This morning as my wife and I were having our coffee and getting ready for work, I had this overwhelming feeling of joy, and for most people this would be something of a regular occurrence but for me not so. For years, before I went to Turning Point for addiction treatment, I suffered from drug and alcohol addiction, so much so that I landed up in jail on numerous occasions and also did a few prison stints. There was also a time in my life that I believed I would be better off dead but the God I now serve had other plans for my life. You see, most of my friends had careers by attending college or joining and retiring from the military and some even had lifelong on the job training by working the same job since graduating from high school, but my training was a different type of training experience, addiction, and by God’s grace my experience has given me the skills to help other men who suffer from the same problems as I once did. I thank God everyday for believing I was worth saving and I am thankful for seeing the miracles take place within the lives of the men I am able to work with, by becoming fathers again, marriages being restored, seeing men who wanted nothing to do with God actually become faithful followers of Christ. When I am back in my hometown of Barnwell SC people do not talk to me about the sins of my past, they encourage me for who and what I am today. I am so blessed to have a wife who loved me when I couldn’t love myself and family members who never gave up on me. People ask me if I am ashamed to share my story with the world and I tell them, why would I be, there is God’s glory in my story!
Anthony Peoples
September 2017