God's Kindness leads to repentance

It's been exactly one (01) year and two (02) days to the day today that I came back from the mother of all drinking sprees, the one to end all drinking sprees.  That night was Friday, 17 April 2015. When I woke up the next morning on  Saturday I found some of the items of clothing I had put on that day strewn all over the floor of the home I shared with my brother. I could see no sign of the shirt I had been putting on, nor of the jersey (Pullover) that  I had put on top of it. Everything else was wet and muddy, it had been raining heavily the previous night and I immediately gave thanks to God that I found myself safe and sound at home. I had no recollection of how I had gotten home or of where the missing items of clothing were. To this day they have never been found.

For a couple of months leading up to that day I had been facing a monumental battle within my soul. I had lost the desire to go on living and drinking was my only escape from reality. Before this time I had progressively become a heavy drinker and this was my fifteenth year drinking. I didn't do social drinking, if there was alcohol to be drunk I  wanted to drink it to the last drop and make sure I was the last man standing. However, whereas before I drank heavily, it was with the knowledge that I needed help and hoped for the day when I could walk away from it all. Now, I found myself drinking to escape what I thought was a hopeless existence. I simply had no desire to aim for anything in Life, and when my brother expressed concern I told him that I didn't expect to be around much longer. I increasingly found myself getting into numerous fights and accidents were fast becoming the norm.

Through this dark valley, a lone voice kept calling to me with a heavy tug on my heart. I knew God was speaking to me but I found it hard to respond in any intelligent manner, my mind being veiled by darkness as it was. Heavy nights of drinking were followed by mornings that found me crying to God for redemption and deliverance. I sought for him to strengthen me, to give me hope, and to help me walk away from this path. A path that led down to death and to the pits of Hell. Sometimes, even after coming home from drinking I would find myself suddenly getting up from my sleep as if someone had shaken me awake. My mind would be lucid, and clear of alcoholic fumes and I would immediately be led to pray to God for forgiveness and Salvation.

On the morning of 18th April 2015, the morning mentioned earlier in my text, I found myself sitting alone at home. It was very quiet,  and I was failing to recall what most of the previous night had been like. Without knowing how my mind resolved to leave my Godless life behind. I rejected it with a strength that was not my own. I set my face like flint and gave my life back to the LORD.

Romans 2:4 tells us that the kindness of God leads us to repentance. I want to thank God for his richness of goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering towards us, for it is by his goodness that I was brought to repentance and given hope. His mercy drew me to his Son and brought me into his Kingdom, being translated from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of light. One year on and my life is vastly different. I glory in his love, I look back on the gloom and darkness that was, as waters that have gone by (Job 11:16. Because thou shalt forget thy misery — Thy happiness shall be so great that it shall blot out the remembrance of thy past miseries; and remember it as waters that pass away — Thou shalt remember it no more than men remember either a land-flood, which, as it comes, so it goes away suddenly and leaves few or no marks or memorials behind it; or the waters of a river, which pass by in constant succession.)

Glory be to God! Hosanna in the Highest!