Before I met you, I wanted to kill myself.
And I had a very good plan to do it.
We were dropping off a friend, when I saw a man limping.
So I jumped out of the car just to go pray for him,
and as I got closer I realized he had blood pouring out of his wrists.
That day when Nathaniel found me on the street, as bizarre as it sounds
I had blood pouring down my arm and I just cut myself like half an hour earlier.
I'd had the equivalent of about twelve standard drinks.
So I was pretty drunk. And that was sort of like an ongoing thing for years, really.
But it only got that bad in the last couple of months before then.
Straight away I said to him, "What's going on man? Are you OK?"
He said, "Leave me alone, nobody cares about me."
I looked him in the eyes and I said, "I care about you man. God cares about you."
I didn't want anything to do with the guy. I just hated everything.
I thought no one really cared about me.
He kept trying to walk past me and I wouldn't let him.
I began to speak about the Holy Spirit and he held up his goon sack of alcohol
and said, "This is my Holy Spirit man." I just said to him, "Let me pray for you."
And so it took a while for Nathaniel to finally get through to me,
for me to finally accept him talking to me and praying for me.
Right there on the street side I prayed for him with all of my heart.
And I was sober as soon as Nathaniel prayed for me.
God gave me a word for him and I looked him in the eyes and just said,
"When you were eight years old you were with your family and you said a joke."
"They all began to mock you and laugh at you,"
"and at that point you decided in your heart, 'Nobody cares about me.'"
And he looked at me and he said, "How do you know that?"
And I was just able to look him in the eyes and say, "Because God knows you and He cares about you."
He's telling me all these things about myself that I haven't told him
which was a total spin out.
The presence of God just began to touch him right there,
so much so that he had to sit down and we just sat down together on the side of that street.
But every few minutes it was like his eyes would glaze over and he would just switch off.
And this sort of demonic spirit came over me
and I could feel my body was being pulled two different ways.
The demonic spirit was trying to hold on to me, but the spirit that was
coming from Nathaniel was trying to pull me away from that.
And that point he pulled his blade out of his pocket and just stared at me.
And I had this blade with me, and I'm saying,
"I want to cut myself again. I want to cut myself again."
And Nathaniel said, "No, no, no. Just give me the blade."
And a moment passed, and then he just put the blade in my hand.
Every time I was asking for the blade,
That glaze would come back over his eyes and he would look at me and say,
"Give me back that blade man. Give it back to me."
That's that demonic spirit coming back saying, "No, no, no. Don't listen to his garbage. Just stay with me."
"You've been with me for this long."
You see fear tries to intimidate but perfect love casts out fear.
So I said to him, "God wants me to tell you something."
"It's coming from Him."
And suddenly God was talking through me. I don't remember exactly what I said,
but I said it three times.
He tells me it repeatedly. And it just keeps coming out, keeps coming out.
And it was like I was getting wave after wave after wave of this Spirit cleansing me.
And then just like that, instantaneously, that demonic spirit was gone.
I was like, "Woah, what happened?"
The anger was gone and the disbelief was gone and all that hurt was gone, just like that.
Suddenly in a moment Spence was a completely different person,
so we dressed his wounds, got him something to eat and took him home with us.
When I first got there, Nathaniel noticed that I was limping.
And I explained to him that I've had this bad hip for two years.
My friend Joel and I prayed for his hip...
(Spence) And straight away, my hip was healed,
and I could walk normally.
What is this?
The pain's gone and it's been about six months now since that happened.
And the pain's never come back. Never walked with a limp since.
As Joel and I continued to pray for Spence he fell to the ground,
not really knowing what was going on.
Although Spence was sober, he was now under the influence of a different spirit - the Holy Spirit.
And I was down there and I just wanted to stay down there,
because you feel this really powerful and amazing feeling all over your body
and it sort of holds you there, you can't get up.
But you don't want to get up, you just want to stay there and that was the first time that ever happened (to me).
Spence gave his heart to God right there, on the floor.
As we were hanging out that night, the police showed up.
Spence earlier that day had put a call out, saying he was going to take his life
and the police had been looking for him for hours.
One of the police officers, seeing we cared for Spence so much, said
"You're with a good crowd here Spence, these are some good people."
I just started telling him my testimony and he just started getting really interested by it.
The next minute he was leaning back, falling on the ground.
He doesn't even know what Christianity looks like, he was falling over,
and he said, "What's happening? This is the second time today!"
So me and Nathaniel started praying for him.
As we prayed I wondered what would have happened if I had not stopped for Spence.
Before I met you, I wanted to kill myself. And I had a very good plan to do it.
But then you came along, and
The last three months, I'd say, I've been depressed-free.
No suicidal thoughts. I haven't cut myself since then either.
Getting to know God - it is like having a second chance. It is a second chance at life.
I wonder how many Christians walk past "Spences" every day, so focussed on this short life,
not realizing it's not our own, it's a gift.
What will you do with yours?
We've got the normal Christian life here at the drive-in cinema.