This is a testimony that I must give.

I used to be one the devils biggest friends. I used to believe that life was all about the party. I would go around and party till I was so drunk, I could not stand. Then here comes what I thought were my friends ( I now realize they were no friends), they got me started smoking pot, then it escalated into snorting some cocaine, then it got to the point of me smoking crack.

I would go to bars and go home with any woman who would pick me up or I could pick up. I drank and partied like this from the time I was 21 until I turned 31. Then the inevitable happened.

I had went to a bar with a very good friend of mine and the girl I was dating at the time. It was my friends birthday and we wanted to get drunk for her birthday. So we all three went to the bar and my girlfriend decided not to drink, she would be the designated driver.

So myself and my friend drank 30 pitchers of beer that night. Neither one of us could walk down the steps of the bar. My girlfriend helped me down the stairs and my good friend was helped down by her boyfriend.

We went to the car and we all decided to go for coffee at an all night coffee shop. My girlfriend was driving. We were headed up a 4-lane highway. Myself ( in front passenger seat) and my friend ( right rear seat, behind me) had passed out from all the drinking we had done.

We were headed up the 4-lane highway to the coffee shop, and we met another car full of partying people. The only problem was they were on the wrong side of the 4-lane highway. Needless to say they hit us head on.

My friend was severely injured and had to have her gall bladder removed. My girlfriend only a few scratches. Of the 4 people in the other car, one of them died instantly, we were told it was a broken neck. Okay your asking what happened to you Pastor.

Well I was thrown through the windshield of the car, my body skidded 25 feet down the highway into a ditch. My friend in the seat behind me, when I went out the window, she flew up on my back and my heels as I was going out the window pushed her back in the seat. Saving her from certain death.

Back to what happened to me. I laid in the ditch bleeding profusely from wounds to my facial area. I lost over a pint of blood. I was temporarily blinded because of all the blood. As the EMT's were loading me into the ambulance, my heart stopped, clinically I was dead. They restarted my heart and rushed me to the hospital. Enroute my heart stopped two more times. They said this was due to massive amounts of blood loss.

When I got to the hospital, they started me on blood. They pumped blood back into my body. A doctor examined my wounds and realized I had to have massive amounts of stitches in my face. But the drawback was they could not numb me up.

So they had 4 orderlies hold me down. One on each arm and one on each leg. The doctor went to work. They placed 139 stitches into my face ( scars are still there to this day). I had dislocated both shoulders, broken 115 of the 206 bones in my body.

Friends I was starring in a remake of the Famous Boris Karloff movie THE MUMMY. I was in a full body cast. I was admitted into the hospital where I stayed for 3 months. My head was swollen to the size of a basketball.

I should not have LIVED. But an old country preacher came to see me in that sterile, lonely hospital room. He told me about a man who lived 2000 years ago and how much He loved me. How this man would not let me die as it was not my time and He still had work for me to do.

I was skeptical. But here I had doctors telling by all rights I should be lieing in a casket not a hospital bed. The preacher went on to tell me how this man carried a cross to the top of Mount Golgortha or Mount Calvary as we know it today.

How this man went through more pain and punishment than I could ever stand. WHY? Because this man loved me and all the rest of mankind. The preacher went on to tell me how this man was nailed to that cross by his hands and feet. How this man even asked forgiveness for those who was crucifying Him. This man said, "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do."

Friends I began to cry at that story that preacher told me. I could not believe someone loved me that much. Me a drunken drug user, but He did. The date of the wreck was January 29, 1997. On March 12 1997 in that lonely hospital room, I asked that man to forgive me for all the sins I had committed in my life. The preacher told me that was all I had to do.

On March 12, 1997 I began a new life with this man looking to Him as my sovereign ruler and master. He is my Lord and Savior and has been since that date. Who is this man many of you may be asking ( you better not be, if you are a member here lol).

This man is and was JESUS CHRIST.

That is my testimony of how I came to salvation. Believe me if there is any one who does not deserve the free gift that God gave mankind its me. On the date that I asked Jesus in my life, Hell was fuming and cussing because they had just lost one of their biggest sinners. But friends Heaven was rejoicing because they had just gained a new being.

This is my story. I hope you enjoy as I enjoyed putting it here for all of LIBAW to read.

May God Bless each and every one of you.

Rev. James Ray Finchum Jr.
Founder-Rugged Cross Ministry

View James's blog