obsessed with hate rap…along the likes of Eminem, started doing evil, disgusting things to my body….some of which are so twisted and perverted - I can't even mention them in this write-up.
The fatal combination of a messed up mind and a messed up heart led to a series of bad habits and addictions that almost drove me off the cliff and that was it….by the end of the year….my academics had dropped so low that I just cleared my eighth grade exams with 43%….and even that was after copying in my finals. My life was completely wrecked. My parents were mortified and deeply worried. Their pain amplified my pain and it was then that I became suicidal. I can’t think of the number of times, I took a knife or a blade, ready to cut my veins or the innumerous thoughts of jumping in front of a fast moving train….I knew I had no hope…I was only 13 years old and my life was a total disaster. In the summer that year….I was at the end of my rope…..and I was looking for a way out. I didn’t believe in God anymore…… It was either life or death. I desperately needed somebody to rescue me from this terrible pit I was falling deeper into….and then one evening.....my dad walked into my bedroom......and started to give me the most important talk I'd ever hear.
He told me that my life was in a really really bad state…but that there was still redemption and hope…..He told me that Jesus Christ died and rose again so that through his death, suffering and resurrection, I might have new life. Dad told me about the humiliation, the sharpened iron nails driven through Jesus’ hands and feet, the thorny crown, the mocking soldiers, the spear that was driven into his side…..and all I could do was wonder as to how anybody could do so much for me. Why did he love me so much? Why did he give his life for a wretch like me? why?why?.......and all I could do was cry like a baby….like I had never done before…..My dad then told me that I could repent of all my sin, turn to Jesus, give him my life and let him rule my heart….and so that night I repented of my sin, turned to Jesus and gave my heart to him.
I don’t know what happened but I was so happy after I prayed that prayer. Such a peace and joy flowed into my life. I was a new man. Something happened that day. Every single evil thing in my life went out completely. I was a brand new man. It was so amazing. A little while after that we had a church conference in Bangalore and at the end of the conference a young brother from Norway came up to me and prayed for me with regard to the Holy Spirit and the Lord in his goodness anointed me with His Holy Spirit that evening and filled me with such power, joy,passion, peace and rest in God’s eternal love for me. My life then went on - passionately in love with Jesus....giving the Gospel to almost every body I met, reading God's word and spending time in prayer and fellowship with other young believers but sadly there was more to come....and at that, more than I knew of or even expected…..
Being a drummer from the age of eight, I was asked to play drums for a school rock band. I didn’t want to do it initially but the idea of recognition and playing cool stuff got to me, so, sooner than later I joined and we were playing megadeth’s version of black sabbath’s “paranoid” as our first song. But later we changed from doing that to playing an instrumental called “my misery” by an Indian black metal band called “demonic resurrection”….This was where my downslide started……A man of God I personally know once said this - “one sin is enough to kill you spiritually”…and he was so right!.....I soon started listening to a lot of heavy metal music…..and boy! Was I tripping on it….I totally loved it. My Dad and mum had no idea about the satanic influences of rock and metal, so I used their ignorance to have my own kind of fun. I was very influenced by a lot of rock and metal bands; started drumming to their beats and it was like nothing I ever knew. The speed, screaming vocals, mind numbing solos and heart thumping beats had me going crazy. By the end of the year we as a band had covered metallica, iron maiden, megadeth ,etc……and it was so good…..but inside, I knew what was happening….I was being torn apart.
In about two years, I went back to a hidden life of sin. On the outside everything looked pretty ok I must say , but, oh! What a delusion that was. I was a good Christian, even “on fire”on the exterior but on the inside I was so full of sin.....but when I look back, at even those horrid times, I still from the deepest parts of my heart wanted to love Jesus and be faithful to Him alone with all of my being.
By the time I was in pre-university college, all that I was doing was living this huge lie. I did a pretty good job of fooling most of the people around me, but God wasn’t fooled, neither satan nor myself. I was totally devoid of the Anointing. I had so driven myself to deception and darkness and the funny part was that I didn’t even really know this. By now I was playing for my college rock band (gospel).We weren’t all that great but I think we were pretty sincere in our hearts towards what we wanted to do for God. We were playing alternative rock but we never went far because we lost every competition we played in. My life soon went from hidden sin to open sin and I started doing some really really bad stuff. Went back to most of my former ways i.e. the stuff I used to do before I was saved. I messed up a lot of what God did in my life and soon my life was as bad as it was, before my initial encounter with Jesus. When I was in the 12th grade, I had a desire to continue with my passion for rock music, and so in the summer of 2006, five young guys from our college decided to form a gospel rock/metal band. We started practicing very hard and were on our way to becoming a professional band. We were soon playing at different college festivals, rock shows; corporate shows, etc, and were doing very well. We won eight college festivals that academic year and were invited to play at big events. Fame, popularity, respect and awards were pouring in and I didn’t really know how to handle it all. I won the “best drummer” award twice that year and the fame with all its by-products got to me. My life to many seemed like the ultimate thing. I had fame, popularity, talent and whole truckloads of friends but if those people only had one glimpse of the misery, pain, regret and awful loneliness, they would never say those things. My relationship with my Jesus and my parents completely broke. I started hating church. I would run out of the house many a time to do my own thing and would come back late at night only to find the door locked and not opening, even with the constant ringing of the doorbell. In spite of all the shallowness in my life, I really didn’t care, cuz the band was a huge thing to me. My whole security and love was the band and I’d probably do anything to keep my dream alive…..but that’s when things took a turn so surprising and unexpected……
During the end of January, 2007…my band broke up over some issues and ego problems and my life completely shattered to pieces. Everything fell apart in just one shot. I was totally devastated. The one thing that I was holding onto so tightly just split like a thin string of thread. I didn’t know what to do. Many a time, I would cry myself to sleep in the wake of what had just happened. I truly lost all hope, because of the thought of how much I gave into seeing this band come together and the whole thing being demolished in front of my very eyes. I lost out on my studies because of the band, I lost my relationship with my parents because of the band, I lost my love for my church because of the band. I started ignoring the ones I loved because I gave my time to the band. All of the time, money, effort, enthusiasm and hard work I put into making this band work just fell to the ground. The amount of regret I had was unbearable. It was like a leech sucking out my life blood.
In these tough and painful moments, a few Christian friends (David, Kiran and Tony of crucifix guide) who were fellow musicians came to my rescue and showed me unconditional love that I did not deserve. They did not know it but their love to me brought me back to my knees, to the place of brokenness and repentance before an almighty God whose mercy and love cannot be measured.
It was then, sometime in March of that year (2007), that I gave my life to Jesus once again and this time, as a total failure, as one who had betrayed his Lord and master, as one who had thrown a blood bought life away, as a criminal who needed a Savior’s love he did not in the least deserve. That’s when the love of Jesus broke through the chains of my darkness and set me free. My Savior came to me in my misery and hopeless condition. He took me in, gave me a brand new life, a brand new start and a brand new heart. This was the day my life completely changed. The day I came to the place of absolute surrender. My Jesus came in and freed me from all the chains that bound and destroyed me. He completely renovated my life. He gave me hope when I had none, gave me love when I was the last person on earth who deserved to be loved. My JESUS, there’s no one like my Jesus. He touched me and made me whole. I should’ve been the one to pay but my Jesus took my place. The amazing grace of God reached down and covered me and after that day my life has never been the same. A complete radical change came into my life. The life and righteousness of Christ became my own and now all I can say is
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now I’m found
Was blind but now I see”
In May that year, on the 6th of May, 2007 to be precise, I entered into the waters of baptism. I chose to take a step of obedience in my walk with the Lord and follow him all the days of my life. It so happened that the Lord in his mercy baptized me with the Holy Spirit on the same day and my life was never the same. The first indication of the anointing in my life was not that I started speaking in tongues. That came afterwards. The first miracle that took place was that all of sudden I could love my dad with a heart immersed in the love of God. My past was completely wiped out and cast into the depths of the sea. Everything that I had struggled with, the Lord through the power of his cross and resurrection, brought deliverance to me and is still bringing deliverance to me in all my areas of weakness. I today, love my parents, sister and family a whole lot. My parents and me are still going through a period of healing and restoration but I know that God will bring to pass His perfect peace in our lives and work out something so beautiful for His glory alone. It has been quite sometime now since the day the Lord Jesus touched me anew....and by the grace of God I can say that Jesus has become more and more precious to me and that through these few years I can testify to the fact that God will never give up on me. He has been tremendously good to me and my heart is filled with gratitude. At this moment, I am twenty one years of age and my one desire is that my life would be poured out as an offering to my Savior, so that from my life, Jesus would receive the reward of his suffering. To love him with an undistracted devotion and passion, reflecting all of his character in all of me, is my heart's true longing. I want to live and die for my Savior who gave his life so willingly for an undeserving wretch like me. May his will be done in all.
I want to tell any of you out there, that if you’re looking for the answer to all of life’s perplexities and problems, If you feel like you’re lost and don’t have any hope, If you want to experience a love-filled and deeply fulfilled life - driven with happiness and purpose, If you’re too scared to believe or you're just skeptical about Jesus and religion as a whole - Seek Him for you shall find TRUTH, LOVE AND HOPE! He is so not a disappointment! If you'd like to talk to me in person too, my number's +919902292482. Always here for you. Peace and much love.
Wes
“HE DIED FOR ME, I LIVE FOR HIM, I LIVE IN HIM”
TO GOD BE THE GLORY!!!!!
“Any man who is in Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun”-2 Corinthians 5:17
“He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them”-2 Corinthians 5:15
“for it is no longer I who lives but CHRIST who lives in me”-Galatians 2 :20
