My name's Elijah. I'm from Denver, Colorado.
And growing up, I come from a pretty normal family, I would say. For the most part. Very loving.
But some of my earliest memories in my childhood, there was a lot of confusion, a lot of abandonment, a lot of rage.
And I just remember growing up seeing my mom constantly in and out of my life. She had an addiction to alcohol and pills.
And this is something that actually ran in the family. Generational. My grandpa was actually a major alcoholic, and whatnot.
So growing up, at the age of 13 is actually when my mom started to use hard drugs. She wasn't just drinking.
She actually started to use meth, and she started using hard drugs. And my dad at the same time
actually went to prison. And this was a moment in my life where things just drastically changed for me.
And my mom actually found out I was smoking weed. I started smoking weed at 13.
Just started hanging around with the wrong people. I remember ditching basketball practice to smoke weed.
And I just felt like this empowerment. Just like rebellion. And I felt like I belonged, and I was so happy within my rebellion.
And my mom enabled me to start smoking. I would go home every day after middle school with a group of my friends,
and we would go to the house and smoke weed. We're from Denver, Colorado and Colorado just got weed legalized at that time.
And my mom actually would just let us smoke and take us to smoke. She would never smoke with me,
but she would enable us and take us to get weed and stuff. And it's crazy to look back.
But just through this time as well (at the same time), my mom actually began to get into this spiritual knowledge.
She was doing meth, and what meth does is it really messes with your mind, and it gets you into spiritual things.
You start seeing things, feeling things.
And I remember she would have these encounters, and these crazy dreams and visions and weird things (super spiritual).
She started speaking these things to me. That, oh “I'm chosen,” that “I'm a starseed,” a “star child,”
and all these new-age terms that new-age people can resonate with now. And she would begin to claim these things over us.
That we were “light workers,” that we were “here to do angel work,” and “here to do work to help people and be a light.” Right?
So at 14 I felt empowered and felt like I had this false identity - that I was chosen, that I was different,
I was set apart and that I had some hidden knowledge. Even though it was the wrong knowledge.
And that led to… actually, my first time drinking was a crazy story. I was drinking with my friend for his birthday.
Didn't even know about drinking. Never drank alcohol in my life. And I drank. And I remember that night I literally
I had so much, one of my friends told me my pulse was gone. And we didn't call the ambulance or anything.
So I don't know if I actually died, but I remember my pulse stopped. And I had so much alcohol poisoning because I drank a whole
a whole handle of alcohol, basically, between me and my friend. And I literally was passed out on the couch, like dead basically.
My friend was crying and he was punching me in the chest, and they literally thought I died until I got a grasp of air and came back.
And I remember after that just throwing up. And it was just so crazy how these emotions led me here,
and then after that it just kept spiraling down. And I was just … I remember I would run away for weeks at a time.
I remember when I tried cocaine at a party, and this is when basically everything started just totally, for me just crashed down.
Even though it was already bad, I was already at a pit, I was in a hole. And I did cocaine, and I smoked it actually. I smoked it for my first time.
And I actually began to hang out with this group, and they were drug dealers. And they were in the occult and into new-age stuff.
They were into a lot of new-age beliefs; similar stuff that I learned from my childhood.
And, mind you, through this whole time of me doing drugs and rebelling, I still had
this sense that I was like chosen and different because I had this new-age identity
that I was here as a lightworker, and that I was supposed to live life for my pleasures and help people.
So it was crazy how this identity led me to where I was. And the beautiful thing out of this time
is when my dad went to prison, actually, he found God. He found God in prison. And he ... had a 12 year sentence, and he served five.
And in this time I totally believe that the reason why I am where I am now is because
my dad, in prison, found God. And every day he's interceding for me, praying for me, declaring over me.
And him and his group of friends were fasting for me and praying for me. And I remember
there'd be times where my dad would be talking with me on the phone on the prison calls,
and he would be speaking life into me. And I didn't know. I thought God was just the universe.
I thought God was everywhere, so I had no idea what really he was saying. But little did I know there were
seeds being planted in this time of my rebellion. Seeds of hope and seeds of truth being planted
during this time that I was in drugs and with the wrong people and doing all these things. And
eventually I remember my dad (after he got out of prison) he had a girlfriend and she actually
was very involved at the church, serving all the time. And she would invite me, invite me,
invite me, invite me and KEEP inviting me and keep being persistent with me. And she knew a lot of
the new-age stuff that I was in, the meditation all this stuff, it was wrong. She would send me
videos actually to combat it. And God really used that. God really used that in my life. And it finally led me to saying
“yes” to go to one revival event. And, by the grace of God, I went. And he was speaking on just basically everything I was going through.
The emptiness in your soul, how...there's a God-sized hole inside that only God can fill, and that there's no truth but Jesus.
And I remember that that night in that revival (it was a tent revival) that I was like, "You know what?
I got nothing to lose. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if this is the truth. I don't know what is what."
But I did it. I received the Holy Spirit, and I just stepped out, and he led me through the prayer.
And I remember that next day, I had an ounce of weed that I was about to smoke. I'd smoke every day,
it was the normal routine. I had total conviction. The spirit of conviction fell on my heart,
and after that I was on this quest of surrendering to Jesus. And I actually quit smoking a week after that.
Because I would smoke and then God would convict me. And I would drink, then God would convict me.
And that was like a whole year of that, and finally to the point where God totally set me free
from smoking, from drinking, from a lot of access stuff from my life.
And now where I'm at is, I've been fully delivered of alcoholism, addiction, new-age beliefs and
it took a lot of… it's been three years now.
So it took the year and a half, basically two years, of God just cleaning me out.
Cleaning all the residue, all the lies, all the hurts, the mother and father wounds, and all these things.
And I’m still being cleansed, but all the major issues - the major drug use, the major things.
And now I'm at a point where I'm persistently pursuing Jesus.
Persistently trying to walk out my call, walk out my mandate that God has for my life.
Because there's nothing in this world that will fulfill me. There's nothing in this world to live for. There's nothing.
And what I would say to somebody, I know that there's people right now as I'm speaking right now, there’s young men and women
and there's people that are trying to find purpose in the world, and purpose in false identities.
And I just want to let you know there is no drug, there is no lust, there is no addiction that can fulfill you.
Only Jesus can fulfill you, and there is no purpose on this earth besides Jesus.
God is your purpose, no matter what the devil tries to bring in your life -
through astrology, through deception. There’s MASS deception in the world.
And be VIGILANT because the devil, if you give him an inch he will take a mile.
So I’m just telling you now: Jesus is your purpose. Jesus is your fulfillment.
ONLY Jesus. ONLY Jesus.
Amen, amen.
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us.