Testimonies

One Man's Testimony About a Wretched Life of “Outside Looking In”

I was born in the middle of the Great Depression in poor circumstances, and my father was an alcoholic, and soon left us. I was three years old.
     Soon my mother put me and my brother into “boarding homes” and as I began to be an orphan at four years old, I started to turn inward, fearful of everything outside my view. I wasn't really an orphan, since I had a mother - somewhere working at a job to earn money to pay the bills so me and my brother could have board and room with places that would take children in for pay. Since father had left us, and I was never close to my brother - (he was adopted before I was born, and we never seemed to have anything in common), I was “on my own”. Besides, as we began to grow up - he was two years older than me - he started running away from those “boarding out” places, leaving me even more alone. He would be returned, often just in time for us to move to another “boarding out” place.

We wound up moving fifteen times before I became a high school student. By that time, I was even more indrawn and had long before decided to trust no one. At 15 I had already experienced enough trauma most people don't in a lifetime. I was also small for my age since I had been born a “preemie”. I had often suffered abuse by some of the persons who were supposed to care for us, and had been sexually molested by older boys since I seemed to be vulnerable and “easy”. This left me even more indrawn and fearful, and was the kid no one noticed, or cared about while I continued to yearn for others to love me, and envied boys who had fathers, mothers and a family home. I never attended any school all the way through until High School.
     I did well in my grades in High School, even though I was still experiencing being a social outcast. I did finally start to grow tall. After High School I decided to join the Army hoping I could find a new life away from my worrisome use of alcohol and other bad behaviors, and move into my emerging manhood, and leave behind all the “badness” of my former life. I was one of three in Basic Training who qualified for Infantry Officer Candidate School (OCS), and decided to go for it. Now, was my chance to leave my “orphan” memories behind, and be a man among men. I excelled in OCS, and was in the top ten percent of my class. Then “the roof caved in” on me! On a routine physical exam, they discovered a heart murmur! (After having gone through five other exams with “flying colors”!) I then was not allowed to finish OCS, but was offered a poor choice of a low-level desk job in the ranks or Medical Discharge. I chose discharge and left the Army and plunged back into a life of deep despair and more alcoholism
     I was “On the outside looking in - STILL AGAIN”! This was followed by more trauma and failure. Then I married on the rebound of my great disappointment of the Army, and then after 15 years of more alcohol and other addictions and a so-called “psychotic breakdown” which was followed by Psych Wards and a long period of being known as a “paranoid- schizophrenic”, I then left my wife and children and tried to live alone in some semblance of normal life which often resulted in more alcohol and failure. Finally, on the verge of a decided and planned suicide, and through a series of what seemed to me like “coincidences”, I discovered Alameda Christian Fellowship. Through their love and Biblical presentation of the Gospel, I repented of my sinful life, and found salvation in Jesus Christ!

On that Sunday morning, October 11, 1981 I believed and asked Jesus to be the Lord and Master of my life. I no longer wanted to die, but wanted to live so I could learn more about my life with Jesus Christ.
- Don B Murray, Sr.