Hi, my name is Jim Sutton.  I was born in Texas, just outside of Houston, in 1952. 

Born at home, and stillborn at that.  But the doc, exhausted and frustrated after 10 hours of hard labor, managed to revive me after awhile.  My parents were young and very poor. 

My dad was an alcoholic.  Raised on a dirt farm in Arkansas, he was forced by hard times to quit school before he could learn to read, in order to help work the farm.  His mother was the matriarch of the Sutton family (the clan), half Cherokee and half English.

My mom had run away from her home in California at the age of 16.  She found work on Galveston Island, on Post Office street, where girls sold themselves to gamblers and other men.  She nearly died from some illness at one point.  But the Lord spared her life.  Later on, she met my dad and they fell in love.

My mother was the first to point out God for me.  She didn't know Jesus yet.  She was not religious at all.  But she had a hunger for God, and she knew some important things about Him.  When I was about 3, she told me the first true things about God that I can remember learning.  Without her simple instruction, I wouldn’t have been conscious of God at all in my youth.

I grew up in the Houston area, including the most central and violent parts of the city.  My parents divorced when I was about 7 years old.  My mom remarried about a year later.

"Red" my step-dad was a hard man, from Vermont.  He was much older than my mom, and had been a bachelor for about 20 years.  He did not care much for me.  And I rebelled against him in every way.

By the time I was 13, I was doing the parties and smoking, and when drugs came along, I did those, too.  At the age of 15, I was still in 7th grade, and was eventually banned permanently from the Houston Independent School District.  That's also the year that I left home. 

I was out all night every night, breaking into buildings, stealing cars, or just hanging out.  Many, many times, I was chased all over town by the police, on foot and in cars.  But never actually caught.  God was sparing me, but I thought I was just clever.

I drove my car all over south and central Texas, and hitch-hiked (from the age of 14) all over the United States.  Mostly, I went to Nashville (what a let down) and California and Denver.  Never arrested, I did spend 2 nights in jail, because it was too cold to sleep outside.  I just went to the police and asked for a cell.  On a third occasion when I asked for a cell to sleep in, I was given a motel room and money to spend, instead.

At the age of 17, I was ready to die, to just end it.  I'd been living with another guy's wife, and when we broke up I had no more desire to be around.  It was the bottom for me.  I'd been doing a lot of acid (LSD) and other drugs, and I could no longer think very clearly.  I was wasted, it was over for me, and I knew it.

I had cheated or taken advantage of every friend I'd ever had, and I had no home or family to turn to.  There were many warrants out for my arrest.  I had no life, no mind, no reason to hang on.  There was no hope for anything better.

Out on I-10, I was thumbing a ride west, out of Houston.  I figured I’d go out of town and just end it somehow, maybe out in the desert.  That's when a ride showed up, a young guy about my age.  I looked in the car and saw this huge Bible.  I backed away, not wanting any preaching.  But this was the only ride that had come along in about 2 hours.  So I got in.

The guy didn’t preach, but he did tell me what Jesus had done for him.  As he described his new life, my heart was filled with longing.  I wanted a new life like that.  That afternoon, I met the guy’s family and then some of his Christian friends.  And they all shared their faith in Jesus with me.

God finally got me to my knees that night.  I surrendered to Him, and He saved me.  He rescued me from my own self, from all my sins.

Many things changed instantly.  I suddenly lost all desire to smoke.  I no longer wanted to do drugs of any kind.  I stopped cursing all the time, stopped stealing, stopped lying.  I stopped hating people, and stopped being angry at the whole world.

I wanted a new life in Jesus and He gave me a brand new life.  My mind cleared up so that I could read and write and think clearly again.

It wasn't long before my mom also put her faith in Jesus.  And Mary, the married woman I had lived with, also trusted in Christ.  Even my dad, and then my old step-dad came around, eventually, to confess their need of Jesus.  Seeing what the Lord did for my step-dad (who, in my mind, could not be saved) made a big impression on me.

The year I met Jesus (1970) was also the year I met my wife, in a little country church.  Becky and I were married and we began to travel the country with just our Bibles, sharing Jesus with anyone we met.  A couple of years later we started having children, and had 3 all together.

We served God on city streets and in churches all across the United States, and even down into some of the villages of Mexico.  Always our desire was simply to help other people meet and get to know Jesus. 

Yes, there were still some bad times.

Now it may come as a surprise that after 14 years of living for God, I died spiritually.  But I need to share that fact.  You see, I had been dying for a long time, but didn't know it.  I had been very involved, and very busy for God, but ended up spending less and less time alone, with just the Lord and me.  The result?  I was without armor in too many of the battles of life, and I was mostly ignorant of the inroads Satan was making into my own heart day by day.

And so I died to faith in Jesus Christ, and to the church, and to the Bible.  And the Lord God of heaven and earth, in His wisdom, love, and mercy, allowed me to remain dead for 12 years before He restored me to Himself. 

I did not want to be a hypocrite, so I made it very clear to everyone that I no longer believed.  In fact, I lived and talked like the devil himself.  Most of my old Christian friends knew where I was, and they knew to leave me alone.

But in October of 1996, God revisited me in my house in Cody, WY.  I was minding my own business, and feeling no need for God.  In a matter of a few seconds, He overturned all that Satan had accomplished in me during the previous 12 years.  God simply spoke to my heart, and He made me see things. 

At the same time, but unknown to me at the time, He was restoring my wife, Becky.  We soon began to talk to each other about what God was doing in our hearts.  It was a wonderful and exciting time.

And since that time the Lord has continued to work His grace in us, guiding us, helping us, shaping our new faith in Him.  Jesus is all that He claims to be.

Life in Jesus Christ is a new and very special life.  There is no other kind of life to compare with it.  He takes any kind of person and changes them (us) into the very children of God — into people who will live with God forever.

I know that the God of heaven, the Lord who saved me will also hear your simple prayer and see your heart that desires to surrender to Him.  I was nothing special.  But He made me into a new creation, just as the Bible says.  And He will do the same wonderful work of grace in your life, too.

Jim