Drug Addiction, Depression and Suicide

Stephanie Stocks

June 4, 2018

Calvary temple, Deliverance, Healing, Prayers, Salvation

“Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ…having no hope and without God in the world.” Ephesians 2:12

The following is a testimony of deliverance and hope after multiple attempts to commit suicide

I first heard about Jesus in Sunday School at 5 years old.

The teacher stood at a felt board with a cross and a heart. She shared the simple story of how God sent his son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. If we asked him into our heart, he would come in and he would save us and forgive us, and we could be in heaven with him when we died. I remember feeling like I was different from the other children. I felt like I was dirty, and they all seemed so wholesome. It became real to me that morning that Jesus loved me. That was the first of many times I would ask Jesus to come into my heart and save me.

I was not a happy care free child, always sad and anxious. I spent many sleepless nights crying and full of anxiety, praying to the Jesus I’d heard about at my grandparents’ church. Please keep my mom safe, and send me to live with her one day. And I would ask him to come into my heart and save me over and over.

By the time I was nineteen I would have tried to commit suicide three times.

As a teenager, I started drinking and smoking pot very heavily. There was not a day that went by that I didn’t get high. I got high when I woke up, I got high on the way to school. I would walk out of school during the day to get high, I got high after school, and I got high into the evening. My friends started calling me Cannabis. Most of them partied on the weekend just for fun, but I got high to survive the sadness and anger over my childhood. Getting high was an escape from all the bad feelings inside of me.

My life was going downhill and becoming more reckless.

I was constantly in trouble at school, being called to the Vice Principal’s office several times a week. Punished with detention for not doing assignments, for being late, for disrupting class and for being a clown. Getting suspended for being a loud mouth and disrespecting authority. I said and did whatever I wanted. If my teachers crossed me, I would verbally assault them in front of the class. I absolutely hated authority and I loved creating conflict with them. I knew I wasn’t going to suffer any consequences or discipline at home. It was empowering. No one could control me, and I could do whatever I wanted. I thought I had nothing to lose, but I was failing school, I was caught smoking and kicked out of cheer leading, and I was deeply unhappy.

The only time I knew any of peace or walked in any kind of sanity was when I would go to visit my Aunt and Uncle who were Christians.

From the time I was 12 until I was 16, I would stay with them for 2 weeks every summer. There would be no smoking, drinking or getting high. I would go to church, read my Bible, read my devotional, and loved to listen to Christian music. There was such a peace during those weeks. I didn’t have inner peace, but I was surrounded by the peace that radiated from their home and their lives. I purposed that when I got home, I was going to be good. No drugs, alcohol, or partying. I was not going to have relations with my boyfriend, I was going to go to church and do my devotions every day. But every single time, within hours of getting home, I was back to my old lifestyle, and worse than I was before, powerless to do what I knew was right.

The first time I tried to commit suicide I was 14.

I spent a week in Intensive Care. It was there that I had my second encounter with Jesus. A girl from my grandparent’s church had come to see me. She had been praying for me at their request when they became concerned about my lascivious lifestyle. I remember when I opened my eyes and saw her face. She looked so peaceful. With love in her eyes and compassion in her voice, she took my hand and said “Candace, Jesus loves you.” I knew it was Jesus talking to me and reaching out to me through her.

I didn’t receive the Lord then. I continued partying and got involved with an older man. At 15 I became pregnant. He told me it was him or the baby. I didn’t want to abort my baby, I wanted to at least give it up for adoption, but he did not. I was young, and I didn’t want to lose the only person who had ever made me feel loved, he was my whole world. By the time I made the choice to abort my baby, I had convinced myself I was making the best choice for everyone including the baby, so I went through with it. Immediately after the abortion, I felt an incredible emptiness inside. I hated myself even more intensely than before. Anytime regret or grief came up I justified my choice with all the reasons why I did the right thing.

I also began to get high more and more to drown out my guilt and shame. I had dabbled with cocaine, mushrooms and LSD from time to time in the past, but I mostly smoked pot because that was the drug always available in my home town. Living in the city meant more types of drugs were available to me and I could get them in greater volume. My whole life was one big party. During this time my relationship with my mom was at its worst. I had so much anger and bitterness toward her. She started trying to do what was best for me and saying a word I was not used to, “No!” Well, I was not having that. I had gone my whole life doing what I wanted, and I wasn’t about to change. But I was 16 and living the fast life was getting old.

I was deeply depressed, and when my boyfriend broke up with me, I tried to commit suicide by overdosing for the second time.

Again, I ended up in the hospital and it was one of the lowest points of my life. When I was released, I was sent to a juvenile psychiatric ward. I begged my mom to let me come home, but she did what she knew would be best for me. She left me there to be evaluated, and to ensure I wouldn’t be able to harm myself again.

I hated every minute of that place. It was very depressing. I had no way to do drugs or distract myself from my inner turmoil. It was also very disturbing. I shared a room with a girl who would wake up screaming and hallucinating.

I knew that unlike her, my depression was not a mental condition but a heart condition.

After a few weeks I was finally able to go home, but with some stipulations. I had to continue seeing a psychiatrist and stay on antidepressants, and I had to go back to school. I despised all the stipulations, but anything was better that being a prisoner in the psych ward. Emotionally fragile, and afraid of returning to public school, the psychiatrist recommended I attend a small tutoring center for teens who didn’t do well in social situations, or who had “emotional disabilities.”

I worked hard, and eventually applied and received acceptance to the Rochester School of the Arts alternative program. My Junior year of high school began with a new hope. But I still did not give up drugs altogether. Every day, as soon as I finished my homework I would get high. On the weekends I would party hard and try to recover on Sunday to get ready to go back to school on Monday. As time went on, it became harder and harder to not get high and party as much as I use to.

The emptiness in my heart was glaring and consuming.

The antidepressants were making me feel like a zombie, so I stopped taking them. My grades started slipping and I couldn’t wait for summer break to be free from the responsibility and discipline I had put myself under to do well at school. I returned to my home town to party with my old friends.

By Christmas, I moved out of my dad’s house and moved in with my friend and her boyfriend. I started using a lot of cocaine and dropped out of the School of the Arts. My friend’s boyfriend kicked me out because I couldn’t keep a job and wasn’t contributing in any way. It was the dead of winter in western New York and I spent a few miserable nights sleeping in my car. My dad had pity, and rented a small apartment for me above a store on Main Street. I didn’t have a job, but in exchange for doing dishes at a friend’s place of employment I would get a meal.

I was beat up by life and felt very alone, hard, and numb. No matter how much alcohol I would drink or pot I would smoke, I couldn’t get the high I was looking for. I was paranoid and anxious; an empty shell at 19. I had no tears, no passion, no vibrancy. I didn’t care about anything. I was without hope.

But this is only the middle of my story. With Jesus, there is always HOPE.

Read Part 2 of Candace’s testimony: From Suicide to Salvation: The Path of Hope

If you are struggling with thoughts about committing suicide, or feel hopeless with nowhere to turn, Jesus is the answer! He loves you more than you can even imagine. Reach out to him today and he will radically change your life and fill you with peace and joy. You are not alone. Read more about God’s love for you and the Hope you can have in Jesus here.

ABOUT CALVARY TEMPLE

Calvary Temple is an independent church which holds to all Assemblies of God tenets of faith. Calvary Temple ministries include Discipleship Training, adult Bible college, media ministry, and an aggressive missions program.

Pastor Star R. Scott is Senior Pastor of Calvary Temple in Sterling, Virginia, where he has ministered since 1973. In addition to the pastoral gift, Pastor Scott functions in the five-fold offices of apostle and prophet. He has planted churches, and currently oversees the pastors and ministries of numerous satellite churches.

Visit Calvary Temple online on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,Flickr,Instagram

God Can Restore What Was Lost

Stephanie Stocks

January 4, 2016

Prayers, Salvation

“I will restore the years that the locust has eaten” Joel 2:25

The Following Testimony was submitted by Rodney Smith

I have a son that I did not see for almost 20 years.

Because of my sin and selfishness, I had not had a relationship with Nathan from birth. I had only met my financial obligations. But after my repentance, the Holy Spirit began to weigh it heavily on my heart to reach out to him. Through hours of prayer and biblical counsel I chose to write Nathan a sincere letter of apology and told him about how God had changed my life. I wasn’t sure that he would even read the letter, but in it I told him that if at any time he wanted to contact me I would welcome it.

Through the mercy of God, it wasn’t long before Nathan contacted me. He told me that he was a born-again believer and attended a spirit-filled church. He told me that he forgave me. Even though he had never met me and could have been bitter and resentful, instead he had been praying for me and my salvation for 13 years. He had wanted nothing more than to meet his dad and for him to know Jesus.

“I am confident that my salvation was an answer to the persevering prayer of a child moving in faith for 13 years, Hallelujah!”

God has blessed me with the opportunity to be reconciled with my youngest son, and now we are getting to know each other.

If you’ve been blessed reading the testimony of what our Lord has done, check out the other posts on my homepage.

About Calvary Temple

Calvary Temple is an independent church which holds to all Assemblies of God tenets of faith. Calvary Temple ministries include Discipleship Training, adult Bible college, media ministry, and an aggressive missions program.

Pastor Star R. Scott is Senior Pastor of Calvary Temple in Sterling, Virginia, where he has ministered since 1973. In addition to the pastoral gift, Pastor Scott functions in the five-fold offices of apostle and prophet. He has planted churches, and currently oversees the pastors and ministries of numerous satellite churches.

Visit Calvary Temple online on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube,Flickr,Instagram

Healing Testimony

Stephanie Stocks

February 10, 2015

Healing, Salvation

My healing testimony starts a year after the birth of our daughter, Grace. I started experiencing moderate back pain, it wasn’t the usual back pain symptoms it was a radiating deep pain that would start as soon as my feet hit the floor and get worse as the day went on. I went to doctors and physical therapists, no one knew what was causing the pain. Nothing they did would make the pain go away, but would give temporary comfort. After about a year with this pain and also not being able to conceive a child again, my gynecologist suggested that I have exploratory surgery to see if I had developed endrometriosis. So in early December of 2002 I had that surgery, Dr.Stokes said he cleaned things up a little but saw nothing that would be causing me so much pain, no sign of endrometriosis. I was then recommended to long term pain management. This was very upsetting for me, I did not want to live on pain medicine to function without pain. All along I had been praying for healing but thinking I needed to know what was causing this pain. I decided I did not need to know what was causing the pain. I was going to believe that God knows and he would heal me. Our Pastor Star Scott at Calvary temple church had taught on making our God big, and so I was going to do that. I was not going to do it to get healed but just was commited to allowing God to be Great in every area of my life. A few months later we had a very powerful service at Calvary Temple. The presence of God was definitely there and I had been strengthened in my faith over the past months despite the pain I was living with. That night the service from Calvary Temple with Pastor Star Scott teaching ended with people standing praising God. As I left that night I noticed I wasn’t in pain, all night I thought I think I may have been healed. It wasn’t a healing service but God was there. I wasn’t seeking to be healed during that service but God had definitely visited. The next morning I jumped out of bed, and was so excited to not experience any of that deep setting radiating pain. I usually would feel it first thing in the morning sometimes as soon as getting in the shower. I was so thankful and still wanted to make sure I really was healed. I got Grace dressed and put her in the stroller and walked 2.5 miles to our church Calvary Temple, I experienced no pain along the way it was gone. I gave praise to Jesus the whole way, when I got there I first saw my husband and told him that I got healed in last nights service, we rejoiced in that together. Then I remember telling others that had been praying for me. To complete the miracle God had done in me, in March of 2003 I found out that I was pregnant. Jesus healed me of the back pain and allowed me to get pregnant. I saw this as such a gift from God, a true blessing. God is always wanting to bless us more abundantly than we can ever imagine. Throughout my pregnancy and to this day 11 years later I have never ever once experienced that radiating back pain ever again. Praise the Lord.

Calvary Temple is an independent church which holds to all Assemblies of God tenets of faith. Calvary Temple ministries include Discipleship Training, adult Bible college, media ministry, and an aggressive missions program.

Pastor Star R. Scott is Senior Pastor of Calvary Temple in Sterling, Virginia, where he has ministered since 1973. In addition to the pastoral gift, Pastor Scott functions in the five-fold offices of apostle and prophet. He has planted churches, and currently oversees the pastors and ministries of numerous satellite churches.

Healing Comes Through Repentance

Stephanie Stocks

December 4, 2014

Healing, Salvation

The following is a member testimony from Calvary Temple, a Bible believing church located in Sterling, VA, that teaches and lives sound doctrine.

As I sit here and think over these last few years my mind cannot help but going back to December of 2011. It was a monumental time for me and looking back at that crossroad, that the Lord allowed me to come to, and a true life changing decision that I was faced with at that time. See, earlier that year, I went on a short term mission trip to Kenya with the mission team that was sent out from our church and had an incredible time. The goal of the mission team that year was to go thru and strengthen the main core of our churches in relating to one another (building true relationships built upon God’s word). I was assigned with two others (Corey E. and Tony S.) to prepare share our lives (to be open and vulnerable) with other married couples in each of the core churches there. In order to do this, we created a marriage booklet, with different sections (each dealing with common areas from scripture in relating to our spouses) to facilitate the ministry while we were there. A daunting task that I know none of us felt adequate for. Well the team went and the ministry we were a part of that year was powerful (probably because we felt so inadequate for the task at hand) and effective, However I could not help coming home from that missions trip being bothered by a lot of the topics (relating to your spouse) we had discussed while we were there. I could not stop thinking of how many areas that I was having problems with and trouble in relating to my spouse.

When we arrived back home from our mission trip, I picked up the normal routine of life, and I never took time to deal with these issues in my life or to even look at why or what was the root of these issues in my life. Well life continued as normal all the way into late November of that year until, when Pastor began to teach on marriage and challenging each one of us in how we were relating to our spouses. The funny thing was that pastor pulled out the marriage booklets that we had made earlier that year and we began to go through them as a fellowship. The Lord used the topics in this book (communication, money, physical relations, etc…) and really began to challenge the lives in our fellowship. I was one of those lives, Praise God! I remember submitting a question in writing with no name attached, to a panel of our pastors (that we were having in the middle of these teachings) asking a question in regards to “the struggle my wife was having when it came to our physically relating to each other. That she seemed uninterested and never really interested in this area of our life and what could be done on my part (real noble) to help her change. Well when it came time for our question to be read and answered, that the answer that came forth caught me totally off guard. I remember Pastor sharing that the problems that we were having in our marriage was because I (he kept it general saying we -even though it was me he was talking to) was wearing out my wife spiritually and physically having her doing things that were unnecessary. That I needed to look at what I was having her to do at this time in her life and ask was it God’s will? At the time, I was asking my wife, a mother of four children to work forty-eight to fifty hours a week, at a strenuous job thirty miles from the house (one-way) and come home and minister to her husband, children and the Body of Christ with minimal to nothing left in the tank. Looking back now with shame even to think that I asking why she was having trouble relating to me? Was it ever God’s intended will for my wife, actually she’s not mine but God’s daughter and I had better be absolutely sure that I was helping her to fulfill God’s plan for her life and not my own plan. To make sure that I was giving her the best opportunity, to fulfill that role, unto God’s family. Sister, let me tell you that was the opposite of what was happening.

The decisions that I had made in the previous years (poor financial decisions caused by my own lust) had caused now a need my mind for my wife to leave the household that she was looking so well too, to help me hang on to everything I had obtained. What was so important? A house? A Car? A Better Quality of life? Entertainment? Vacation? To have enough money in your account so that you do not have to live by faith check to check? “What profits a man if he gaineth the whole world and lose his soul?” (Luke) I remember being very smitten in my heart during these last weeks of 2011. I remember very clearly Pastor challenging us as a fellowship that it would be madness to continue to do the same things over and over and yet expect different results. In my mind I had only one choice, I needed to repent from the things that the Lord’s spirit had convicted me of and to do so would require a complete change in my life. I knew in my heart that my wife must return fully to the work that God had created and intended her to do. My wife is not my own but the Lord’s, and what does God’s word require of her? That’s the priority that we needed to return to. In order to do so, that she must quit her job and come home, that her focus needed to be towards her children (they need to see God’s word being fulfilled). This did not come easy, I remember many sleepless nights of wrestling with God, of confessing my faults, my fears, my doubts before the Lord crying out to him for grace to obey. I have to admit, I was very fearful (knowing that we no longer made enough to live off of on my salary alone) and I was very afraid at the time of losing our everything. I remember bringing these things to the light with my wife, Deacon and Pastor in order to do whatever it took to be freed from this snare in my life. Then one night after a wrestling with God in prayer, I broke. I woke up the next day and told Shelly to resign, that she was coming home (oh the joy it brought her!) and that we were going back to Bethel. I repented before her, my children and shared the things God had been working in my life and the changes that were coming.

That was the last days of December 2011 and began a walk with the Lord that was renewed and began a walk down a path greater trust and dependence that God would bring out in the days ahead. See this decision was just the beginning of trusting in God’s word for every need in my life and not looking to another source (and God knows I have tried). See, the trials did not cease, the dark clouds that I was wrestling with in the prayer closet did not disperse, in fact since have gotten darker at times but the three years since those days in December we are still standing by God’s grace, we are still learning to trust God through all of Life’s trials, that we still have a savior in Jesus, who has promised to never leave us or forsake us. That He is working something far greater in us than we can ever imagine (most definitely for His eternal Glory) and to think, I almost forfeited it all for temporal things. Thank God for Men and Women who will tell you the truth, when your life does not line up with that truth, who will not let you press on while you are sick. I am sorry this has been so long, but this is what came to my mind when you asked for a testimony of being healed. God will not allow us to rest, when we are living below what he called us to be.

Romans 8:28-30: “And we know that ^[^k^]God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.²⁹For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;³⁰and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”

Your Brother In Christ,

Mark

About Calvary Temple

Calvary Temple is an independent church which holds to all Assemblies of God tenets of faith. Calvary Temple ministries include Discipleship Training, adult Bible college, media ministry, and an aggressive missions program.

Pastor Star R. Scott is Senior Pastor of Calvary Temple in Sterling, Virginia, where he has ministered since 1973. In addition to the pastoral gift, Pastor Scott functions in the five-fold offices of apostle and prophet. He has planted churches, and currently oversees the pastors and ministries of numerous satellite churches.

Visit Calvary Temple online on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram

The Miracle of Salvation

Stephanie Stocks

November 10, 2014

Salvation

Hi Everyone, Today on Calvary Temple Miracles at Calvary Temple Church with Pastor Star R. Scott, I wanted to share a testimony of Salvation. To always remember the Scripture in John 3:3- “Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be Born Again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

My name is Bill Snow. I am 42 years old and I am a member of Calvary Temple church in Sterling, VA. My story starts out like many others, as I grew up going to church on a regular basis, I would go with my parents every Sunday. I grew up hearing about God as a teenager unfortunately for me at this time in my life I was too caught up with wanting to “experience” the world and all I thought it had to offer. I would later discover through my bad choices and the consequences of those choices that I wasn’t in as much control of my life or the things that affected my life as I thought I was. It was obvious that I not only needed a character change, a lifestyle change but I needed a new heart.
During this time in my life I would visit a local church every once in a while. During one of those visits a guest speaker was teaching about how there was this woman in the bible named Rahab who was a prostitute and also in the lineage of Jesus Christ. This blew my mind as I had never heard that before. One of the lies of the devil that I had believed at that time was that I had done too many bad things for God to save me or use me, I thought I had to fix my life first, yet here I was hearing this truth that God not only had forgiven and accepted this woman (Rahab) but chose to use her in a significant way. At that point I had no excuse for why I couldn’t give my life to Christ. The guest speaker gave an altar call at the end of her message but I chose not to go down at the time. But then as she closed she prayed something I had never heard before, she prayed that anyone who didn’t know Christ would not be able to rest that night. At the time I thought that was pretty strange but me being who I was, tried not to let it bother me too much. But sure enough that night I didn’t get much sleep and I actually had a dream that would dramatically change my life, a dream in which I would encountered the Lord and come face to face with the reality that I wasn’t right with God and if unrepentant I wasn’t going to heaven but to hell. In the dream it was made crystal clear to me that in God’s view my life was not acceptable to Him, not just because I had not done any good things up to that point but rather because I didn’t know Jesus Christ personally, it became evident to me through this dream that Jesus had been trying to get my attention all along but I had rejected Him over and over in order to have my fun and experience life on my own terms. When I woke up from the dream I got down on my knees and cried out intensely to the Lord to save me! I suppose it had quite the affect on my then girlfriend, Donita, as she got down on her knees and asked the Lord into her life as well. Jesus answered my prayer in a mighty way, He gave me a new heart right then and there and the weight of all my sin I had been carrying around for years was supernaturally gone, Praise God for His mercy! My life transformation took place in August of 1997. I was filled with the Holy Spirit a few months later and have been walking with the Lord ever since. To be clear I am not perfect but now when I fall short and commit a sin I repent by God’s grace as becoming more like Jesus is my life’s goal. I can testify that the Lord is a very faithful God, He has never failed me though I have failed Him many times over the years. His mercy endures forever!
Shortly after being born again I got married to Donita, my wife of 16 years now and we moved to Sterling Virginia through much prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit primarily to be closer and more involved in our church.
God has blessed us in many ways, my wife, my son Jamal and I are now very involved in various ministries at our local fellowship from helping out with boy’s basketball program to ushering, being a door greeter (in the house of the Lord) and also often help out with various evangelistic outreaches.
Some of the disciplines that I practice in my life are regular bible study, prayer, consistent church attendance and sharing the gospel when I’m out and about. By God’s grace I purpose to know Christ more and more and to follow the Holy scriptures as I prepare for Jesus’ soon return. Although having these disciplines and performing good works don’t necessarily prove that I’m born again or right with God, they do provide some insight to what my life is like today and how God has dramatically changed me from who I used to be to who He is making me into, for this I am grateful to the Lord Jesus Christ for His mercy, forgiveness and a true dynamic relationship with the great God of heaven is available to anyone and all who call on and believes in the name of the Lord!
Romans 10:13 says it this way. “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
Please visit Calvary Temple Ministries Pastor Star R. Scott.