My Personal Story

I am the firstborn in our family, having two sisters, one brother, and two half-brothers (raised separately). I was born in the small city of Summerside, which resides in Canada’s smallest province of Prince Edward Island (PEI). PEI is mainly known for three things: potatoes, a little redheaded girl known around the world as Anne of Green Gables, and in 1864, hosting a meeting of elected officials which would lead to the founding of Canada, giving the province the nickname ‘The Birthplace of Canada.‘

EARLY YEARS

For the first four years of my life, I lived with my mother, moving between a few communities on Prince Edward Island. When she and my father got back together, we moved back to Summerside as a family. First, we lived in a motel-style cramped apartment that no longer exists before moving to the Linkletter Estates trailer park. From the ages of four to ten, we lived there; it was a small community, and most of my friends also lived there. My school, Greenfield Elementary, was close enough that we kids from the park often walked through the park and a small woods to get to school instead of taking the bus.

My childhood was rather typical of the time. We were in the lower-middle class. I don’t remember wanting for much, mostly just that fancy new toy sometimes. My parents weren’t really churchgoers or religious. Mom would attend a Christmas service, but that’s it. Her parents went to church every week. Several crosses hung on their walls, and a holographic Shroud of Turin image is still stuck in my mind.

MEMORIES OF CHURCH

When I spent time with my grandparents, they always ensured I was up and dressed well on Sunday mornings as we headed to St. Paul’s Catholic Parish Church. I never attended Sunday school; I just sat in the pew alongside them. The church was always packed with people I didn’t know. I was rather uninterested in what was being said most of the time. I never understood why we would have to stand for this part or kneel, then return to sitting and kneel again. Then, it was time for us to stand up and file into the aisle, slowly making our way to the front.

Upon reaching the front, the priest would mumble words I could barely make out as he put this flat round wafer in my hand. I’d pick it up and put the dry wafer in my mouth as I turned back, trying to find where we had been sitting. Once everyone was seated, my grandfather would nudge me and pass me a small bill or a few coins. Then, this wicker basket on a long pole would be passed down the row in front of us as we dropped the money in.

Then came the part I didn’t enjoy. We would all stand and shake hands with all those around us, each mumbling some kind of platitude. As a child, this was all fairly boring to me. When the service was done, we hopped in the car and went home, and that was it for another week. This was church for me; it was just this thing we did on Sunday mornings that held no meaning for me.

As an aside, I also remember an elementary school play of the Nativity, myself in the role of Joseph. At the time, this was just a play, a story, more than something religious.

CATECHISM CLASSES

I’m unsure if it was a request of my grandparents or something my parents came up with, but I was enrolled in catechism classes. I would have been about seven or eight years old at the time. I don’t recall how long these classes lasted. Whatever I learned did not stick, as I can’t remember much about it other than it was one evening a week and some basic lessons about the Bible were taught.

We learned how to take the “host” and what we were to say and do as we received it. A little ‘graduation from catechism’ ceremony took place at the church I attended with my grandparents. I received a completion sheet and a small New Testament Bible that promptly ended up on a shelf unread. That basically was the end of religion in my life.

RELIGION FADES

While in Grade 6, we moved to the western part of Prince Edward Island. No longer living near those grandparents, I no longer went to church. I never gave much thought to church or religion after that. I had nothing against religion; I knew people who attended church or said they were religious. It was just not for me.

I lived a basic teenage life, tame by some standards. I was a mid-range student, excelling only in the classes that interested me. I had a small friend group that I was close with. We played Trading card games and pen-and-paper role-playing games. I wasn’t into parties and drinking like some fellow teens were.

MOVING ON

The first summer after graduating, I packed a bag and took off back to Summerside. I wasn’t sure where I was going to live. I met some people through my cousin’s collectibles shop, ‘Michelle’s Books, Cards, and Comics’, which no longer exists. We became close, and I moved in on their couch for what was supposed to be a week or two until I got things figured out.

At the time, this was what I thought was enjoyable, but it was the start of a dark time. I began to experiment with booze, marijuana and a few other items. I definitely had addictive tendencies. I spent my time either using or finding these items.

TASTING DARKNESS

At the same time, I began to date one of the people I was living with — a relationship that lasted a year or so before I met another woman who caught my interest. She was a smoker, so I added this to the list of substances I used. After a few years of the same behaviour, I ended the relationship when I discovered she was cheating on me. This set me on a path of even more drug use and drinking.

I was lost and unsure where to go, so I moved back to my parents’ house to try to collect myself. It was at this time I came to realize that while I didn’t have religion in my life, I did believe that there was some higher force out there. I didn’t know who or what he was, but I thought this force could help me. At my lowest, I would pray, which was probably more of an internal conversation with myself about what I wanted in my life or asking for help to dig myself out of the hole I was in.

FALLING IN LOVE

During this time at my parents’ house, I reconnected with Emily Smallman who was an acquaintance from school. We began to talk and text, getting to know each other better. We began seeing each other long-distance while she finished out the year at UNB, where she was taking several business classes. At the end of the term, Emily moved back to the Island and into an apartment with her cousin in Charlottetown. For the next several months, I hitchhiked back and forth from O’Leary to Charlottetown, spending nights on a friend’s couch so we could spend the days together.

Things moved quickly, and we got an apartment of our own in Charlottetown. At this point, I was no longer binge drinking, just a ‘casual’ drink now and then, and all drug use besides marijuana and cigarettes had stopped. Emily drew out the better qualities in me; she never tried to change me but made me want to become a better person.

Emily was raised Catholic, and it had held meaning for her. She used to attend services, took classes, sang in the choir, and played the piano. She had issues with how the Catholic church went about some things, but she believed in the Bible and Jesus. She was getting something out of it that I didn’t understand, but it wasn’t negative, so I was fine with it.

MARRIAGE PLANS INTERRUPTED

Time marched on, days to months, months to years. We moved from that first apartment to another. As part of wanting to better myself for her, the alcohol, drug use, and cigarettes became less and less until they stopped, other than a rare casual drink like on our anniversary.

We lived a middle or lower-middle-class life and kept mostly to ourselves. After eleven years (too long, in Emily’s opinion), I finally nervously proposed, even though I knew she would say yes. We would have to save for a wedding, and we figured it would be about two years away.

But as the two-year mark approached, a monkey wrench was thrown into our plans, and everyone else’s too — COVID struck. All our plans were put on hold for the foreseeable future. Work from home began, social distancing, online grocery delivery, take-out food, the ‘new normal’ of life became the flow of things.

HEADACHES AND AMBULANCES

In 2022, around the time of Hurricane Fiona, Emily began having bad headaches. First, we chalked them up to stress from work, combined with being without power for ten days after the storm. But as things calmed down, her headaches continued, so we went for medical help.

The doctors saw no issues, prescribed some pain meds and sent us home. The headaches persisted with a few bouts of much greater severity. We spent another night at the QEH hoping for answers, but they still found no issue. They wondered if a medical shunt from her childhood might be causing a problem, though the scans looked fine. So she was sent home again, told to relax and take some pain meds.

Within days, we found ourselves calling the ambulance as she was experiencing the most intense headache to date. The hospital staff concluded the old shunt must be the source of the problem as nothing else seemed wrong. She was immediately transferred to a hospital in Moncton, New Brunswick, PEI’s neighbouring province, for what we understood to be emergency surgery. Due to COVID, I couldn’t travel in the ambulance with her, so her parents and myself followed them over.

PRAYER CAN’T HURT

I texted my brother and his wife, who were Christians. I asked them to pray for her, figuring prayer couldn’t do any harm.

Moncton Hospital was even more of a frustration. No emergency surgery had been planned. Instead, they wanted to observe her for a time. On top of this, their COVID restrictions were more stringent than the QEH, and I was not allowed to stay with her overnight. I shared a double hotel room with her parents for a few nights. Surgery was not scheduled until the end of the week.

Due to the hotel cost, we decided to return to the Island for two days to save money and get some needed items, and then return the morning before the surgery. Emily was in good spirits but understandably didn’t like being alone in the hospital.

THE PHONE CALL

It was 2 AM when my sleep was interrupted by a phone call from Emily’s parents. The hospital called to say that things ‘weren’t good’ and that we needed to get back over to the hospital quickly. The drive had never felt longer. I messaged my siblings, asking my brother and wife to pray for her again.

THE SHOCKING SILENCE

The hospital was horribly silent when we arrived. I knew it was not good. Emily had passed away and was unable to be resuscitated. The official reason listed was cardiac arrest. This was not an outcome that anyone had expected could happen. November 15, 2022, will forever be burned into my memory — just a few months shy of our 16th anniversary.

CONDOLENCES

Dealing with all that needs to happen after a death left me in an emotional state, faced with anger, sadness, frustration, and depression. I received numerous condolence cards during that time; one from O’Leary Gospel Hall stood out. It was signed by several members and included financial assistance and some Bible verses.

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

John 8:12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

After a month had passed, I began to send out thank-you cards to express my gratitude to those who gave their condolences. But when it came to thanking the Christians at the O’Leary Gospel Hall, I wasn’t sure how to thank them for their kindness. I asked my Christian sister-in-law for some advice, even though she and my brother weren’t members of the Gospel Hall. She suggested that just attending one of their Gospel services would probably be more than enough as a thank-you.

That higher power I believed in, I was filled with anger towards. With thoughts of possibly attending a service at the Gospel Hall, I downloaded a Bible app on my phone so I could see what it had to say about death and grief.

Matthew 5:4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.

Psalm 34:18 The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; And saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.

It was a few weeks before I felt I should fulfill my ‘obligation’ and attend a Gospel meeting. During that time, I moved back up to the western part of the Island with my parents, unable to stay living where I had been. They had moved in with my father’s mother the year before to help and watch over her, and while I needed the help and a place to live, my move was also done with the thought of being there to eventually do the same for them.

My impression of the Gospel Hall was that it was unlike what I knew of church. The atmosphere was inviting, lacking the symbols and flourish I remembered seeing in places of worship. The meeting was simple, with two well-dressed individuals speaking about Jesus, God, and salvation, rather than a priest in ornate robes standing over everyone.

Attending these meetings was originally with a sense of obligation, but gradually, I found myself reading the Bible more based on what I was hearing. I also observed first-hand the fulfillment that my brother and his wife found in their faith. While I was still dealing with depression and confusion, I continued to attend meetings. I exchanged contact information with a member who patiently answered my many questions about faith, the Bible, and the Gospel. I began to grasp the concepts presented, but I couldn’t realize them.

Matthew 7:13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat

John 10:9 I am the door: by me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Matthew 7:14 … because strait (narrow) is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

God’s Way of Salvation – Read it Here

I was standing at that doorway; it was like I was looking at the door but couldn’t figure out how to walk through.

On the morning of March 10, 2023, I sat in a car outside the QEH, the hospital where my fiancé’s final journey had started. To help distract me, I picked out a podcast from a Gospel feed recommended to me. The podcast episode Repent and Believe featured a preacher named Jack Hay, who shared his life story, the Word of God, salvation, and its importance. Listening with my eyes closed, the tears came as Mr. Hay quoted this verse from the Bible:

Joel 2:32 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered…

I hit pause and just started speaking aloud to myself, to God, admitting I was a sinner, that I needed help, and expressed belief in Christ’s sacrifice for my forgiveness. Calling out that I believed that Christ suffered and died for me, through which I would be forgiven my sins.

I felt a literal weight lifted from my chest, and I knew something significant had happened. After some conversations about it, I later realized that I had been saved at that moment—a gift I could never repay.

Romans 3:23-24 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.

As I write this, I am just past the first anniversary of that memorable day when I trusted Christ. It would be nice to say I have had no problems since that day, but life, even with salvation, still has good and bad days. But having faith in God and the Gift of His Son makes handling those bad days easier. Despite my sorrow and loneliness, this year has had many good moments. I’ve met people who are like family to me now. People who have helped me grow and learn about my faith.

There were also hard times; not knowing if my spouse would be in heaven or not was a hard thought for me to overcome. There is some solace in knowing she had beliefs and that I don’t know what her thoughts and beliefs were in the end, but I know I will be at peace in heaven.

Revelation 21:4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Because of being saved later in life than many others, I sometimes feel like I’m spiritually “behind” where I should be. But despite the tragic loss and deep sorrow that prompted my search for God, it has brought me to faith in Christ and my eternal salvation. I’m profoundly thankful for the grace God has towards us all.

Your Only Way to God

Though I tend to be a very reserved person, I pray that this opportunity to share My Journey to Christ publicly on this website might be a blessing to others who still have no peace and have not experienced the joy of having their sins forgiven and having a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Poem and sketch

by Marc MacArthur 2024