Amazing Grace. . .Saved a Wretch Like Me

Hello, I am brother Dustin Souders. You might know me as one of the drummers at church, one of the Sunday School teachers or a brother in the Lord. I work as a restaurant manager. I have a lovely wife, Heidi, and two beautiful sons, Devin and Drake. I live a wonderful life in the Lord Jesus and in his body. But things weren't always this way.

I had served God in high school and had backslid to a depth I never thought possible. It started with having a few drinks and hanging around with "friends" that weren't in church. Little did I know that I would end up as lost as I was. Eventually, drinking and cigarettes did not satisfy. So I turned to drugs. I not only lost my job, I could not keep one. I continued my downward spiral. I began to keep company with people who were only there for the party. They were not out for my best interests. I started to push everyone away who loved me most. My parents, my buddies, my in-laws, and eventually my wife and child. I then filled my life with more and more addictions. I had nothing—no job, no food, no car, no friends, and no family.

I would go days without food or sleep. I began to have hallucinations of demons coming for me. I heard voices telling me to do evil and wicked things. I would kick and thrash all night in my sleep. Waking myself by speaking in a devil's tongue. Looking back, I believe that I was tormented by demons (like the man bound by chains). Only loneliness and bitterness for friends.

One day Reverend O'Keefe came to visit me. He tried to pray with me but I would not. He turned to me and said "I hate to see you sell your soul for something you snort up your nose or smoke in a pipe!" He then got up and left. I felt like even the Pastor gave up on me.

It was then that the Holy Ghost began to deal with my heart. A few weeks later brother Dearstyne visited me on a Saturday outreach. That day, I prayed through to the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in tongues as God gave the utterance. That same night though, I messed up again. I did not make it to Sunday Morning Service. I felt conviction, so I went to Sunday Night Worship at the church. There I spoke to brother Tim Coggins. I asked him "How can I live for God if I fail so much?" He answered "Repent, get up and try again." Truly his mercy endureth forever. Thank God for his grace, Amen.

This Amazing Grace is not a free sin pass. It is there to shape and mold us to what God wants us to be. Five years later, I know that I have lived the best time of my life living for God. God brought my wife and son Devin back, and blessed me with a new child, Drake. He has blessed us with good jobs and a house. We are all in church serving God the best we can and still growing in the Lord. I have the best friends and family, who actually care about me, in the body of Christ. I have a Pastor (who did not give up on me) and his wife that love me. I have a LIFE now that is only possible through Jesus. Not because of what I have done, but because of who He is. It is his grace that has kept me and shaped me into who I am now. I know who I am. . .I am his who bought me with a price. . .his own blood paid my debt. Truly Amazing is his Grace.

God told Abraham, Is there anything hard for the Lord. Not as a question but as a statement of fact. Is there any sin too great that the love of God cannot forgive??

I leave you with this:

Romans 8:38-39: “For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

May God bless you even more than he has blessed me.

Dustin Souders