my life before and after Jesus

How Jesus Saved Me

My Personal Testimony

July 14, 2022

What was my life truly like before following Jesus?

Drug Addict, Unfaithful Husband, Terrible Father, Horrible Son, Sucky Brother, and so much more…... These are a few names I have been called at the time of my life that I was failing badly, and rightly so.

In my teens to young adult life, I was pretty much self-destructive – drinking and drugs were my vice. I started at age 5, possibly 6 with a sip of hard liquor with family members, while I did not drink regularly until my teens, I did consume here and there, and it only got progressively worse when I got to high school. The scary thing is I don’t recall not liking alcohol and that is why I believe I didn’t stop.

While in high school I started off with marijuana, occasionally cocaine, then eventually crystal meth. Through those years, college, and after, I tried other illicit drugs though ice became the only thing I wanted to do – leading to roughly 17 years of abuse.

Since at an early age I recall being told to study hard so I could get a good job to make a lot of $$$. This led to always wanting nice things – cars, clothes, fancy dinners, etc. The problem was being a drug addict while trying to live the materialistic lifestyle.

In my mid-20s, I got married to Sachi who has a son, Yujin, now 34. While we have been together for 27 years, it was not an easy ride for them both. Started with me cheating on her in the early stages of our relationship and in the beginning of our marriage. When my addiction finally came to light, it almost destroyed our marriage and the home we were building together. Unfortunately for both, they didn’t know of my problems, my disease, the sins in my life.

All those years I caused quite a bit of pain and heartache for those that loved me – mom, sister, wife, and son. The lies and duplicity kept growing until it became a monster that would not be tamed. Self-absorbed, distant, selfish, impatient, uncaring, and unloving wouldn’t be incorrect when describing who I was before Christ.

Why I chose to follow Jesus?

While being raised in a ‘buddhist’ family, I don’t remember hearing of Jesus and God, certainly not the Holy Spirit. The first time I had heard and learned of the gospel my sister and I were attending Kaimuki Christian School from 2nd or 3rd to 6th grade. Even though I went to St. Louis School for intermediate, they generally covered all things Catholic so not much from those 2 years.

It was only during my years of destruction while away in college that my sister started to attend Word of Life in downtown. She became fully set afire for the Lord and even went to seminary in Oklahoma, leading her to missions in Asia. She kept praying for me, literally, all the time because of who I had become and continued to be during that time.

While she had asked me to come to WOL many times, I refused to because I was still getting high. Eventually I said I would go and during one of the services I gave my life over to Jesus. While I would like to say I dramatically overhauled myself overnight or from that day forth, mine wasn’t the storybook version. In some ways while I needed to change, I still wasn’t ready to change.

Deep down inside I knew the gospel and who Jesus was even when I wasn’t living the “Christian” life that I professed to follow. It was only at my low point of my life when my life was spiraling out of control, my marriage was failing, the family I was so blessed to have was about to end, all the ‘things’ I thought were important as mentioned earlier – nice house, cars, having $$$ was soon to be gone that I began to start searching for answers.

When reflecting during recovery, sobriety, life change (men’s fraternity), life groups and other meetings, I know not having a father in my life from age 8 had a tremendous impact. He was an alcoholic, was not present in our life when he was home, cheated on our mom and eventually left us to be with another family.