The Speak Life Podcast, sharing Jesus in everyday life.
SPEAKER_00Well, hello, welcome to the live cast. Hopefully uh you can hear us and um everything's working. It's always a bit hectic at the beginning knowing what's going on. Um if you've been watching the last few weeks, you'll know that we're doing a series of interviews um uh with different people, so do go back and check those out. You can find them on Facebook, but they're probably easiest to find on YouTube. Once videos kind of disappear down the feed on Facebook, it can be a bit hard. Um so if you go to the live cast playlist on our YouTube page, if you search for Speak Life UK, you'll be able to find them there, and you'll be able to hear. I think we've had three or four um stories already, so lots of amazing testimonies. And I've got another testimony here today, and so I've got here with me uh Tom. So, Tom, hello. Hi, good to have you with me uh today, or with us, you know, good lots of people watching, I'm sure. Um Tom, uh tell us a bit then about well, who are you, first of all.
SPEAKER_01Um my name's Tom McDowell. I live in Five Lashes, not far from Crowborough. Um I'm a father of three children, um Zach, Erin, and Hannah. Um husband to Kelly. Um I run my own construction business. Um we employ about 20 people and we do work in schools and public buildings and stuff.
SPEAKER_00Great. And so um tell us a bit then tell us a bit about your background. We know everyone who comes on this mini is a Christian. But you know, have you always been a Christian? Have you always been kind of in church?
SPEAKER_01Um I've always been in church, uh certainly in my younger life and then since I became a Christian. Um my earlier life, I growing up, I I guess I I got saved probably about 20 times. I kept um I kept committing my life uh to Jesus um and then in my view mucking up and thinking I needed to do it again. Um and looking back now, I realised that there was no real emphasis for me on a relationship with Jesus. It was more um if heaven and hell exists, I want to go to heaven and not go to hell. So if I need to say I believe in Jesus, then that's what I have to do. Yeah. Um and I I went to Sunday school, went to youth fellowship, um went to church twice on a on a Sunday as a family. Um and both my mum's family and my father's family uh were we consider ourselves a Christian family background. Um so yeah, um you know understanding Christianity was not a new thing to me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But yeah, I mean you like so you would have you would have said you were saved when you were a kind of youngster. Yeah, yeah, at the time. Yeah. You know, you know, something you would have said.
SPEAKER_01Depends who I was around. Right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like you say, a kind of not really an emphasis on any relationship, but like more a kind of set of rules and regulations to be followed and stuff like that. So yeah. Okay. So so that's kind of growing up in it's Northern Ireland, isn't it? You're growing up in that. So and and is that kind of I guess from an outsider's perspective, Northern Ireland or Ireland generally, we think of it as quite a religious place. Was it that was it the case that like people look it was much more accepted that I think it's certainly a religious place.
SPEAKER_01Um I can remember there was there's a a big emphasis put on the difference in Protestants and Catholics. Right. The town I lived in um was probably 40% Catholic at the time, 60% Protestant. Protestants didn't date Catholics, and vice versa. Um and actually, believe it or not, there was one side of the road that you walked on, particularly on weekends and a Saturday night or a Friday night. The Catholic pubs were on one side of the street and the Protestant pubs were on the other. Wow. Um and I don't think that's changed that much even now. Yeah. Um yeah, that's it was certainly uh there was a big emphasis on religion, um, but again, similar to to what I was saying, I I just didn't understand the concept of having a relationship, a personal relationship with God. It just didn't really enter into my mind.
SPEAKER_00And so you've sort of um you've kind of grown up in in a kind of church setting then kind of kind of religious family, Christian family. Um kind of through your school years. And then tell us a bit about what happens when you leave school then.
SPEAKER_01Um so I left school in '95, '96. Um and not long after leaving school, uh my parents split up. That was quite a big quite a big shock for me and my brother at the time. Um because on the surface to us everything seemed rosy. Yeah. We went to church as a family, and you know, there's no obvious signs that there was problems with my mother's dad's marriage. And really that acted as a catalyst then uh before the start of my real rebellion, I guess. I I started to go out clubbing and even at that early stage I can remember going out drinking to get drunk all the time. There was no sort of going out and just having a good time and with with friends. It was always about drinking to oblivion. Yeah. And uh, you know, if you could do it Friday and Saturday night, fantastic. All the better, all the better. Yeah, that was really uh where it was. And I stayed in that sort of space for two or three years, um, and then I I decided to join the Marines. Um I really I felt I wanted to in many ways just carve out a life for myself. Um everything I sort of knew and understood at home didn't feel real anymore. I didn't I had a problem with trusting people.
SPEAKER_00Um I just wanted to um so your and your so your parents were living in different places now.
SPEAKER_01My parents in the state were living in different places, yeah. Uh and uh I see my mum occasionally uh and living at home with my my dad. Um and uh but I I wanted to be on my own, I wanted to do things my way, and uh I thought the Marines was the perfect solution.
SPEAKER_00Which might seem a bit strange in some ways because I doing things your own way in the military almost seems uh counterintuitive, but yeah. What was it what was it like then being in the Marines? Is it is it gonna be a more structured thing for the case?
SPEAKER_01It was. Um I enjoyed it. Um and uh looking back I have some really good memories, some really close friends that I still stay in touch with today. Um and yeah, it it just felt like I got my own identity. Um you know, I was the guy that left home and joined the Marines, no one else from my hometown at that stage had done something like that. It was quite a in my uh view, it was quite a hard thing to attain, so getting a Green Beret really for me was a huge sense of achievement um and something I was proud of, something I felt that I was responsible for. Um yeah, and uh I I did enjoy my time in the Marines um at that time.
SPEAKER_00But um and did you and and tell us a bit about uh I mean did you kind of get uh posted to different places?
SPEAKER_01So I served uh I served in Northern Ireland um and I I served in Iraq.
SPEAKER_00Um is this kind of early 2000s, Iraq war periods?
SPEAKER_01So Iraq was 2003, Optalic 2003, I served then. Um and then not long after that um I met my wife, sorry, just before that I met Kelly, who's now my wife. Yeah, so we'd been dating about six months before I went to Iraq. Um and when I came home we we got engaged and uh you know she never asked me to leave the military or anything like that, but I I felt I I didn't want to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_00Um and uh I wanted in the sense that it was a stress on her or um I think in a way I just got bored, I just thought there's another There's just lots of different reasons.
SPEAKER_01Even at that time, my reasons for leaving was still this sort of rebellious streak in me because I I grabbed on to there was quite a lot of discontentment when I was in the Marines about the kit that we got out in Iraq and stuff like that and things not being organised and you know I was quite happy to grab onto that and say, Well, I'm gonna leave too. And a lot of guys at that time left and went and did security work as well, which was my initial plan um to leave and go and do security work. But from my decision to leave until I actually left, I actually lost my driving licence for drink driving um for the first time.
SPEAKER_00Whilst she was still in the military.
SPEAKER_01Whilst I was still in the military, um and uh I got in a lot of trouble for that in the military, but also it meant I couldn't then uh do a lot of close protection work that I wanted to do in Iraq as well, so I I really find myself left the Marines with no real plans.
SPEAKER_00Um and it was am I right in saying that it was kind of really when you were although you'd been you'd had that rebellious phase before you joined the military and you were drinking then, it was really in the military that that kind of ramped up to another level.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it did without me realising, I think um if if you want to drink pretty much every day, certainly if you're at home, if you're if you're stationed at home and you're not away anywhere, you know, three, four o'clock most afternoons you you will have the option, I guess, of of going out and having a few beers. And uh while my my wages or my money lasted, that's what I chose to do. I I drank every month until until I had no money left, and then the last week before payday would be sort of living on camp, eating the food that they provide. And uh and it never really struck me that I had a a drink problem at that stage. Um I guess I thought everyone did it, but looking back now, even then, there was a particular group of us that always seemed to find each other that would go out all the time, no matter where we were based. That that those types of guys seemed to find each other and we were always out together. There was other guys who who went home quite happily each evening or on the weekends and they they didn't they didn't get involved in in that, not to the degree that we were.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And so you so you've kind of got this drinking habit, and then you you leave the military, you kind of get married after that, yeah. Yeah. Um and there was a sense in which you felt that your your drinking habits had to change, and you kind of did you f you felt that when you were getting married that might kind of be the impetus to start change your drinking habits?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I first realised I had a drinking problem um about a year after I left the Marines. I got a job as a construction site manager up in London. And on the first day I went to their head office, picked up my a laptop and mobile phone, and was given the address of the site that I would be managing. Um went to the site and there was uh sort of an assistant foreman type guy there. Um and I said, Is Andy around? And he was going to be my boss. And the guy said, Well, no, Andy's not going to be back now, so tomorrow he's had to go to another site. Um and I said by this time it was about two o'clock in the afternoon, and I said to the guy, Well, shall we go to the pub then? And he looked at me as if, you know, it's two o'clock in the afternoon. Yeah. Um and I thought that was quite a normal thing to to say, well, you know, I can't get on with anything now. Let's just go to the pub for a couple of hours.
SPEAKER_00And just kind of get to know each other, the kind of thinking is behind it as well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but very quickly in in the next year that that routine um of going to the pub every day after work I was doing on my own, um really. Uh and it just it became really obvious Well, I say it became really obvious to me at that. It didn't really I knew there was something not quite right. I I kind of didn't think it was me. Um I just thought it was life felt harder in what we would call Civvy Street, um and you know I needed to drink every day and I was starting to realise actually that I I did need to drink every day and that started to scare me a little.
SPEAKER_00Kind of how much, could you give us a an idea of kind of how much are we talking about in terms of drink?
SPEAKER_01Um some days it would be three or four pints, and that would be you know, that would be fine, and I and I think those days where I only had three or four pints, I would be convinced that I didn't have a problem. But most days it was more like eight or nine pints, um, and you know, uh Jack Daniels as well, I drank a lot off. Um so it it would every time would be pretty much drinking until I didn't have any more money with me. I'd do things like leave my cash card at home as well because I didn't want to drink more. Um and I don't really think that was abnormal behaviour, but I couldn't see. I couldn't see what was going on.
SPEAKER_00And at that point, so am I right thinking you were living you were living in Brighton, but you're travelling to London. Is that right? Yeah, that's right. So yeah. So I mean you're kind of getting I don't know what time what kind of time you're getting on the train in the morning to get to London.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we're getting on the train at about I think it was about quarter past six to be on site for seven o'clock in Notting Hill. Um and coming home in the evenings, I you know, site would finish about half past four. But in the evenings I did get home, I wouldn't be home to eight or nine o'clock, um having stopped at some pubs on the way, but that got worse very, very quickly. Um I'd say within the 18 months. Um I wasn't coming home probably two out of five nights a week.
SPEAKER_00I was just So actually not getting back to Brighton.
SPEAKER_01There was times where I I was sleeping rough um and looking back, no, I even remember thinking that I drank everything, all the money that I had with me, um and the 24 hour drinking had started around this time. The the legislation changed for the pubs could stay open 24 hours, and I I I was convinced that that that was the reason. It was the reason behind it. It still wasn't my fault, it's not me. And I genuinely believe that um I can remember as well I sleeping outside Victoria Station with um my laptop bag here in the doorway, and waking up the next morning and um there'd been a homeless guy across from me. Again, I'm sort of brushing myself down, looking at them and thinking, that poor guy, how how does that ever happen? Yeah, and not seeing just how close I was to losing everything. Um and Kelly, you know, how blessed I am to have such a good wife because she at this stage was pregnant with Zach. Um, and then we'd had Zack through through this this drinking as well, and uh she stuck by me. She held it together for for years, really. Um and uh you know it got our our our relationship had a bit of a routine to it to through the week the drinking was bad. At the weekends of when I managed to get home on a Friday, from Friday to Sunday, it was fantastic. We still had a really good re I wouldn't drink on weekends or very, very little. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And did that kind of fuel you in your head thinking, well I don't have a problem. Because you're thinking if if if I had a problem I'd be doing it every day.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Um but I started to realise Yeah, I would have filled with this dread on a on a Sunday evening, about four or five o'clock, as I'd be getting stuff ready for work, that I knew I was gonna drink the next week, and I started to realise that I had a a real problem. Um there was one morning, I don't know when it was, I guess it was it must have been around 2008, uh that I'd stayed out all night, I got home, and Kelly would have usually shouted at me or cried or or went berserk rightfully so. Um but this occasion she didn't. I walked in through the door probably eight or nine o'clock in the morning and she just said you have to go. And she wasn't she wasn't emotional, she was quite straight in her head that this is what has to happen, and and that really, really scared me. I remember walking into our bedroom sitting down on the side of the bed and I don't know where it came from. I think initially it was to get sympathy from her, but I said, you know, I think I'm an alcoholic, but as soon as I said those words, it kind of became clear to me that actually I was. Um so that afternoon, um so she gave me another chance and she said, We need to sort yourself out, we need to get you help. Um I found an AA meeting, went to my first AA meeting that afternoon, which was pretty frightening because when I walked in, one of the they've got these twelve steps, and on the wall, one of the steps said that uh we were powerless over alcohol and God would and could help if we were to seek him. And a few of the steps had God here we are, and uh My rebellion against the church and against God and and all of that was so ingrained in me at that stage that you know I thought I was done for. If I had to believe in God to get better, I had no chance because there's no way I was gonna believe in him. There's no way that I was going to give control over my life to to I guess this God that had allowed my family to split up when I was younger, and and it just felt everything wasn't true. Um But there was a chap at the end of the first meeting came up to me, Mikey, and uh he said, Well, how did you find it? Is this your first meeting? And I said, Yeah. Um and I said, Yeah, it's probably good for a lot of people, you know. This is yeah, I can see how it would help people, but I can't get on with all this God stuff. And he said, Tom, the only thing you need to know about God right now is that it's not you. Right. You're not in control. And I I think that was the very first seed that the Lord put in me to start to turn back towards him. Um and and I I sat with that for probably the next four years. That was all I could handle, really, is trying to understand that that that I wasn't in control.
SPEAKER_00And so how did you kind of because there's a point, I guess, somewhere, because when you've had that conversation with Kelly, you've gone to AA meetings, you're still in Brighton, right? But there's also there's a point, and I don't quite I don't know quite how you got there, therefore, that you end up in Crowborough, yeah, kind of by yourself. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So from that AA meeting, kind of what's the trajectory of Yeah, so in in AA, um I stayed in AA for the next three years um and had varying degrees of sobriety. I I was sober for a week at a time or three months at a time, and at one stage a year at a time. Um but through that period I still felt at times it it just became about being sober then. That's what my life became about. And there was still this I felt this void in my life. I felt sort of on the on the junk pile if you guess. I felt, you know, is this what it's gonna be like for me now for the rest of my life? I'm going to be having to go to meetings to stay well. Um and I started pursuing other things. Kelly and I decided to move out to Five Ashes, um and with the hope that I guess I was hoping that things would change. I wouldn't be in Brighton around so many pubs and things would be easier, and it's almost like I could forget about what had went on. Yeah, and we'd just move and everything would be okay, and uh and they weren't, and within I think it was two years of moving out here, our marriage broke down. Um and I moved.
SPEAKER_00And was that a drinking thing? Was that the alcohol that kind of pushed you through?
SPEAKER_01I no, I was I was sober at that time, um, and I had an affair. Um and that, you know, after Kelly's sticking with me through everything else, um that was the last straw, and I came home and and and initially, like she's always very good at doing, she she seemed to handle it and and and at least tolerate me. But I came home from work one day and she said, I can't even look at you anymore, you have to go and uh and then I really did have to go, and I I got a a one bedroom flat in Western Road in Brighton. And that was in Crograve. That was um really the the beginning of the of the end of um my life like that as I knew it.
SPEAKER_00Um and that and drink drinking began again at that drinking began again.
SPEAKER_01I I was in Crowborough all along I thought you know if I could just do what I want everything would be good so I had a one bedroom flat, I could play rugby, I could go out, I could drink, I could do what I wanted, and within three months of doing that, um my life was just a disaster, a complete disaster. Um at that stage as well. I'd lost my licence for the second time for drink driving. Um and I can remember quite vividly actually being uh in the flat, I I'd had a few drinks and I was smoking out the window of the bathroom, looking at this car park at the back, thinking I get my driving licence back in a year. And that thought had no sooner crossed my mind till this crippling fear just came in that my car, if it was parked there right now, I would have to go for a drive or do something because I and I knew I knew then that I would drink drive again, and that really scared me, and I really knew then that I was just totally, totally isolated. Um But at that time my brother Matthew, he um he'd phoned me and he uh he'd also emailed me and said that I ought to start listening to some uh Christian music um because I'd been listening to a lot of stuff that wasn't very healthy for me. Um both him and I were always into playing guitar and stuff, and he sent me some uh Hillsong stuff um and he sent me a link to UCB radio as well. I didn't listen to it initially, um, and then one Sunday afternoon uh I had a really, really bad hangover to the point I actually thought I was going to die because my my heart was just beating out of my chest and then it wasn't beating I was feeling that I couldn't breathe. And I switched on UCB radio and this piece that I can't explain just filled the flat and I was able to lie on the sofa and I guess for many years that was my first Sunday church in my view. I I had actually started to focus on God again. Um I started to just ask questions if you're a real God and need help because I was really, really on my knees at that stage. But that afternoon I will never forget it was so peaceful. Physically I just it was like God just touched me and I wanted more.
SPEAKER_00And so but in that stage you're kind of you're you're you're by yourself really. You're yeah, you know, you've had this experience but isolated. How do you kind of from there how did you kind of reconnect into church and stuff?
SPEAKER_01So I started um I started going up to uh All Saints and Crowborough walking walking up the hill to there. Um I also started going to a Hillsong up in London, so I'd get get the train up on a on a Sunday morning um and go to Dominion Theatre. Um and there was a number of people that I now know that God put in front of me at that time. I'll never forget the first time walking into Austin's actually. Andrew Korn's wife sat down beside me. Um she introduced herself as the vicar's wife. I she's just really nice to me. Um also You know, I don't know what she asked me, but I I made it very clear that I wasn't gonna be coming every Sunday. Just here just visiting, just visiting, and um and sh she asked me something like, Well, why is that? and and the conversation came around to well, there's just so many things I don't understand in the Bible that I can't wrap my head around, like, you know, did God really create the earth in seven days and how does all that work? And and uh she says lots of us have have questions like that that we just need to um pray over and and and and work through with ourselves and the Lord. And I was quite shocked at the fact that she didn't try to convince me in any way that and the next thing Andrew Corns got up and preached uh that um that Sunday and in my view he he I guess he looked to me like a vicar looked like uh you know he was an older guy and quite uh conservatively dressed and you know almost out of reach. How could this guy possibly identify with what's going on with me? He doesn't really understand it was that kind of But his sermon started with Um If all my thoughts were played through those two speakers and onto that screen that I've had this week, I wonder how long I could stand in this pulpit in front of you all. And that was just like God just tore down everything and I seen this guy, maybe we are all human, maybe we have all thoughts, and that sort of that was a big breakthrough for me. Yeah. And then within the next couple of months I d uh I remember another sermon in Hillsong was a a I hugely impacted me actually. I the preacher was speaking on uh the angel Gabriel preparing to Mary, and the whole sermon was on purpose. Um and I don't really remember a lot more about that service, but I just remember sitting there in the Dominion Theatre, and God just touched me. Well now I know it was God just touched me and said, You know, I've created you for far more than just staying sober. Yeah. And that really was you know, shafts of light were coming in all over the place, and I was really God was revealing himself to me. Um and I was so thankful, and I really looked forward to going to church every Sunday at that stage. That was all I was living for then. I wasn't saved at that stage. I hadn't I didn't want to commit, I didn't want to give any control over at that stage, but I really enjoyed Sundays of just getting up, getting on the train, going to London, going to church, feeling that peace, and coming back.
SPEAKER_00Didn't it hill so you see this there, wasn't it, the sign that said Home, welcome, welcome home through the door.
SPEAKER_01As soon as I walked through the door it said welcome home, and I really felt that I was home, and that was before that was before anyone spoke. In fact, that's that's not true. I had a welcome at the door, and the people were really friendly. Um and I just came and walked in and this big slight welcome home and and that impacted me. Um it really did.
SPEAKER_00And didn't you go because you say you know you're not sure you were actually kind of safe at that point, but you were liking going to stuff. Yeah. And then wasn't i correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a point where didn't you go to Hillsong, did you go with your mum?
SPEAKER_01So I after this, so there was about three or three or four month period of of starting to go to church again, and I went home for Easter in 2012, and my mum asked me to go to church with her um on Easter Sunday night. And I did. Um I think she's quite surprised that I uh quite willingly went with her because usually I I just wouldn't go. Um and we went uh to a church in Belfast and that evening the the the the Easter story of of of Jesus being crucified and rising from the dead was being preached, but there was a particular part in that uh in that sermon where the preacher had spoken of Simon of Serena being pulled out from the crowd and and helping Jesus to carry his cross. And at the end of the service they had an altar call um and you know I I bowed my head, everyone else had their head bowed and eyes closed, and um I just seen this big backpack, it was like one of the it was a Bergen from one of my mates in the Royal Marines was was walking in front of me on a patrol somewhere, and as we walked along I could just see his backpack and his helmet, and that just changed in a vision from from this guy to this man, and all I could see was the backs of his legs, and they were they were covered in blood, and I knew then that that was Jesus and I knew that I had to follow him. Um I I didn't want to put my hand up, I didn't want to commit my life to him, but I knew I had to have a sat with my hands like that. When I put my hand up and and I just asked for God's forgiveness and set out to try my best to follow him. Um and you know, when the prayer finished, everyone sort of stood up, sang the last hymn, and mum said, Do you want to stay for a cup of tea? And I was like, No, I'm good, I'm good, let's go, and let's go. And then and she had she hadn't even realized what had happened at that stage. Um, and you know, we were in the car parkouring to get on it, and I just turned around and mum and said, I just got saved. And you know that was just a real special moment because my mum had been praying for me for years. Yeah. And for her to be there when that happened, uh, it was just for her a huge, huge thing because she had she's lyric shared with me as well that she thought I was getting into some sort of cult. Yeah, yeah. Because they would use terminology about God but not define him.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was gonna ask about that. Didn't she say at one point, yeah, but who is God?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I said he's not your God. Yeah. And and that was really important for me at that time because I think I really wanted to keep church and Christ at arm's length. I was quite happy to believe in a higher power. Um, but I didn't want to believe in Jesus. Um and and I think well I I don't think I know because she since told me that she really prays through that to have the strength not to say anything because she realized that God it God has showed her that you know this was his, this was a journey that only him and I could could go on, and that you know it was she had to have her hands off and and that was hard for her, but to then sit in that car park that night and for me to turn around to her and say I just got saved, yeah, was huge, huge.
SPEAKER_00Um and so so coming out of that then, what happens with the alcohol?
SPEAKER_01Um I haven't craved alcohol since I haven't been to an AA meeting since. Um for three years after I got saved, I I didn't touch any of it. Um but I I know I'm able to have a beer um if if I want to have one. Um it doesn't it just doesn't figure in my life the way it did before. Um everything was was about that, it was about getting drunk. Um and yeah, that there was two quite significant things that that God changed in me physically. Um I think it's because I identify identified as an alcoholic. Um and I don't identify as an alcoholic, no, even an alcoholic in recovery. It's just I just know that I'm a new creation in Christ. Um for other people that is different. Um I you know I'm just I can just tell how it is for me. Um the second thing was my smoking. Um I went to uh a Heelsong conference in 2013, and at the start of that week they were asking, you know, what just to think about what you wanted to pray for healing in the whole week. And I wanna I really didn't want to smoke any longer, um, mainly because I felt a bit of a leper, really, because people I was then friendly with in church, none of them I didn't think smoked, at least.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um did you have to go out to the little room, like go out to this particular place and just gonna come out Yeah, in between sessions at the conference, and it was it was crazy because each session um I would pray more and more to stop smoking. I would almost feel like the more I prayed, the more I wanted to smoke. And by the end of the week I'd pretty much given up praying to stop smoking uh because I it just obviously wasn't working in my view, and but I was blessed in so many other ways during that conference. We came home at the end of that conference, that it was over in Holland at that station. We'd we'd got ferry back home, got dropped off back in London by coach, um, and I got the train back then to Buxted, and I will never forget that train pulling into Buxted. It was a really cold October wet day, it was a Saturday morning, and there's no one in the train carriage, there was no one that seemed in the car park, everything was just so quiet and grey. And this voice came into my head of God's not real. It's all hype, it's all lights, it's all singing, it's all you know, it's all human hype. And that nearly crippled me because everything that was good in my life at that stage was God. Yeah, and I had just had such a phenomenal week around good people, um, just having not just been blessed by the sessions and the preaching, but also just the fellowship, and it just felt like the carpet carpet had been pulled from under me. I got into my car in Buxted Car Park. I started my car and I drove out the gate and I looked down in the side pocket, and there was a cigarette left in the packet that I'd had the previous week, and I took it out and I started smoking it, and I was driving along full of fear, thinking, what's gonna happen now? I'm gonna be drinking by the end of the week, yeah, and all of this stuff came rushing in. And then I looked at my hand and I the cigarette was half done, and I thought I don't even like this, and I threw it away, and I've never smoked since, yeah, never had a crave of, and it was just God saying, I'm still here, yeah. In the quiet of the car, being in a big arena, it it's just I'm still here. Watch this, yeah, and I've never craved a cigarette since, and that's the miracle, the same with the alcohol. I've gone for periods of being sober, I've gone for three periods of not smoking, you know, 20 patches on and but I always craved it, and uh since that moment I've never craved another cigarette, and that for me is a very chance, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and you know, kind of all that turning around and you're reconciled with Kelly and you know and you've got three kids now, and and life is kind of well life has turned around entirely, hasn't it, really? I mean, and I know in a sense you said to me earlier, you know, life hasn't in some ways life hasn't got any easier, yeah because you know as a as a Christian Yeah, actually it's difficult being a Christian, isn't it? Like it has its challenges and things. But I mean we had Dave on here last week, and Dave works for you, doesn't he, actually? So and and he mentioned very br in not in not much detail, but he talked a bit about kind of you know working in the business there and wanting to kind of have kingdom values and stuff. So that's a bit about that side of it. Now you've kind of come through and now you're actually you've got this business and you're wanting to use it in a way that glorifies God. Just give us an idea of what that what does it actually look like in practice?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um the business is called BMR Construction and that stands for build, maintain, renew. Um and initially that was a a construction term, it was quite an obvious, you know, buildings, maintenance, you know, renewal. Um and when I started out in the business, I knew so little about running a business really that I was completely in God's hands. I couldn't I had to I needed him every day one day to to show me how to do my job, but I knew from the start that everything I would do in my life had to be for him. I didn't trust myself at that stage at all to to want to do anything for me. I was so thankful I knew where Tom McDowell being in the driving seat had got me, and and I was more than happy to give him everything. So the the business from the start um I employed Gail Brooks, um a very close friend, and uh it was just her and I uh to begin with. Um and we started it was Gail that actually said to me, I think we should pray every Monday. And we made that a thing, and and to this day we still do that now. So I started off with Gail and I. Sometimes there's seven of us now praying on a Monday morning, but there's usually four to six people praying on a Monday, depending on where the guys are, but there's always people praying in in our office on a Monday morning for the week. And in the early days, um through them prayers, Gil and I have been praying one one Monday, and uh she said, Tom, while we've been praying, I just had this vision of this brown field with these huge oak trees around it, and in that brown field there's little springs of uh greengrass. And she said, I believe that's your business. And you know when someone speaks into your life, you know straight away that that's from God. Some people say stuff to you, and you think, I'll test that. Probably not just she barely finished saying it, and I knew that that was a word from the Lord, and I try to run my business every day to to give people value that that come to work for me, um, and to I guess build maintainer. It's what God does for me every day. He builds me up, he maintains me, and he's renewed me. And I try and run my business as a as a a thanksgiving to him actually, to to do to other people or what or to open the doors for other people to experience him in the way that I have. Um and I say to the best of my ability that it's not always easy. Um the gr daily grind of running a business, um making sure it's making a profit, and you know, trying to be fair to everybody. Yeah, the more people come to work for me, the more difficult that is because you can please everybody. Um and it's it's keeping a focus on God every day, which the busier we get, I find that more and more of a challenge. Four or five years ago when the business started, that was much easier. Although at that time I thought it was hard. But looking back now, you know, there's bigger challenges, um but actually the simpler I can keep it now, then God does do the rest. It's just understanding where I finish and he begins. Yeah. And that's that's a challenge.
SPEAKER_00I think like I mean, just just thinking about your your whole story, like the the thing that's stands out for me, it like kind of going back to talking about you know coming out of the alcohol and stuff is the the powerlessness, and you know, you said in a sense there's always an excuse, like it's the 24-hour drinking, it's being in Brighton, you know, once we move here it will be okay. Um but you know, there's this sense, isn't it? Well it's not a sense, just reality, that actually it is it's just us, isn't it? Yeah, like it's what's in our hearts, um yeah, and of course the only thing like as you as you found over time, the only thing that can change that really is to have a new heart, you know, it's gotta come from outside, hasn't it? Yeah, um and it's just yeah, I mean yours is just an amazing story, isn't it? Of yeah, how God has completely just stepped into your life and you know, it wasn't really that you found Jesus, he found you He found me, yeah.
SPEAKER_01He found me. Um I'd dread to think of what would happen if he if he hadn't, um because the wheels were coming off well and truly. Um and uh I could have just been another statistic, really. Yeah. Um that's that's the hard truth. Um and I I am thankful every single day. Um God is good.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. Um I think we're probably kind of kind of at the time we're gonna have to kind of wrap up, but Tom, thanks so much for coming and sharing. Thanks for having me. No worries, uh, you're always welcome. And um, you know, I guess if there's people watching, I mean I don't think there's any specific questions, um people have been commenting and you know, you know, an insp said, you know, an inspiring story of God's grace. Um, you know, what an awesome God. And yeah, absolutely. It is, and it's completely that, is that isn't it? It's grace, absolutely grace.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um But I guess you know, if there's people if there are people watching or listening kind of later on the podcast and things, um if you know people who have you know maybe experienced similar things, um, that this might be helpful, do share it with them, pass it on to people. Um, because you know that'd be really helpful for them and stuff. So yeah. Um Tom, thank you for joining us.
SPEAKER_01No problem.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm gonna be back next week, hopefully, uh speaking to Bertie. Um Bertie is uh he he's the son of a lord. Um he almost died, and now he's a magician. So if that doesn't wet your appetite for uh next week, I d I don't know what will. And I'm hoping he might do some magic live on air. Um so it's it's all the good kind of magic, not the bad one. Great. Uh guys, thanks so much. Um stay safe, look after yourselves, and we'll see you next week. Thanks so much. Bye. Cheers.