"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver." Proverbs 25:11

“TESTIMONY”
FROM JOHN MCGOLDRICK

Every testimony of Jesus Christ working in someone's life is a life changing event that is supernaturally charged to change a person from A to Z & all for Christ's glory & honor to be showcased. It is a privelege to share a fantastic lifechanging testimony from John, here with you today. Let us all praise Jesus Christ together for the marvel of His saving grace!




I was born in Edinburgh, and at the age of eighteen months I was adopted into a family with one boy, four years older then myself. I would often wonder why they adopted me, and i would often wonder what it would feel like to belong to a family who actually wanted me and cared about me. My parents were Catholic, religious and hardworking, my father worked as a maintenance Foreman for the railways, my mother was a housewife, but somehow or somewhere they had lost the ability to love, or maybe they never knew what love was.

At the age of five they made it clear that I was unruly and unmanageable, they put me into a home run by nuns, allowing me to come home every other weekend. I liked the nuns, but I remember having to take the bus home on my own in the dark.....who on earth puts a young child on a bus on his own at the age of five? I remember feeling so scared and so very alone, I felt abandoned. This continued until I was twelve when my time at the convent came to an end, I was so sad to say good bye to the nuns, they had become my family.

I was excited however, to be returning to live at home, although i was not happy at the thought of being bullied by my brother who hated me with a vengeance. I sought the love of my mother so badly, I wanted to prove to her I was good enough to love and good enough to keep, but at the back of my mind I no longer believed that I was worthy of love, after all, it wasn't just one mother who had given me away but two, and inside I believed myself to be unlovable.

We left Edinburgh and moved to Dundee, I went to a school where I just didn't fit in, i needed support and help from my parents but once again they sent me away, this time to an approved school for bad boys. This school was unlike the convent, as the children were all tough and had criminal records. I learnt bad language, how to steal cars and joy-ride, it was fun at the time, I was finally fitting in and belonging, I had friends who cared about me.

My mother died of heart disease when I was thirteen, just a short while after I had been sent away, I was devastated but I had my friends and I had acquainted myself with drugs and alcohol, my feelings were taken care of. I left this school at sixteen years of age, my qualifications were of a criminal nature, grand theft auto, burglary, and so on, not much to put on a cv!

I went home to live with my father for a couple of years until I was eighteen and then moved away to start a life of drugs and crime.

During this cycle, I went to prison many times, that was part and parcel of living a life of crime. I hated the sound of those prison gates shutting me in for yet another stretch, but drugs and talk of crime were as easy accessible inside as out.

But one night I had had enough, I managed to steal a razor blade and with the intentions of ending my life I cut into my veins deeply, watching as my life flowed out onto the cold stone floor. I didn't die, but after some time in the infirmary I was returned, but this time stripped naked and put on suicide watch, my humiliation and hatred for my life became much stronger than ever.

I literally lost regard for my life and the lives of others for when I left prison I immediately got involved in an armed robbery in a jewellery shop, where i stuck a revolver into the mouth of an innocent man, watching him but feeling nothing. We were caught and I stood silent as the judge sentenced me to my longest sentence ever, I made up my mind there and then, if I made it I would never return and I didn't.

Years went by, and although I stayed clear of trouble, I felt trapped, I may just as well have been in prison, there was no hope, no future, everything appeared so pointless. Even relationships meant nothing to me, it was as if my life took on a meaningless void.

However during this time, once in a while, my thoughts would go to the only time in my life when I felt a glimmer of hope, a time when the nuns spoke about a man called Jesus.

There was something about that name that shone a light into the dark recesses of my soul, but I did nothing about it. But unknowingly, He did, Jesus started opening doors for me.

I met and became friends with a Christian lady and I started going to church, one day as I was about to go to work, the pastor's wife who had come over for a prayer time with my friend, started to pray and as I stepped out of the house the Holy Spirit fell on me and I was moved with such joy and wonder. I started to praise God and felt such love for Him. A few months later I was baptized and my life became unrecognizable,.

I was transformed by the Blood of Jesus! Each day was full of possibilities, doors opened for me in all areas, I managed and became co-owner of a restaurant, I got married and I became involved in working for the homeless. I also started visiting prisons and i was able to give hope to the hopeless, this time it was me who was given authority to enter high maximum security prisons to help prisoners. This all because of Jesus Christ!

I now know myself to be a highly valued child of God, a co-heir with Jesus. My sins are forgiven and I stand righteous, truly loved and desired by my Father God. Nothing can separate me from God's great love for me.

And that is what I want to share with you, you also are so desperately loved by God and He wants to come into your life and set you free. He wants to open up doors of opportunity for you, God wants a loving relationship with you, and there is nothing so magnificent in this world then to be loved by the Father.

"In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propriation for our sins." (1 John 4:9-10)

© John