George

“I grew up fatherless in LA, carried a gun as a child, had three death threats on my life before I was 16 — and at 14, reading the Bible alone, I was completely overwhelmed by the love of God.”

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What they struggled with

Father wound Anger Loneliness / isolation Shame Bereavement / grief

False refuges

Achievement / fitness Religion without relationship

What this story reveals about God

Father's heart Relentless pursuit Patience Unconditional love Restorer Shepherd's heart

Religious background

Main testimony theme

How they came to faith

Intellectual conviction Supernatural encounter

Content advisory

Before you watch

This is a testimony about growing up fatherless in violent inner-city Los Angeles — with death threats, gang violence, and a home shaped by alcoholism and absence. What is distinctive is how quietly and intellectually George came to faith: alone, reading the Bible, undone by love he didn't expect and couldn't explain.

What this story teaches

People who grow up without fathers often spend years searching for something they cannot name — and God meets that search with himself, not with religion or rules, but with the love of a father.

How God moved

The lie George carried

My life was insignificant and didn't have purpose or meaning — I was just an ant in a big anthill.

What Jesus showed him

George carried the wound of being unwanted — born to cover his mother's shame, fatherless at six, left alone emotionally and physically. He believed his life was insignificant, purposeless, an ant in an anthill. Reading the Psalms at 14, God broke through that lie and showed him his life had meaning, value, and a father who claimed him.

Go Deeper

I want you to hear Jesus and I want you to listen to other Christians and I want you to pick up a Bible and to read it and pick up the Gospels and say is this true and if it's true what must I do and what Jesus and the apostles and the prophets said is it accurate does it describe man accurately does it describe God accurately yes does it give me advice on what to do yes does it give me a playbook for life yes should I follow it yes will I yes say yes to God say yes to Jesus. Follow Jesus because he's real and true even if you don't feel him. Seek the born-again experience — seek the filling of the Holy Spirit. And when he fills you, you will know it because it's a real change in you. Reconnect with the local church and seek those positive relationships, but know that ultimately your only hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

People who grow up without fathers often spend years searching for something they cannot name — and God meets that search with himself, not with religion or rules, but with the love of a father.

What you can take from this

If you grew up without a father or with an absent parent, this week write down one way that wound has shaped how you see yourself — and then ask God honestly whether that assessment is his or the wound's.

Core lie

I felt like an ant in this big anthill. I knew my life was insignificant and didn't have purpose or meaning.

Progressive entrapment

My father left this imprint of violence in us and on us and around us. We tried to be tough little guys. I started smoking and drinking as a wee little boy — four, five, six years old. Later we got into pot and petty crime.

Family weaponisation

My father was a raging, violent alcoholic. My brother was a bad influence — three and a half years older than me, instead of leading me in any other path, he continued in excess, debauchery, violence, crime, cruelty. My mother was absent — working full-time, school full-time, side hustle, politically active.

Counterfeit spirituality

The most powerful and persuasive worldview to me wasn't Christianity or Islam or Buddhism — it was secularism. There is no God. You're just an ant in this anthill. Life has no purpose, no meaning.

1

I started to repent. I said, I'm not going to live this way anymore. And I started to believe. And I said, Jesus is the son of God. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah. Jesus is all that he says he is.

2

God's right. I'm wrong. He says I'm a sinner. I am a sinner. I desire bad things. I want bad things. I say bad things. I do bad things. I hurt innocent people. I violate the laws of God. I violate the laws of man.

3

I said no to the secularism. I said no to the religiosity and all these formulas that I'd read in religion. Said no, I'm gonna follow Jesus of the Bible.

Proverbs 1:1

Given to George at age 14; he read it six times in one summer — the first scripture that spoke directly to his search for a path of life.

Ecclesiastes 1:2

Confirmed George's sense that worldly pursuits — women, drink, power, knowledge — were empty and unsatisfying.

Psalms 1:1

George was reading the Psalms the night he was born again — every word filled him with conviction and he began weeping without knowing it.

Acts 2:1

Reading Acts 2 — men from every nation gathered — broke George's inherited racism and opened him to love people of all backgrounds.

Romans 2:4

It is the kindness of God that leads to repentance — George cited this as the invitation to receive God's mercy and run to him.

Psalms 68:5

God as father to the fatherless — implicitly referenced when George describes God becoming his merciful father.

George's Christian Walk

The violence and desire to hurt people drained from him at conversion — he describes feeling it physically leave his body. Racism instilled by his family was broken as he came to love people from every nation. He married, raised children, and has sustained faith for over 50 years. He moved from petty crime and gang-adjacent life to a stable family life in Portland.

He changed my desires. He changed my being. He changed my person. He changed my personality. I was a totally completely different person after that.

The violence and anger — 'I could feel the anger and the violence drain from my body within like a one-minute process. It was just pouring out of me and I was left without a desire to hurt anyone ever again.'

The violence left me. I used to want to hurt people. When Jesus came into my life, I could feel the anger and the violence drain from my body — it was just pouring out of me and I was left without a desire to hurt anyone ever again. God also dramatically, miraculously took the racism from me.

Prayer

Is today your day?

Yes — I'm Ready

Absolutely, He will.

You don't have to figure everything out right now.

You don't need to have all the answers.

If something stirred in your heart while you were watching or reading — that's not nothing.

That is the Holy Spirit gently knocking on the door of your heart.

Stay right here. There's no rush. The Spirit doesn't pressure or hurry.

Watch another video. Read a little more. Take your time.

When you're ready — even if “ready” just means a little curious — Jesus is ready to meet you.

You don't have to clean up your life first.

You don't have to pass any test.

You only need to say a simple “yes” to Him.

He will take care of the rest.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

Luke 11:9

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