Pastor Brian's Testimony
Helping people repair life's broken roads
My name is Pastor Brian Pierce but that is not who I've always been, let me explain.
I was raised in New York City, an abused child who grew up way too fast on the hardened city streets, at the hands of my dad who suffered from alcoholism. (I know now that it was not him but the alcohol that abused me and all is forgiven). I'm quite sure he did his best but our best when we are separated from God is never enough. Anyway, back to my life. I also had a hip disorder that caused me to wear the ugliest braces on my legs. Do you remember how cruel kids could be? They were!
As a boy growing up in the city I found my own way into lots of mischief. But one day I made a choice that changed the direction of my life for over twenty-five years. When you're abused as a child, a lot of wrong thoughts go through your mind. You have guilt, condemnation and questions. My question was, "What had I done to make my dad hate me so much?" Of course he didn't hate me, he just had issues. Anyway, my little mind noticed that nobody beat up grown-ups. So, I decided that I must grow up! But how? Well, what do grown-ups do? I'll figure it out and that's what I'll do. One thing about grown-ups that I noticed is that they all smoked cigarettes. So one day I talked an older kid into giving me a cigarette. I crept off into a deserted area and lit it up. After I got done choking to death I noticed that other kids were looking at me and not only were they looking at me but something was different about how they were looking at me. I didn't know what it was but I sure liked it. They treated me different. Because of the reaction I got I decided to steal another cigarette from my dad. Needless to say he knew one was missing and questioned my sister and myself who both denied it. I smoked that one and got the same reaction. There was some kind of respect that came along with being bad. I needed more! I couldn't steal another, surely he was counting so what did I do? The next best thing (or worst thing), I stole .35 cents from off of his dresser and bought a pack from the machine at the gas station. Did you ever read that little sign on a cigarette machine that says, "It is a crime for anyone under the age of 18 to purchase..."? Well, it looked like a billboard to a little kid like me.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, within 24 hours of my first cigarette, I lied, stole and committed a crime! That choice is the same one I made time after time for the next 25 years.
I chose to smoke pot, I chose to take pills, I chose to steal and on and on. I really liked the attention certain "bad boys" got. The worse I got the more I liked it. I started selling pot which led to bigger things. Before long I had become one of the largest cocaine dealers in New York and the five surrounding states. Somewhere, about 10 years into this mess I started smoking cocaine. That's when things really turned bad. I had worked my way into fellowship with some major Colombian drug dealers, as well as some weapon traffickers. This was a combination that was toxic to say the least. I became the middle man between the two. I had no idea how evil I had become! I was responsible for turning innocent kids, men and women into addicts and prostitutes, as well as supplying guns for the worst of the worst! God forgive me! (He did!)
My life style went from bad to worse. I was imprisoned nine times in five different states for drug related crimes. Convicted of sixteen felonies! I was as evil as the night is long! With the money I was making it wasn't that hard to get out of jail and I usually did.
My last arrest was for interstate trafficking, interstate transportation, possession, and possession with intent to sell an ungodly amount of cocaine. Faced with 25 years in prison and nowhere near enough money to get out of it, I fled prosecution. The Colombian drug cartel I was dealing for was busted as a result of the DEA following me so they put a hit out on me. The police wanted me and there were some pretty evil gun dealers after me as well. I disappeared. Years later, I was living in Daytona Beach, Florida when God sent a woman into my life. She was and is a precious gift from God, but I could not see that then. We dated and started to get close. I was up front with her and she seemed to understand and still cared. Go figure! Well, one thing led to another. We moved in together and started a life. I however was still on the run which kept me from a good job, driver's license and other normality's. I was constantly looking over my shoulder and running. "Hiding life" was not supposed to be this way for her or me. Paula was a Christian woman who had drifted away from God as the result of a marriage gone bad, but He was working on her.
God however was not really working on me yet. Every chance I got I ran back to my addiction. I lied, cheated and stole to feed it. This went on for years. Paula had no idea what was going on. After a while I could not hide it and started stealing and disappearing for days at a time. This was taking it's toll on our relationship. I was getting tired of running and fearing for my life. The walls of my lifestyle were closing in.
A short time later I was pulled over while driving and talked my way out of it, but the police officer took my finger print. Six months later they were at my door with a warrant to extradite me back to New York. I wasn't going! As they searched my home, I pulled one of the many razor blades out that I had stashed around the house for the day that this would happen. I was not going back to prison and I was not going to let the Colombians kill me there. I would save them the trouble and end this misery that I was going through. I slit my wrist but the police were on me quick and the paramedics arrived in a hurry. I spent the next six weeks on suicide watch in Pinellas County Jail awaiting extradition.
Standing in front of a judge in New York six weeks later I really saw God move in my life. The Judge said, "Mr. Pierce, you know you're guilty, I know you're guilty and everyone in this court knows you're guilty. You should be sentenced to twenty-one years in prison but..." There was a but? The report of what had happened on the day I was arrested all those years before was missing! They had no record of my arrest affidavit. God showed this wretch grace that day and I was set free with no prison, just some phone in probation. Praise God!!! Paula and I both knew it was God ( and only God) who had given me, not just me but us another chance.
Paula and I started attending church and got married shortly after my release from jail.
I was a changed man or so we thought! The nature of Paula's business had her traveling away from home for weeks at a time and three weeks after we were married she was on her way to New York where she would work for the next six weeks. It was on that very first night I discovered that the demon called "crack cocaine" was not going down without a fight. I found myself with the crack pipe back in my mouth! I could not believe it. I spent the next six weeks doing whatever I could to get high. I ended up writing an ungodly amount of bad checks all over town and pawned everything we owned that was worth anything. I was totally out of control.
Imagine my new wife's horror when she returned home! Although her first thought was to drive away and never look back God was ministering to her heart to stay and watch what He would do. For the next two years I fought with this demon of addiction and more times than not I lost the battle. I could stay clean for a few months and the next thing I knew I was totally out of control again.
So here I was years later with the crack pipe in my mouth and I knew I just couldn't go on living this way anymore. As hard as I had tried to fight, it was a battle I just could not win and the guilt and shame of letting God, Paula and myself down was just too much to bare so I went to a hotel to smoke as much crack as possible and then I would put and end to my life.
Three days in a cloud of cocaine smoke I found myself lying there, as full of guilt as I had ever been. With an empty crack pipe in one had and a razor blade in the other I was done. It was over, I was not leaving that room a drug addict!
An empty crack pipe, a broken spirit and a hopeless heart are a very deadly combination. At the very last second before I could slit my wrist I heard the name "Jesus" come from my mouth. I was far from Him at this point. I would have to say I was like Jonah, far from where God wanted me and sailing in the opposite direction. But never the less, when I needed Him the most, God was right there.
It was the forth of July at sunset when all this took place. The very second I heard the name, "Jesus" I was thrown down on to the bed and paralyzed. I could move nothing but my eyes. The fireworks started going off outside and it sounded like a war. With the lights flashing through the cracks in the curtain it looked like one too. I was not involved in this battle although it was for me. It was the armies of God and the armies of the devil fighting for the rights to a sinner. After four hours, what I now know to be the peace of God fell on the room. Some type of stillness I hadn't felt in at least twenty-five years, maybe never at all.
At this point I started weeping, not crying but weeping uncontrollable weeping. My father was a marine and I was not allowed to cry. In the business that I had been in it wasn't allowed either. but something broke inside me that day and the floodgates opened up.
Jesus Himself, as far as I was concerned had showed up in that hotel room and saved my life, but now what? After a very, very interesting trip to a detox center where they were expecting me (though no one had called) I entered the Teen Challenge program. The hardest step I had ever taken to this point in my life was the step through the front door.
The day I entered the program I heard the voice of God call me by name. After doing drugs for twenty-five years you hear and have heard a lot of voices and none of them are God's. If they were you would not have recognized it as His voice. I could not understand what was happening. Could the Almighty God be calling me by name? I thought I had lost my mind. I was quite sure something had short-circuited in that hotel room. The voice however would not relent. How could God even be speaking to a drug addict and drug/gun dealer like me. I finally got so tired of arguing with His voice that I cried out, "God, if that is you, prove it and I'll do whatever you want!"
The very next morning, as fifteen of us exited Teen Challenge for church the most beautiful rainbow I had ever seen was right in front of our eyes. The rainbow ended just a hundred yards from where we stood. The others saw a rainbow, I saw God! Everyone stood still and spoke of leprechauns. Not me, I was in awe by this answer to my cry and walked slowly toward it. As I stopped to gaze at the awesomeness of God before my eyes, God moved the rainbow toward me and I stood in the colors. I literally stood in the end of a rainbow! Fourteen men stood and gazed as one man was forever transformed by the power of the living God before their eyes. It was as if God Himself had pulled plugs from my feet and the guilt of my old life ran out like water from a hose. I was just there, empty of all my past and nothing but numbness inside. I thank God that I was at Teen Challenge where I had the opportunity to study God's word for hours a day for the next eight months.
My life was forever changed that day. I can still see the rainbow and its colors. I can still hear God calling my name. A flame was lit in me that day, one that has never burned out nor even dwindled down.
Everyday I thank God for what He has done and what He is doing. I'll never forget the day God called me by name, nor will I forget the day He fought for my soul and saved it.
God is such an awesome God and what HE did for me, He'll do for you or your loved one or child.
Never cease to keep them in front of Him by your prayers. It was the faithful prayers of my wife and my mother that helped save my life.
If I can help you please feel free to call me or email me. I serve Him today because of what He did that day. I am forever grateful to You my King, I love You. Jesus I love You!
