So my name is Thomas Rife. I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. I was born into
a very drug addicted family, generations of drug addiction and my mother and father
were both addicted to drugs. My dad was in and out of prison through my childhood. I
just had a very violent, a very traumatic childhood growing up eventually I would be placed
into foster care, with my brother and my sister and that would end up being a lot more trauma,
a lot more violence that it just seemed to follow me through my childhood. At the age of
14, I would be adopted by my mother Susan that was a lot better. It seemed like, at that time,
I was pulled out of a very violent environment and placed into a loving home. It still wasn't
a Christian Home. Throughout my childhood and throughout middle school and high school,
I never really thought about God. He just wasn't simply wasn't on my radar. Now after high school,
I went off and I joined the military and I met my wife Ashley and right before my deployment to
Afghanistan, we got engaged and I went off and I deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. Now while we were
in Afghanistan, it was a mild combat deployment. I did lose my really good friend Cody Suggs while
we were overseas and that just kind of took a piece of my heart you know, when he died.
I came home and I just struggled with a lot of emotions, a lot of things that I didn't know
how to really deal with, a lot of anger, I was just a different person and for me, I
thought it was normal just like everyone else that returned from a deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq.
It was just a normal part of life, so I continued on with life and I kind of just
shoved it down and I didn't really think a whole lot of it and I always had this dream,
I had a dream of becoming a police officer and eventually to become a Narcotics detective,
that was my goal in life from a very young age, after seeing what drug addiction had done
to my family and I got hired by a department in Southern Oregon in 2014. And I achieved my dream,
I quickly fell in love with the job and I devoted every ounce of my life to becoming the
best police officer that I could be and throughout my career, I experienced a lot of violence. Again,
I worked in a very violent Town Klamath Falls Oregon and there were a lot of homicides. I
had to investigate a lot of murders, a lot of fatal car accidents, suicides, child deaths,
just a lot of really traumatic things that we would have to investigate these types of things
and it really started to have an effect on me. It hardened my heart and I would come home and
I didn't have any emotions, I didn't know how to feel anymore. I was angry all the time,
I was having a hard time sleeping, I was having a hard time concentrating and just focusing and
it really started to have an effect, when I started to have nightmares and I eventually
started to have flashbacks and I would hear kids crying and screaming and I just couldn't
get through these emotions and these things that I was feeling and in the position that I was in,
I had to hide it, I had to keep it a secret, I had to cope with it, without letting anyone know.
In a way I did that, I started using alcohol like many combat veterans and First Responders do,
just to kind of shove down the emotions, to kind of shove down everything that I was feeling
and eventually that didn't work anymore and I started using drugs and it doesn't take a
rocket scientist to realize that drugs and being a police officer, don't mix very well.
I was now a Narcotics detective, working on a drug team and I got called out to do
surveillance one night and I went to the police department and removed what I believed to be
cocaine from the evidence locker and I used it and at the time, I didn't realize but it
was actually a 99% pure Fentanyl and I had taken enough probably to kill a couple hundred people
and the last thing, I remember of that night was waking up in the hospital. I was later told that I
overdosed, near fatal overdose on the fentanyl. I crashed my detective vehicle
and this is where God really intervened into my life. At the time of this crash,
I was an atheist. I didn't even believe in God. I actually would argue with Christians
as to why God didn't exist and at the time of my crash, an ambulance was in the intersection and
stopped, loaded me up in the back, rushed me to the hospital that was 10 minutes
away and the doctor said, if that ambulance hadn't been there, I would have 100% died.
Now, when I woke up in the hospital, I had my lieutenant and sergeant and all these doctors
standing around me and I knew that my life had just come crashing down. I knew that nothing was
ever going to be the same. I always had a plan for this moment and it was that I was going to commit
suicide, if this ever came out and that was my plan. I planned as soon as I left the hospital to
go home and commit suicide and I went home and all I could think about was the shame and the guilt
and the devastation that I had caused to my wife and my kids and the people that I had worked with.
No one knew that I was struggling like this and and I knew inside that this was all going to come
out that my secrets of using drugs and struggling with PTSD was going to be a big deal and a few
days later, one of my really good friends with the Oregon State Police, he came to my house with
his pastor and the first thing he said to me was, Thomas I'm concerned that if you would have died.
Concerned that you would have went to hell and I remember just sitting there, thinking
about the reality of that and then, he told me that, Thomas had come, because
I want to introduce you to God and I remember telling him, I said, Austin God can't help me.
I've made a lot of mistakes. I've made too many mistakes. God can't help me through this and I
remember him and his Pastor just shared the gospel with me and they said, Thomas, God loves you. It
doesn't matter what you've done, it doesn't matter the mistakes that you've made, God still loves
you and He has a plan for your life and He has a purpose and I remember sitting there and I'm like,
okay well, I don't believe that Austin but thank you for coming over and he left. And
the next day, I remember just I couldn't help but think and I needed to figure out who God
was. I had this Burning Desire inside of me that I couldn't explain and I became obsessed with trying
to figure out who God was and this continued for a few months. I would go on to complete a military
Christian program for combat veterans and at that time, I completely surrendered my life to
God and I said, Lord if You can reveal Yourself to me, if You can change my life, it is Yours and
things were still hard. I still had to deal with the consequences of my sin,
the consequences of my actions and I would eventually go on to commit suicide or attempt
to commit suicide, which led me to being in a military hospital for two months. He used this
time in the hospital to transfer my heart, to give me a heart of flesh, to renew my mind and this
was two months, where I got to spend with Him and I got to study His word and I got to learn
how to be more like Jesus and how to follow Jesus and through this, I remember waking up,
one morning, it was about 5 a.m. and I actually woke up and I was just filled with guilt and
shame and just had this heaviness on my heart and at the exact same time,
I was filled with this light and I remember, it was like a light from Heaven just entered into
my chest and I was filled with the Spirit and at the time, I didn't knew, you know what this meant
and I started to speak in another language that I couldn't understand. After about a half hour,
it stopped and I was sitting there and I knew it was from God. I knew that whatever had just
happened was from the Lord and He led me to Acts chapter 2 and I began reading, where the disciples
were in the upper room and they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and everything that had happened
in Acts chapter 2 had happened to me and at that moment, I remember just sitting there
and I was crying and I just thought, oh my gosh, 'He really is who He says He is' and everything
changed from that moment forward. I remember my wife, called the doctor and she thought,
I was going crazy and the doctor actually thought I was going crazy but after a little while I was
no longer on medication. I no longer struggled with PTSD. I no longer struggled with nightmares
or insomnia. I was completely healed and delivered from everything in the blink of an eye
and after I was released in the hospital, I realized that I was called in the full-time
ministry and I started pursuing full-time ministry and through that, the Lord crossed paths with Teen
Challenge and I was offered a position to be the director of adult and teen challenge in
Tri-Cities. I'm now in full-time ministry like I said, as the Director of Adult Teen Challenge and
what I have to say though is, if you're sitting here today, if you're watching this video and
you're thinking to yourself that, man I've made some mistakes like that I've destroyed my life,
maybe you have a broken marriage or you don't see your kids or maybe you're in drug addiction
or maybe you're simply, you were a professional when you made some mistakes and you've destroyed
your life but I want to tell you today that Jesus does have a plan for you, that God has
a plan. So I would invite you today, if that's you, I'd invite you just to repeat after me,
Father we thank You, we thank You for dying on the cross Jesus, for giving us the opportunity
to have a new life, for rising again on the third day. Lord I invite You into my
heart to be the Lord and Savior of my life. I invite You to take complete control of my life.
I surrender my life to You and I thank You so much for being My savior in Jesus Name, Amen.