How God Saved My Life

This is Barry Palm's story.

Before I became a Christian, my life was meaningless and I lived for nothing. My parents divorced when I was only 10 years old, and as a child I often felt sad, lonely, depressed and worthless. My teenage years were no different, and to make matters worse my life was often dark and bleak because of the many unpleasant events and experiences I went through in those years. There were times when I felt like ending my own life because I just felt I had nothing to live for, so why live at all?

Things continued pretty much the same way for me all the way into my late teens, and by then I was into heavy metal music, I had long hair and wore black clothing. I was into these things because of the bad influence I was surrounded by back then and also because I just didn't care. Even though I never got into drugs or heavy drinking, I was really a defiant rebel of the adolescent culture. But when I got to year 11, and for no reason in particular, I stopped listening to heavy metal music, cut my hair short and started to dress a bit more 'approachable'. I had no idea that God was preparing me for an event that would change me into the person I am today.

It was during the winter school holiday break in 1998 that my Mum found out that one of her friend's kids were going to a Bible camp organised by BPCWA. She signed me up herself without asking me, and to this day I still believe that my Mum was used by God to save my life. She told me it would be good for me to go and mix with other kids around my age, but I was like yeah ok, whatever. At the camp, I knew nobody except my Mum's friend's kids so I just kept to myself pretty much at first. On the first night of the camp, I heard my first Christian message and when the preacher asked if anybody wanted to ask Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Saviour, I was the only person to raise my hand. After the message, the preacher took me aside because I had some questions about Christianity. After he answered my questions, I decided to ask Jesus to be my Lord and Saviour. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but that night God changed my life forever.

I started praying to God and reading my Bible daily and found that I could remember many different verses from memory. I also started attending church on Sundays, and when I didn't make it to church on a Sunday I would weep. I started to tell my friends at high school about God and my new faith, even though none of them were interested and didn't like what I said. I gradually got rid of the computer games, music, books and movies I owned which were violent, sexually immoral, occultic and sacrilegious because I felt uncomfortable with them. Over time, God showed me how I should think, behave, treat other people and what I should do with the life that He has given me. As I learnt more about my faith, I found that I was able to encourage other Christian brothers and support them through counsel and companionship. Along the way, I discovered more about myself and found that I wasn't worthless, useless or a failure. God had given me so many talents like poetry, singing, writing and public speaking, that I may use all of them to bring glory to God and encourage my fellow Christians. But this is perhaps just the tip of the iceberg. For me, knowing this God in whom my faith lies and living a life that is centered on Him and submitted to Him is the most challenging thing for me to do, but I know that this is what He wants me to do and I know He will enable me to do that bit by bit over time.

Today, I am a very different person (what the Bible calls "a new creature" and "born again") to how I used to be before I became a Christian, all because I have Jesus Christ in my life. More importantly, God is helping me everyday to live a life that is holy, clean and right according to what the Bible teaches, and also to live for Him instead of myself. The damaging and destructive life I lived in the past and every wrong thing that I've done against God in the past have been forgiven, because He loved me so much that He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die for me on the cross and take the punishment I deserved upon Himself so that I won't have to be punished and go to hell for all eternity when I face God on judgement day.

Barry Palm