About Me

About Me

Well, my name is Mike,

That’s a pretty good start, I guess.

There’s nothing particularly astonishing about me…
except maybe the fact that I’m still drawing oxygen. Haha.

I’ve been so close to death so many times I could almost describe its rude dangly bits!!.

Ok….Here we go.

I’ve gone into respiratory arrest about a dozen times.

I’ve come off several motorcycles.

I’ve been beaten to a bloody pulp in an underground carpark.

I died from a heart attack after an overdose (that was a pretty big one).

And once…
I smacked my head on a crate of beer so hard I literally visited hell. (not kidding, spoiler alert its not the big endless rave I thought it was going to be.)

And that’s not even counting all the times I’ve ended up in hospital for non-life-threatening mishaps.

If I had to guess, I’d say in total I’ve spent a good year and a half—maybe two years—in hospitals.

That time also included months of watching my first beloved wife battle leukemia.

She passed away on the morning of my 44th birthday.

Those were very dark days.

She had been my love for 26 years, nothing has hurt me as much as that had.

I asked Christ into my life back in 2008.

And it was an amazing experience. (To use insufficient human words)

One that I believe I will only feel again when Jesus calls me home.

Before that I was a smoking, drinking, gym junkie full of testosterone.

After that wonderful night when I met Christ…

well, I was still a smoking, drinking gym junkie.

In fact, I was smoking and drinking right into my late forties.

The gym part fell away, as sometimes happens when years of self-abuse begin to take their physical toll.

It wasn’t until well after I met my second beloved wife that I truly decided to surrender myself completely to God.

It has been a rollercoaster ride.

But with God’s help I haven’t smoked a cigarette in years.

That was the first thing to go.

Then the dope.

That took a bit longer.

Then finally the booze…

Which has been one of the biggest hurdles of all.

Even today it can still be a fight.

But something changed.

Now when I call upon God to help me through temptations…

I actually take His help.

Before, I was crying out for help but not picking up what God was putting down.

I always knew God wasn’t going to do it for me.

But I knew He would give me the strength to get through.

And when I finally accepted that help…

I was astonished at how quickly things began to change.

Climbing that mountain suddenly became possible.

Why did I end up in that mess in the first place?

The booze.

The drugs.

The destruction??

this is the hardest part to talk about.

What we struggle with as adults is often connected to things that happened earlier in life.

I’ve carried deep shame and self-hatred for much of my life, much of it shaped by exposure to experiences or influences I didn’t fully understand when I weas young.

Those early things can leave us with confusion, pain, and frustration that has followed me all my life.

Now to be clear…

I actually had a good family.

A loving and hardworking mother and father.

Siblings who were sometimes annoying but mostly manageable.

My father worked constantly.

My mother did her best to play both parental roles.

That’s just how things were back then.

But something happened in those formative years that changed the course of my life.

By my teens I had already begun walking down the wrong road.

Alcohol.

A heavy metal lifestyle.

And more than once…

I contemplated suicide.

In fact, the night I came to Christ was the very night I had planned my final exit.

Sleeping pills.

That was the plan.

I figured I could probably get a prescription.

Looking back now, I can see the real battle actually started after Christ entered my life.

The battle was against myself.

And sometimes it still is.

A 24/7 battle.

But I had an encounter with Jesus that was so profound it has fueled the rest of my journey.

To keep pressing forward.

To not give up.

Over the years I’ve run businesses.

Painting houses.

Online selling.

Lawn mowing.

I’ve worked in many different fields.

The peak of it was working as a security and safety officer at Jupiters Casino.

And believe me…

My faith in Christ was tested there regularly.

You name it.

I’ve probably had a crack at it.

My addictions were mainly beer and marijuana.

Mostly because that’s what I had access to.

And looking back now, I believe that was God’s hand at work.

Because if I had access to things like meth…

I probably would have been lost forever.

As it was, the reason I ended up having a heart attack was an opioid overdose.

I’ve attended a few churches over the years.

My mother used to drag us along to Jehovah’s Witness meetings when I was a kid.

And I’ll tell you something…

No one puts the word fear into “fear the Lord” like the JWs.

Eventually my mum started asking questions they couldn’t answer.

So they threw us out.

At the time it felt like rejection.

Now I see it differently.

It was the wolves letting us out of the coop.

After my encounter with Jesus I went to a Baptist church and was baptized.

Later I attended a Salvation Army church.

I even attended a Russian Orthodox church and was baptized again.

That was a very interesting experience.

But eventually I drifted away.

From church.

And from Christ.

I fell back into booze, weed, music, and muscles.

I still had faith…

But it was weak.

I wasn’t “on fire” for Christ like people say.

Then my partner of 26 years was ripped away from me and our son.

And I cursed God.

I blamed Him for everything.

I didn’t want anything to do with Him anymore.

I believed He had taken my beloved as punishment for turning away from Him.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Because even though I had pushed God away…

He never pushed me away.

In fact He carried me through that whole nightmare.

He loved me…

Even while I hated Him.

And honestly, that seems to be a recurring theme in Christ’s story.

I could go on.

But the short version is this:

There’s not much in life I won’t understand.

God has allowed me to go through many things.

Not to destroy me…

But to show me His hand at work bringing me through them.

Many of those struggles still exist today.

But their power has been greatly diminished.

Because I now know what is possible through the strength of Christ.

I tried for years to defeat my struggles through my own willpower.

And every time I failed.

But Jesus offers His strength.

A strength far greater than yours or mine.

And He offers it freely.

Through a relationship with Him unlike anything else.

It took me more than thirty years to truly understand that.

I’m just grateful God’s patience is far greater than ours.

And that once you give your life to Jesus…

The enemy and the world cannot snatch it back.

My life isn’t perfect.

In fact it’s far from it.

But through Christ I now have purpose.

And hope.

And that’s what I want to share with you.

Jesus wants a personal relationship with you.

He wants you to feel loved and accepted despite your flaws.

He wants to give meaning to your life.

God did not make a mistake when He created you.

He willed you into existence because He loved you before you were even conceived.

Your life has purpose.

So why not let Jesus come into your life…

and begin the journey.

What do you have to lose?