“I Want The Generation After Me To Be Clean” – Donetsk Region, Ukraine

Jun 14, 2018 1501

Stas has found hope for the future in Jesus.

I was brought up by my grandparents. My parents were addicts and my father went to prison five times. Meanwhile, my mother kept the company of other men. My granddad was also an alcoholic and my uncle as well, although the latter helped raise me.

Until I was 12, I had a standard Orthodox understanding of God – you must go to church and be afraid of God or he will punish you. Nevertheless, when I was 10, my grandma and I took my mum to a rehab centre, and I spent two weeks with her. I learned about the Bible there. Praying and talking about spiritual matters helped me understand that God really loves me and he is always with me. I began praying to God, asking him about anything I had in my heart and he answered. For example, when I was coming back from the rehab centre where I had been with my mother, I missed 25 kopecks for a ticket. I prayed and travelled at no cost at all!

At the age of 14, I experienced a bitter disappointment. My grandma died in my arms. I gave her artificial respiration and prayed – everything that I, as a child, was able to do to save her. Nevertheless, she died. I fenced off my life from God because he had not helped me. My life went another direction. I started drinking alcohol and smoking, and after that, gradually I took up drugs.

I was afraid of communicating with God. From time to time, I promised him that if him helped me, I would stop sinning. God helped but I went on stealing and injecting drugs.

I finally made up my mind to give it up when it seemed to me I was going mad. I was afraid of going to prison. I was scared of the police and of being chased because of my debts. Then I lost everything – my wife and my mother turned their backs on me. It continued for a month. Each time I took a bigger dose and experienced a stronger paranoid disorder.

I am certain he is a loving God and he gives us everything we really need

The time came when I prayed before going to bed asking God to show me what was going to happen to me in the future. Dreaming, I saw a black creature running after me but I managed to close the door before it caught up with me. The next day I found a rehab centre in Poltava. Nobody believed I decided to give up drugs. However, I enrolled at the centre and began waiting until I got a salary.

I remember the first Bible study class led by a GNU pastor. I remember the saying that God shows mercy to a thousand generations, and the influence of sin is up to the third and fourth generation. I have counted that I represent the fourth generation in my family. I have become grimly determined that our family sin might stop with me. I have believed that I, and descendants after me, may be clean.

There was a prayer after the second meeting. While praying, I choked back tears. We were talking about God. I cannot remember what exactly we were talking about but my faith was revived!

Sometimes my reasoning capacity stands in the way – I want to see right through God. Nevertheless, I need more faith. I am certain he is a loving God and he gives us everything we really need. When I begin thinking that it is me who is chief, not him, I am at my wit’s end then. However, when I allow him to act, God leads me in my life. I have a goal – it is to sort myself out. I realise that God knows what kind of man I am but I do not know myself.

In addition, the main thing I want is for the generation after me to be clean and that I will start a sober and healthy generation!

– Stas (Edited by Ella Rodionoff)