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I was laying in the highway.
All I smelled was smoke and antifreeze.
I had six or seven drinks.
I went to a few bars.
I was tired from working all day.
My face was hurting.
I didn't know what happened.
Somebody is saying the paramedics were coming.
I felt like I was OK to drive.
A woman crying out, nodding down.
I was in a sleepy state, called into an ambulance, in and out of
consciousness, rolled down the window, get some fresh air blowing in on me.
I didn't know what was happening.
Felt like I was in a dream.
I was 21, more intoxicated.
I heard another voice crossing the center line of the highway, the
glimpse of my family--
total chaos, confusion.
What's going on?
Said these officers, we need to take blood from you.
The guilt and the anguish and the hurt that came upon my shoulders just was
overwhelming.
I've never felt anything like it in my life.
I knew that I'd really done it.
I'd really let myself become so far out of control that even I couldn't
fix it now.
I remembered as they released me from the hospital and took me into custody,
getting down on my knees and crying out to God, and I said, "God, please
help me, please help me."
What have I done?
And I was feeling so bad about the situation and so bad about what had
happened and being responsible for what I was responsible for, that I
just didn't really want to live.
I didn't want to live no more.
I didn't want to keep going forward.
But when I cried out to God, He came to me in my time of need.
I think some people God reaches through subtlety.
And I think He's able to touch the lives of people in different ways.
In my instance, it was iron fist and hard love.
He knew that I had to reach my bottom before I opened my eyes.
I was so hardheaded.
I just didn't want to accept Him.
And when I cried out to Him, it was a plea of--
it was just come help me.
And Lord, if you'll help me through this, I'll surrender.
And when I surrendered my life to Him, it just changed, everything changed,
everything changed.
Through all that happened, I lost my business.
I lost my family.
I lost a wife that I was newly wed to.
I lost everything that this life had given me and I had earned in this life
on my own will.
But Jesus had also given me freedom from sin, freedom from the life that I
was living through His forgiveness, in His love, His grace.
And if it hadn't been for His mercy and grace in my life, I either would
be dead right now or in prison somewhere rotting away.
Alcohol is not even a part of my life anymore.
It doesn't play any role in my life whatsoever.
In fact, I was encountered with this situation shortly after my accident
and accepted Christ.
I knew that Christ was real to me.
I knew that He was real when I was confronted with the single most thing
that I was weak to in my life.
And He gave me power over that, not in a strength that I had ever known, but
a strength that was new to me.
And I just knew it was God.
I knew it was God.
I knew He was real.
And I knew He had the power over sin.
And it was evident in my life.
My name is James Caldemeyer and I am Second.