Episode 29 - Marc Wilson

Listen as Mark shares his story.  The loss of his mom made him angry at God so he turned away from walking with the Lord.  Thankfully, at he felt like he was at the end of his rope, he surrendered his life and turned back to the Lord.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Hello, I'm Becky Dowd, and this is The Journey to Salvation. Join me as we walk alongside real people and hear the unique journeys that led them to faith in Jesus. Today my guest is Mark Wilson. Hello, Mark.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hi, Miss Becky. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Good. Or are you calling me Miss Becky? Do you think I'm old?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

No. No, I just uh being respectful. That's if my dad was standing here and I didn't say that, I'd probably get popped.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

That's okay. You just you can say that if that makes you more comfortable. But I'll be getting you back somehow Sunday morning at church. Anyway. Um so Mark, uh I just heard a little bit of your story last Sunday. You shared just a little bit during our service, and I was just interested to hear more about your life growing up and then past that. So can you just share a little bit how it was growing up?

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Yes. I I was born in 1971. Uh my my parents were uh 15 and 18. Oh. And my mom was 15. So uh my mom and I always joked that we were growing up together. We lived uh when I come home from the hospital, we lived at Penrose, and I went to McCroy kindergarten and half a first grade, and then we moved to Farroaks, and then I started wind schools. I I didn't have a bad childhood. I had uh uh we didn't have everything, but we had love, and and it was a good they provided, they did everything right. And I got a little older and I started going to East Baptist Church, and uh Brother Jim Peeler led the music. Gary Akers was the pastor. Uh several several people that I see here used to go there. Uh at 14 uh I had a calling and I I give my life to Jesus and uh I got baptized and uh everything was going good and until I hit that 16 mark. And then when I got a vehicle and got out of sight, things got out of control. And uh like a lot of people, I started drinking and running around, and um I could hear God knocking on my heart, and it was loud, and and I started ignoring it. And I got a job that summer away from my dad. I had grown up working summers with him building grain bins, and I got uh chemical poisoning from loading aircraft, and I spent about a week in the hospital. And uh so I went back to church for a little while, then I got away again, and uh that very next summer I was actually south of town at Mr. Elden Waddell's and was unloading a semi-truck and laid a steel rod across three Highline wires and uh got a pretty good jolt. Oh, wow. And what is so amazing about that is we go to work every day building and we have wrenches, certain wrenches that we carry. That morning, for some reason, when I got ready for work, I grabbed all the wrenches that I normally put in my back pocket and I put them in my front pocket and I swiped off all the chains and I said, I'm just gonna get rid of this stuff today. When I laid that across the Highline wires, it came out where the wrenches and the chains were in my pockets and blowed holes that you could put golf balls in. Oh wow. So I spent about 10 days in the hospital and they would scrub it twice a day to keep keep it from healing over so it would heal from the inside.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

So you were burned from the where it came out your body.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Very bad. And they said had I not had that in my pocket, it would either blow the bottom of my feet out or the top of my head. So it was uh 18,000 something votes through that.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Did that knock you unconscious or anything?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Well, it it when I first started feeling it, I couldn't feel the electricity, it didn't hurt. And I was looking at everyone that was there working, and everybody had their back to me. And that's all I can remember. They had their back to me, and then I woke up in an ambulance. So So that's good that you didn't have that pain or memory of that happening. Right. And and uh, you know, after after being saved and and not doing the things I knew that was Jesus' way trying to get my attention again, and and it worked for a while.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

How old were you then? Sixteen?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Sixteen. And uh burnt my hands bad. I had my hands in bandages and my legs and uh so kind of fast forward, went through and uh graduated high school. By that time I had built quite a reputation, alcohol, pot, uh, parties, and uh I just thought that I had to be in the center of everything. And uh so six months after graduation, I was coming back from Memphis from a club, which I was too young to be at. I dropped off uh a friend in Earl and a friend in Parking, and I got a mile from home and uh fell asleep, and I drove a Nissan pickup, the front of it, into a 36-inch culvert. And doing that, I broke my pelvic in half and shoved my left leg 12 inches into my stomach.

unknown 6:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

And I had uh my shoulders were separated and into my back. They were completely in. I was lying in the seat of the truck, it was January 21st, and I remember crawling out the window, and I fell into water, and the water was ice cold. And they said that that's when I jammed that leg in me and started the internal bleeding, but the it was 21 degrees outside, so the cold water kept the bleeding down. And uh it was in my cousin's yard. She came outside, heard me hollering. Uh, the ambulance got there and um went to the hospital, and I don't remember a lot of things from a lot of long time ago, but I remember there was a doctor from Memphis, her name was Dr. Duke, and uh I was bleeding out, my body temperature had got to 88, and uh I saw Dr. Young walk by the room and he had delivered me, and he turned and ran back in, and he put an IV in and took blood out of this arm, run it through pans of boiling water, and put it back in this arm, and he got me, he got my body temperature back up and stable. So they shipped me to uh the med, and I spent uh a week at Campbell's clinic getting my leg pulled out before they would do surgery. So since then I've had uh six surgeries on my back, um, three surgeries on my shoulders, one on my neck, and two on my knee that were caused from that.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

But that explains sometimes when I see you at church, you talk about uh I guess you're you drive a lot and and you're back hurting, and I see why that is now.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, I I stay in quite a bit of pain, and uh so when I got out of the hospital with that, um lay in the bed, I um got uh my relationship back with Jesus. And uh it was all it was very good, and then then I got well and I got back out. Uh I got married to my first wife, and we had three beautiful kids, and we would socialize, drink and stuff, and then we got a divorce, and I got back into other things other than alcohol. And uh after that I uh went to Iraq. And uh when I was in Iraq, I was there for about 16 months, and then they called and said that my mom had fell out and has brain cancer. So my dad got a hold of me over there and asked me would I come home and take care of her.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

And were you in the military?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

I was not in the military. I was uh working for a private contractor. Okay, and uh we a lot of things we did over there that that I don't discuss, but we uh so I came home and I took care of my mom and uh six months later she passed away. Um that was my best friend. We grew up together and uh I shook my fist at Jesus and I told him no more. I I didn't if that's the way it was being a Christian, I didn't want any part of it. And uh I started uh daily drinking the fifth of tequila twelve thirty pack of beer.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Um how old are you at this point?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I am thirty that was in two thousand and six is when that happened. So I at that time it was uh you couldn't talk to me about church. I didn't want any part of it. And um I used that as an excuse and I got deep into meth and cocaine and uh spent several several years uh uh in in that that life and uh it I know I'm I'm leaving some stuff out, but I I at that time I had started my third marriage and uh that didn't work. And uh so I was um alcohol, drugs, uh living in different places, uh would have a great job, and then a month later wouldn't have a vehicle, didn't know how I was gonna eat.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Uh and I guess during that time you probably weren't seeing your kids.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

I I I wasn't uh like I should. There was there was a lot of things going on there. Yeah uh um it was it was all my fa I I made excuses then. I blamed everybody but me. And uh but it was all my fault. And I just I I couldn't wrap my head around why I at 14 I knew Jesus and everything was supposed to be love and and and peace and you know he's gonna take care of you and and then how you get to this point. But looking back on all of that, I d what I really didn't understand at the time of being saved is how to study the Bible, how to get in the Word.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Just walking with the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Just just just walking with the Lord. I I didn't I I didn't really have any idea that you could just be alone and and talk to him and you could be silent and hear him. Um I didn't understand all of that. So it it really it really tore me apart on the inside because at this time where I used to hear him knocking on my heart and I could hear things, I would I would pray, I would want something to be right so bad, and I couldn't hear anything. Uh it's it's like it went silent, and uh as that happened I just I I just wanted to hate him even more because everything that I thought he took from me and the situations that I thought he let he got me in and it just really read led me down to a path of uh Great Depression uh thoughts of suicide. Um and I carried that for several, several years and uh was trying to be a good parent and trying to see my kids and uh it seemed like every time I did get to see my kids it was an argument about he said, she said, and of course I blamed everything on someone else. And uh then I then I realized what you know what I was what I was going through, even though I was so mad at Jesus, I I had to get out of it some way.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Drugs and alcohol.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Drugs and alcohol and and going and uh so I was living at Cersei at the time by myself and uh I had some visitors of the law come to me and uh and and tell me this is this is what we know and uh here's what's gonna happen. And so I just completely dropped that. Uh I got away from the drugs, uh, went to Jonesboro. I stayed with my sister, Kina, she's five years younger than me, and I I stayed at her house. I threw my phone away, I didn't want any more, but the alcohol was still there. And then that led me into my wife now, Tanya. We had actually went to school together from the first grade on, and when I got electrocuted and couldn't write, she was in the classes with me and was doing my writing and taking notes and stuff. So we we had known each other for for a very long time. And uh so we started dating and uh and I kept kept the drinking, but I quit the drugs. I I I at this time I'm still mad at God, and but I really thought since I I quit the drugs, I was beating my chest. I was so proud. I didn't I didn't once get in trouble with the law, I didn't have to go to a rehab. I didn't have to do those things that I thought and it so now the pride started building.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Do you think you have a you had a dependency on the alcohol?

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Or did you just choose to keep doing it? I had a dependency. Uh I uh uh my wife tells me now, she said you there's no middle ground with you. You're either all or none. And that's uh that's the way I treated alcohol. If if I bought a bottle to have a drink, I drank the whole bottle. And uh but I just saw her on Facebook and I reached out to her, and she was two miles down the road in Jonesboro, and she had uh just went through a divorce. And uh so we got together and I got over there, and of course I was drinking, and and I was telling her about all my past and my mom and and broke down in front of her, and uh I couldn't understand why she wanted anything to do with me. And and uh she told me, she said, I remember the person you used to be, and this is not you. So we dated a while and and uh I fell extremely in love with her. And uh I moved in with her, and I shouldn't have done that. And then I met her parents, and and they had known me, but not recently, or you know, knew me enough to walk up and just start a conversation. So when I met uh her mom and dad, told them told them my story, told them I was in love with their daughter. Her dad told me, he said, Well you son, you gotta do, he said, I'm all for second chances. And he had people coming to him telling him, tell her to leave him alone. The reputation that I built was had followed me everywhere, and it was it was huge. And uh he would stand up and say, no, everybody deserves a chance. And if if my daughter sees something in him, then I'm willing to take a chance. And uh so after that and uh him doing that, I felt bad about us living together, so we got married. The one thing I couldn't give up was the alcohol, and I I kept uh making an excuse, and and I and I used my medical aches and pains as a lot of it. So she wanted me to go to the doctor, pain doctor. Well, I did. And when I went to the pain doctor, first thing they did were put me on oxycotin. So I spent seven years on 130 oxycottin pills a month. Oh wow. And then it got uh the first six or seven months, it got I was eating them in two weeks and it wasn't enough, so I was back on alcohol. So now I'm alcohol and oxycottin and and just trying to find anything I can to stop stop the pain. And I know now the pain wasn't that great. Uh it it's it wasn't any more than what I deal with today with any nothing. So I d I just felt like again I had been abandoned, and uh it it started, it was causing problems.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Uh I assume you were probably addicted to the painkillers by that time.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yes. I I uh it it it didn't take long with Oxycotton, about six months, and I was I was addicted. And uh through all of this uh growing up with my dad building bins, I learned about them, and I I had a good reputation in the grain bins, and I I I did a good job, and I run several companies and successfully and and hid all of this in the background, and and that just kept building and building and building. It got to where Tanya would just look at me and tell me that you're mean, you're not the same. Uh you have to do something. So cold turkey, I quit the pills. And um on my own, I I refused any help. Uh so I I got off of the pills. I had a rough month or two, and but I had the alcohol. I could I I could stop the pain. I could stop the the meanness and so she stayed she stayed with me and uh her parents backed me and of course my my dad did. He helped me all he could, but he was pretty you know what you need to do. I I shouldn't have to tell you, and you're gonna make your own bed, you're gonna have to lie in it. That's about the way it was. So so it went on for for uh several more years and uh I started feeling better and doing things and I could control the drinking a little more and I and I I got I got in the the business I was in I got to a place where I was I always chased the dollar and I was making very good money and um and I I really thought I had it all. I was I was working, I was making money, I was controlling alcohol, uh had a have a great wife, but I still didn't have that relationship. I was still mad and um I fell back into depression and um I d I I did not turn back to drugs, but the alcohol got more and more and more and um I really didn't know I didn't know what to do and and the place I was in my business I had to travel a lot so uh I would uh to avoid any fighting at home I would leave and travel and I might get to a hotel and not leave the hotel for three days and and just sit and drink and and pity myself and and wonder uh think about the you know, all the things I'd been through and the disappointment I was to everyone and the disappointment to my kids and um that would that was really really hard for me to deal with and uh had um several years later her her dad got sick and we had to move to Wynn and uh he had Alzheimer's and uh he passed away and she was going through depression. I was still in depression and living on the road, and that monster of the alcohol came back and um more than ever I could pray, but I couldn't feel anything. I tried to deal with everything myself, and as we all know, we can't we're not big enough to do that. So it was a couple couple years ago. I was actually my sister and Kirk were around the same age, and I knew Kirk's name, and uh, I think everybody knows Kirk. For some reason, uh where I live, Coke Shepherd was there and was telling him that I was cutting trees, and I I looked up and I could I knew who Kirk was and I see him, but he and I didn't have a relationship. And I saw him walking across uh my backyard uh with another guy, Luke. And uh I knew him, but I've never really talked to never talked to him. When I saw him coming, something that I can explain, he had a big I could see it like it was yesterday. He had a big smile on his face, and I knew the reputation, and I knew Jesus was doing things in him. And I come out my back door and uh walked up to him and I just started bawling.

unknown 26:22

Oh well.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

And uh I told him, I said, you gotta help me. I I can't. He said, Oh, what's what's and I said, I said, uh, you know, I'm I'm drinking constant. I I'm I'm I'm in a bad, bad place. Everything from the past kind of kind of fell on me. I I felt like I was, you see these medieval movies, all this armor. That's what I felt like. I felt like I was running, but I could barely run, and it was just, and I and I just looked at him and I told him, I said, man, I'm tired. I I'm just my mind's tired, my body's tired. He got down and and he prayed there with me. Something something changed. I felt Jesus for the first time in in years. And we had been looking, we had been looking for a church to go to, and I I made every excuse, everyone we went to. Uh, but after that day, he invited me here to the bridge. And it's it's been it was hard to try to admit a lot of those things because I kept them. You don't want people knowing your business, you think. But you come to a place when you have really get a relationship with Jesus, none of that stuff matters. I had to I had to give up a lot of stuff, and uh it was amazing to me how one interaction with I'm not gonna say i it it has to be the right person, but it's the person that Jesus has shown to work through. Uh it could have been someone else, but it that day it was it was Kirk and uh I felt like that I was once again hearing hearing Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

Were you able to uh stop the alcohol after that interaction with Kirk?

SPEAKER_00 28:44

Real short after that, uh I just I just had to break down and I could see, and I say this to people now, some people that I talk to at work that drink and stuff, the alcohol is not the sin. For me, what I felt was if I had one drink, I had to have another and another and another. And then I realized the sin is what the alcohol was doing to me. That's that's when a lot of the scriptures that I heard as a child growing up guard your mind and guard your heart. Uh when you uh some people can can have a drink and that that's fine. I don't I'm not saying that it's wrong. I can't. And so yes, I was I was able to get control of that, and uh it's it's no longer a problem since that day. My my relationship with my kids and everything has grown and we're still we're still working on that. They're of course grown now, and I have grandbabies and uh they have their own life and I still travel on the road. I drove in today from Kansas, so it's uh hard staying uh gone all the time and having to work on something like that, but every day gets easier. I'm not proud of some a lot m everything that I did. Where I am today and where I was two years ago or 20 years ago, I know God, Jesus did not abandon me. He was there the whole time, but he let me take that path. And because of that path that I took today, I can I can tell people that's not the path that you want. He is he has really done a work in me that I can't I can't ex say. Uh right. It just keeps growing every day. Every day's a new challenge and a new mercy. Uh a new problem comes up, but then there's two mercies that you thank Jesus for, and that problem's not near as big as what I would make it. The worry, the guilt. I had to shed all of that to let Him grow in me. And that's where I am now in my journey.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

What would you say to that, to yourself right after your mom died and you were blaming Jesus for that? How would you speak to yourself now based on what you where you are today?

SPEAKER_00 31:32

Boy, there's so many things I could say. I was I was sad that she was gone and I was mad because he took her, but I would I would tell myself now she is in a lot better place than you are. And uh I know she was saved. The way I view death now is knowing someone is saved, that should be pretty good reason to rejoice for them. They're they're not here having to to deal with everything, right, everyday things that we have to try to fight through, but Jesus can overcome anything.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

And we kind of have to see death, I feel like, through God's perspective of that, you know, we're we're hurt because that person's taken away. But if they're a believer, they're at home.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yeah. I I just went to Kirk talked me into it, and I have my homesick for heaven shirt on today. Last Friday, Tanya and I went to the concert, and uh being there is so much different than than on the radio. I I thought of my mom when that song came on. And uh I also Who sings that song? Phil Wickham. Okay. And uh I have I have really tried to understand, and I and as I was saying Sunday, I have a I have a different way of of studying because I have to know what every word means before I can say it. And I don't I people tell me I have ADHD, but I'm pretty sure I do, but that's beside the point. But just just understanding what grace is and understanding that free will and how we make our own decisions, but that relationship with Jesus has to be strong. And the only way, like I told you, I'm a I'm either I'm no halfway, I'm all or nothing. Uh my mind has to stay on Jesus 24-7. I can't I can't view TV like I used to. I can't listen to songs that I used to listen to because I feel like I'm weak in a way that I let those things in my mind and it it makes my mind wonder. So that's what I was talking about, remembering back Jesus saying, guard your mind.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Yeah and your own. Is that those things become a distraction and come between us and our relationship with the Lord?

SPEAKER_00 34:08

They do.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

You know. And so we do have to every day make those choices on what we listen to, what we say, what we view, because all of that affects uh our heart.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

It affects our hearts and it and it uh it affects the way I used to be the kind that I had to be in control if I wasn't in control. I I I just didn't have interest in the situation. Now that Jesus is in control, the weight's been lifted, but I have to I have to guard myself from those things.

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Mark, that reminds me of the verse, Proverbs 423. Above all else, guard your heart for everything you do flows from it.

SPEAKER_00 34:54

So true. The heart is the the door to your life. When you close that door to Jesus and don't let him in, the knock becomes faint, the heart becomes hard, and uh you're just inviting Satan. Come on and do what you want to do. And uh it's uh I look back now and it's so shameful that I went through those things even though I knew that beforehand. But uh that's what we are in the flesh. We're weak. And uh I used to feel like people would look down on me because of that, and uh and I don't anymore because I know we all have the same problems. Not maybe exactly the same thing, but we all have the same problems. And uh listening to Billy Graham one time, he got up and he said, I'm an adulterer, I'm an I have stolen, I have murdered. If you commit one, you've committed them all. It it just takes one. So I don't look at the Ten Commandments anymore as Ten Commandments. I I look at it as ten verses of one commandment. And and uh you we can't live by all of them. So like I said suddenly, Sunday we want to be sinless, but we never will be here. But we should want to sin less. And and that's where I am in my journey. I I want to guard everything and uh be the best usage for Jesus to use me to help someone else.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Because he will use your story and what you went through. I know a lot of times you just uh you know, we say, I hate that I went through this or wasted my time doing that, but God doesn't waste that because he helps you use that to reach other people.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

He does. Um He used Kirk that day to get me here, and uh Jesus works in this building. Uh He works through a lot of people. It's like no other place I've ever been, and uh it it brings Jesus out in me uh more than I ever thought it could.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

You know, and I was just thinking when you said that about Kirk, you know, Kirk has his own testimony who's who's on my podcast, but uh had Kirk not lived through some of the things he lived through, he wouldn't have been there to pray for you the way he could only pray for you. That's true. Knowing what he's done or knowing his past.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

That is very true. Uh I'm I'm just so thankful uh for what Jesus did through him. Uh I know now on his own, uh Kirk couldn't have done that for me, but uh what he went through and what Jesus was doing through him, it it opened my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

It's growing me as a Christian, and my story's not over because I have so many things that that uh I want to do now. I I wanna I want to go on a mission trip. I wanted to give my testimony, I wanted to go on a mission trip, and I want to help other people, but I think doing those things also builds our relationship. So each step we can take and do, it's nervous to get up on that stage and and talk in front of people that knew you before, and you think, what are they gonna think about it, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_01 38:57

Yeah. They're just gonna look and see what the Lord has done in your life.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

And and I just if it just changes one person, it would be all worth it. I called Kirk last week. I heard a guy, and I never thought about it like this, and again it goes back to my mom. He uh he had gotten news. He wasn't someone that I knew. He he I I saw it, but it was in real time. Uh he found out he had stayed for cancer. Everybody around him broke down. He just smiled and laughed. And I guess it was his daughter asked him, Dad, what is what is wrong with you? He said, It's a win-win. If I stay living, I beat the cancer. If I die, I go to heaven.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:51

And to get that kind of outlook is what I want. It's it's not hard to get.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

You just have to be willing to that reminds me of another verse that Paul said. He said in Philippians, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. So that's how that uh man was probably feeling when he said that.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Yeah, and and in Romans, I'm so excited to get into it. I've uh I've studied in Romans and uh Paul's last letter when uh they come to him and and tell him, have have your God save you. And he said, I'm not chained to your I'm chained to my Christ, my savior. And that's powerful.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

Was he in prison?

SPEAKER_00 40:43

He was in prison and uh it was his last letter, and he knew he was gonna die. He had saved uh people in Caesar's house. He had led them to Christ, and uh they were coming, and he said, These are not your chains. I'm chained to Jesus Christ. And uh that sticks out in my mind. It it's it's a good study. Uh I'm I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 41:08

So I notice you have a verse on your hand. Can you tell me about that?

SPEAKER_00 41:14

It's uh Matthew 1126. And when I'm on the road as much as I am, I I say alone. It's it's me and Jesus, but I get out of my I'm away from my church family, I'm away from my life, I start feeling pressure from my work and the world to do this, do that. And uh a lot of just about every day when I'm on the road, I write, come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. And I find peace when I can see that, and I say it over and over to myself, and it's just like a calm comes over me, and and and I can just there's freedom in that verse, isn't it? It's a lot of freedom.

SPEAKER_01 42:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:07

Uh to imagine that he can uh the things that he can do uh and it and that also reminds me that uh how important reading God's word is. We can uh hear other people read it, but when you read it yourself, you pick up on different things, and that's what I've had to learn because uh I listened to a lot of different sermons on the road and I learned something from each one, but when you open the Bible and read it for yourself, it's a whole different light. Mark, thank you for sharing your story with us today. You're very welcome. It's uh it's been a pleasure. I I hope someone can get something out of it uh that will help them in their journey and and uh let Jesus come into their life.

SPEAKER_01 42:58

Thank you for joining us today. New episodes release every Wednesday, so be sure to subscribe and get notified when a new episode is available. You can listen on the Journey to Salvation website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. So, where are you on your journey to salvation?