Feeling rejected, Tim turned to alcohol, dope, and heroin – anything to fill the hole in his life. But there was nothing that could give him any lasting satisfaction. After years of wild living that included pig hunting, Tim eventually found the source of the love he longed for.
The bitter taste of rejection in my heart
Most of my life, no one has listened to me. Let me take you back to when I was born. I was not supposed to live, as I was not eating, throwing up and had pneumonia. My Mum and Dad gave me away and my aunty, who had no kids of her own, bought me up. My Mum and Dad said they loved me but I grew up feeling no love at all from them. But my Aunty knew how to love. The mid-wife said; “Take him home and just love him and see if he survives as we can do nothing for him.” As I grew up I felt a very deep sense of rejection.
The vicious cycle of drug taking – trying to fill a hole
Well, I survived but I turned out to be a great sinner. There are a lot of things in my life I am not proud of. There was always this hole inside that nothing could fill. I started smoking at the age of eight and drinking at the age of ten. I turned to speed and shooting up heroin. I thought I needed these things because at the time they made me feel like superman. I took drugs, which made me feel good for a while, but when the effect wore off I felt a little bit worse than I did before I took them so I took more drugs.
Escaping death
I’ve seen so many people die. Some just touched the stuff I was into and died. I escaped death and jail so many times. I was in bed one morning and I was mixing up some speed in a spoon. I was so out of it that when I pulled the syringe back I did not get any speed just air. I had never missed my veins in the past but for some reason I didn’t find it this time. So, I took the needle out of my arm. It was then that I realised the syringe was full of air and that I would have died if I had injected it. People would say I was crazy and I was. If you upset me I’d come round and stick a gun down your throat and I would pull the trigger. Mate! … it is only God who has got me this far through His grace.
Pig hunting – nothing ever scared me
My life wasn’t all bad … sometimes you push through and get on. But nothing would give me satisfaction for more than 24 hours. I got into hunting wild pigs and I started up a business. I would hunt with a dog, a knife (no gun) … drinking grog and off my head on dope while I hunted for pigs. I was hunting this boar on a 7000-acre property and I was crawling through a tunnel of prickly acacia looking at the giant footprints of this pig. I couldn’t turn around and I knew if the pig came the other way, it would eat me in its stride! A little later, I was still tracking this pig up the creek line when I spotted the headless body of one of my dogs hanging in a tree! Then suddenly this giant pig jumped across the creek directly at me and hit the bank just nearby and the ground shook. I had seen 300 and 400 pound pigs but this was a monster! However nothing ever seemed to scare me … it just seemed to drive me on. I tried and tried to kill the pig with my $350 knife that could cut steel but it would not go in more than a quarter of an inch. I persisted and finally killed the pig. A guy came down to look at the pig and he was scared of it even though it was dead! The local newspaper did an article about me killing the biggest pig ever caught on Kangaroo Island.
Tim and that pig!
Happiness eluded me
I was drinking a bottle of whiskey a day, sometimes two, but I didn’t even think I had a alcohol problem. If anyone drank some of my whiskey I felt they were taking a little bit of my joy and I needed to buy some more. I was sacked from most of my jobs due to my drinking. I would be off my head … driving my car … riding my Harley … I didn’t care. I didn’t care who I stood on to get drunk. I was working in the abattoir from a young age with grown men and you felt like you had something to prove. Enough was never enough. I looked at other people and wondered how they could be happy without drinking alcohol.
Became obsessed with money
I became obsessed with money and I had to have hundreds of dollars in my pocket or I felt insecure / naked. I started growing dope and even used the main bedroom to grow marijuana plants in the house! But the fast life with money didn’t satisfy me; it just allowed me to buy more alcohol and drugs.
Too crazy even for a bikie gang!
I joined a motorcycle gang but I was even too wild for them! They told me I had to settle down because I was out of line. I thought; “What is wrong with these pussies? We are here for a good time, not a long time.” I don’t know how my wife put up with me. We had one child and we were having another. I would come home having not slept for a week and sleep for another week. I was thrown out of the gang when I tried to take on another motorcycle gang when I was off my head on speed and ecstasy. I was experiencing paranoia, a very disturbing thing when you are on drugs. I had been taking hard drugs for 24 years.
Invited to church
We moved to Tasmania and stayed with my sister. We had a garage sale and I was selling my Harley. (I was no longer selling drugs to get money.) Two couples started looking at my Harley and in a conversation with them they invited me to church. I didn’t think the church would be ready for me but I went along. I was a mess. My body odour was very strong from all the alcohol and drugs coming out of my skin and I was wearing bikie gear. I didn’t know anything about God or Christianity but I didn’t feel too weird in church, as some people looked a little like me.
Friends telling me about God
Craig from church came around to talk to me. Craig was alright but I thought “When are we going to have a normal conversation. All this guy talks about is God! Craig kept coming around and I didn’t know what it was. I guess it was time for a change. Another friend (Pete) gave me a copy of a book. It was called “The Divine Revelation of the Spirit Realm” by Mary Baxter. I got home and I got a ‘gut full of grog’ and started to read the book and it started to scare me. I thought; “Nothing would frighten me. How can a book frighten me?” I wasn’t very good at reading, having only ever read bikie magazines, but I couldn’t put it down and read it all the way through. In the back of the book was the “Sinner’s Prayer”. (A prayer you can say to come to know God by accepting Jesus as your Lord and Saviour.) I thought; “I better say this prayer because I am in trouble if what this woman said in the book was true! I said the prayer and nothing happened. In the morning I said the prayer again.
Men don’t cry …
I went to a touching funeral service for a guy I hadn’t known for long and I had to hold back a few tears. I had been brought up to believe that men don’t cry.) After this, I felt like a drink that wasn’t that unusual for me, so I got a bottle of whiskey and went home. I had drunk 2 or 3 glasses and was about to ‘rip’ into the rest of the bottle (and maybe get another) when all of a sudden I had tears rolling down my face.
Salvation
It felt like I had just taken a whole pile of drugs but this feeling was far better than the feeling I ever got from drugs. The feeling you get from drugs is a cheap (actually a very dear!) substitute. I didn’t know what to do. I ran out of the house … left the door open and started walking around the street. I had been playing with my daughter just before she went to bed and I forgot I was wearing all this plastic jewellery! I ran into a bloke’s wife who starting laughing and she said to me “What’s going on?” She was a Christian and I believe she knew I had found salvation. I came back home and saw my wife in bed reading a book and I didn’t like the look of it so I said; “Put that book away. The only book you should read is the bible!” This was funny coming out of my mouth, as I had not read the bible as yet!
Filled up with and giving love
Shortly after this, on three separate occasions God’s power put me on my knees and I was crying and I experienced the awesome love of God. All I could say was “Lord, you are worthy … you are worthy, Lord …” I believe God allowed me to experience His love in this way as all my life I had felt rejection. During these experiences I believe God was getting all the rubbish out of me and filling me up with His love and it was the most overpowering, awesome feeling. Up to this point in my life, I knew I had not been a good father to my children, as I had no love inside to give. Now I love them and they love me back and this is the greatest feeling. I have Jesus Christ in my heart and I know it’s real and no one can take that away from me.
Do you know God?
Everywhere I go I ask; “Do you know God?” So I am asking you, “do you know Jesus as your Lord and Saviour? Do you know the love of God?” If not, ask God for forgiveness and for Jesus to change your life. You will not be disappointed.
“Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2).
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power” (Ephesians 3:16-18).
Tim
“What does it profit a man to gain the whole world but lose his soul?” (video clip)
The Reason (music video)
