Testimony of Harold Brown

TESTIMONY OF HAROLD

I’m Harold, a sinner saved by the grace and mercy of God.

First and foremost, I want to thank God for what he’s done in my life.  When I was two years old, my parents were killed in a car wreck.  I was adopted by a great family.  My mother was a devout Christian.  If it hadn’t been for her, I think I might not have ever heard the word of God.  I remember growing up and she would tell me the bible stories, and she would kneel down beside me at night when I went to pray and we would pray for my father.  He was a good man who worked very hard for his family, but never said if he was saved or not.  He never talked much, but he showed through his actions that he had a relationship with Jesus.

As I grew older, I strayed away from what I was taught.  I was like the prodigal son - - I had everything I needed.  My parents weren’t rich, but we had it better than most.  So, I went my own way, ran away from home at 16, ended up in Atlanta, didn’t know anybody, and was dumb to the street life.  I had smoked pot, but didn’t really do the hard drugs.  The part of Atlanta I was in they called it “the Strip.”  It was all drugs and anything you wanted you could get there.  So I started selling drugs, making money, and forgot about God.  I started using more drugs than I was selling and was using women to get what I wanted.  All of the people I knew were drug dealers, prostitutes - - very hard core.  I got caught with some marijuana and got put in jail.  The police called my parents and they came to Atlanta and got me.  By then I was a full-fledged alcoholic and drug addict and my eyes were totally blind towards God.

I got old enough to get a job and had already quit school.  It seemed like everybody I hung around drank and did drugs.  I went to work painting.  I was still staying at home and never had any bills to pay, so all the money I made had no value to me.  Bars, women, drugs - - I did this on the same job for 25 years.  I always had enough respect for my parents to ever bring women home, so I would go to motels, come back broke, and do it again and again.  Then it got so bad that I started losing jobs.  My father passed away during this time.  My mother was legally blind, so I quit my job and took care of her.  That’s when the worst in me came out.  I was responsible for the home, writing checks, just doing what needed to be done.  I was so selfish and my addiction had me right where it wanted me - - in control of the money I didn’t even have to work for.  My mother would hand me the checkbook and I would write out the bills and steal three or four for my addiction.  I always made sure I would get the mail in case a neighbor came by first and I would get out the checks I wrote.  She couldn’t see the paper to read the balance, so I would tell her that it was just fine.  Now I am doing this to a woman who took me in when I was 2 years old, treated me as if I were her own, showed me more love than my real mother could have, and this was the thanks I was showing her.  This went on for years.  I was in and out of jail and she would always get me out.  Her health was now declining, she was starting to get dementia and that made it even easier to take advantage of her.  I went back to jail, but this time noone came to get me out.  When I got home, I found out that my cousin had put my mother in a nursing home.  I didn’t know it but, because of the wild life I was living, she had made him executor of her will about 10 years earlier.  My world as I knew it came to a screeching halt.  I had the house, but had no income coming in.  I went to see her a few times at the nursing home, but her mind was so bad that she hardly knew me.  She fell in the nursing home and broke her hip.  They took her to the hospital where she developed a staff infection and soon passed away.

The house and the money went into probate and I was still hard into my addiction.  I didn’t know what to do.  The first thing I did was to sell the furniture and anything else I could get my hands on until all of the money was used up.  I remember laying on the love seat, the only thing that was left, and reality hit for the first time.  I had nothing.  No job, no food, a dog to feed, just no hope.  I started going through withdrawals from alcohol and drugs.  I asked God - - “what am I going to do?” - - but did not give him all.  I ate with friends and neighbors who didn’t know how I treated my mother, so they felt sorry for me and helped.  I survived until the probate was over.  My mother left me everything but $20,000.00 dollars, which she gave to my cousin.  She left me the house, which was paid for, and she left $60,000.00 dollars in the bank.  Since I had not been serious with God, my addiction kicked back in.  It took me only 8 months to go through what it took my parents a lifetime to accumulate.  I remember the last crack rock I smoked when the money was gone.  Then I became homeless, in and out of jail, prison, traveling from state to state, stealing, doing what I had to do to survive.  I remember getting out of Lieber, a prison in the lower part of South Carolina, and coming back to Spartanburg.  I came to the mission here, the downtown Rescue Mission.  I stayed awhile and, because I had to, I started going to chapel.  After a while, God started speaking to me.  He let me know that he hadn’t turned his back on me - - I had turned my back on him and, through this, I came into a relationship with Christ.  I surrendered my life to him and was saved.  Looking back now, I see that I was holding things back that needed to be addressed - - the guilt, the low self-esteem, the hidden sins I thought noone knew - - so the relationship couldn’t work because I had not given everything to him.  So I went back again doing the same thing, but even worse this time.  So I’ll jump ahead - 7 months ago, lying on the couch, asking God for help to get me out of this mess.  I got evicted from my apartment in Greer for drinking, fighting and all that comes with that sort of behavior.

I found myself back in Spartanburg.  I said to myself, “what I came back here for I guess I’ll never know until now.”  I tried to get into the mission for almost a month, but no beds were available.  I was about to give up, but on the last day I was going to try, I got in.  God was working already, I just didn’t know it.  I worked in the kitchen, went to the chapels, but never got serious with God.  I had been clean for about 4 months and Brad called me in his office and asked me about my future plans, but I didn’t have any.  I was feeling better about myself, but I knew deep inside that I didn’t have anything to fight with when I went back to the streets.  When you’re trying to do right and God sees this, he will put something there that will benefit you.  Before that I told Brad I would be moving out the 11^th of April, but God had something else in store for me.  I was asked to join a program that was starting.  It was started by Hope Ministries and Celebrate Recovery.  They were to pick 6 men from the mission that were ready to turn their lives over to God and get out of that revolving door they had been living in.  I know by the grace and mercy of God that he opened that door for me.  Because I had tried it my way all my life and I had failed miserably, I had no hope and no direction, but through God was sent a man named Shawn Parker who, with his prayer, his obedience, to God’s will, his understanding, because I could relate to where he was coming from, because we had similar addictions, and his forthcoming, not being ashamed to tell his story, that it might touch someone else’s life through his teaching of God’s word.  He brought it down to my level so I could understand the things that I was missing.  Things that stay with me.  Things I never knew.  Things like having bitter roots and knowing that you have to get to these before you can advance in your relationship with God.  I gave my life to God.  That’s when God gave me my purpose and my direction.  God wants my direction and not my perfection.  The old man has to die before the new man can live.  My prayer is “Father, please instill in me all your truths, so that I may know that it is you that gets and deserves all the Glory.  Amen.”

I want to thank God first and always.

I want to thank Hope Ministries, who through prayer and obedience to God, sent my mentor, Shawn Parker to help lead others to Christ.

And to my brother in Christ, David Martin who, through Celebrate Recovery, has given his time and precious knowledge to us that we might have something to fight back with when we run into temptation.

God Bless You.