The Demonstration of Grace | An HIA Impact Story
This story is from TJ Tomlin, who works as a Regional Outreach Coordinator for Hope is Alive and who recently celebrated three years of continuous sobriety.
I started drinking pretty heavily in college, a habit that continued when I graduated and well into my adult years. Right after college I married Dawn, the love of my life, and I spent 17 years as the owner and operator of my own MMA gym, training and competing regularly.
My gym became very successful but at a cost. I neglected my family and ended up getting addicted to opiates after many injuries and surgeries. During that time I would have told you I was a believer, but the way I lived my life would say the opposite. I was one of those professing Christians who lived his life in a way that didn’t represent Christ at all.
The opiate addiction became worse and worse over time and eventually I became a lying, cheating drug addict causing a wake of destruction to my life and the people in it until just under four years ago it all came crashing down. I was caught in infidelity and, needless to say, my wife was very hurt and scorned. My opiate use and addiction were now public and out for the world to see.
Just two years before she caught me in infidelity, God had started working on Dawn. She found a true relationship with Jesus and started attending a regular women's bible study and working on her past trauma. She also stopped drinking and started working on her sobriety. I was too busy in my own addiction to even notice this, but it was her deep relationship with Jesus that prepared her for what was about to happen.
A couple of days after catching me in adultery, Dawn was able to look me in the eye and tell me that Jesus loves me and forgives me, and that she loves me and forgives me as well. At that moment I immediately surrendered my life to Jesus. Her demonstration of the gospel brought me to Christ and since that day, April 14, 2021, I have been sober. I checked into a 90-day treatment facility and never looked back.
Jesus is now the center of my marriage and my life. I recently sold my MMA business and committed my life to ministry, working now for HIA. I owe my sobriety and my life to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
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