Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Snapshot Testimony podcast. I'm your host, Ali Domercant.
In this podcast, I ask my guests to share one
pivotal moment that helped shape their faith in Christ. In
this episode, you'll meet Dexter, a husband and father. His
life was radically changed two years ago on what started
out as a regular Monday morning. It started with his
(00:20):
sitting in the car listening to Moody Radio, and culminated
with a powerful encounter with God in his living room
that broke a 21 year battle with alcoholism. This is
one of these stories that just gets you excited and
reminds you that there's nothing impossible with God. Here's a
snapshot testimony from Dexter.
S2 (00:47):
I was take actually, I was taking my wife to work, actually, um,
she has to be at work at five in the morning,
so I had to get up early, so I dropped.
I had dropped her off that morning, and I was
I had already came back, but I was just sitting
in the car listening to Moody Radio. So I just
to give you a little backstory. So I work for
the railroad. So yeah. So I'm constantly listening to Moody Radio. So.
(01:10):
And you guys were on that morning.
S1 (01:12):
Okay. Carl and crew.
S2 (01:14):
Mornings. Yes. I was just sitting in my car listening.
And Carl, you know, sometimes he he just feel prompted
by the Holy Spirit as he says, to, to do
certain things. And he prayed that morning he just to,
to get people to give their lives to Christ. Mhm.
S1 (01:29):
Do you remember specifically anything that you heard Carl say
that day.
S2 (01:34):
He was just making a plea for guys for, for
people to just really consider giving your life to the Lord,
like like stop. What? Like he was like he got serious.
He was already serious. But he said, I feel prompted
by the Holy Spirit to just let's just stop for
a moment. I can't remember what you guys were discussing,
but he was like, just, just pray. Just seriously think
(01:56):
about where you're at in your life and give your
consider giving your life to the Lord. And if you would,
would you say this prayer with me? Wow. So and
I was in my car and I said it because
I was working for the railroad. I'm constantly on the
road and I'm away from home and I'm in hotels.
So when I got this job, I just saw like
the monetary value of it, like it's a good job,
(02:18):
but obviously like that's, it's it's it's it's funny. It
is crazy to me how the Lord works in mysterious ways. Like, yes,
he blessed me with this job, but it wasn't just
about the monetary value that he had for me and mine.
So when I was when I'm in the hotel, I'm alone,
like I said, so what am I going to do here?
(02:40):
So I started reading my Bible again. So I would
read my Bible and work out and that was all
that I would do.
S1 (02:47):
So this was prior to hearing on the radio.
S2 (02:50):
Yes, ma'am. Okay.
S1 (02:52):
So the seeds were already starting to be.
S2 (02:54):
Yes. Yes, ma'am. So I would just read my Bible,
but when I would come home, I would fallen back to,
you know, just being Dexter. Just my drinking. I started
drinking when I was 15 years old in high school. So.
And then it like I'm 36 now. For 21 years
of my life I have been just a functioning alcoholic,
(03:15):
as they say. Just yeah, I could go to work,
but when I get off work, if I didn't have
anything to do, I was going to drink. You know,
I couldn't drive nowhere. My wife, my kids want to
go somewhere. Well, daddy's drunk on the couch. He can't
go nowhere. Wow. So? So I would. And when I
get on the road and when I'm away, I would
get back into the word. So I asked her. I said, Lord,
(03:35):
why can't I put the two together? Like, why do
I fall in this, this comfort zone when I get home?
And he didn't say nothing right away. I just kept
doing it. But when I got home that day.
S1 (03:47):
So we're back now to the that morning when you
heard Carl make.
S2 (03:50):
That, it was that weekend. I have four sisters, so
two of them were in town. For some reason. I
had the weekend off. I can't even think to this
moment like, why was I even off that weekend? Because
I didn't plan for it. It's just this it it's
the Lord at work. So I'm like, I just took
the opportunity. Like, I'm gonna spend some time with my sisters.
They came to my house and I said and got
(04:12):
drunk in my living room. I drank in my living
room like Ali I got. So if I can, ma'am,
I don't. This is it. It's okay. Speak honestly, like
I said, and I got a huge bottle and we
sit and drink. Like I got so intoxicated that I
even forgot the bottle was there. Wow. So the next
the next day, I went to the liquor store again
(04:36):
and just repeated the process so that come here comes
Monday morning when my wife had to be at work.
And so this goes to me sitting in the car
and listening to you guys calling crew in the morning.
So I prayed that prayer. So I'm walking into my
house now and I'm like, I need to charge my phone.
I'm gonna watch TV in my living room and there's
(04:57):
a socket behind my couch. So I pull the socket
at the couch out to, you know, plug my phone in,
and my foot hit something, and I looked down. I said, man,
what is this? And there was that bottle that I
got I forgot about And like I can hear him.
It was no words spoken, but I could hear him, like,
(05:20):
just as plain as you talking to me now. Like
I could hear it. But if that makes sense. Like
I couldn't is there was no sound. And he just said,
pour it out. Wow. Because it was still a lot
in it. So I took I picked it up and
I went into the kitchen and poured down the drain.
And he said, that bottle that's under the sink. Pour
(05:43):
it out to it. Mhm. Like and I'm, I just,
I just pour it out and that, that was the
last day that I ever touched alcohol. Like I haven't
had a desire, I haven't had a any notion or
anything like really because I had tried to quit before,
you know, because like I said, I'd been drinking for
(06:04):
20 some years of my life and I would tell
my wife, like, I'm going to quit. And she just,
you know, after a while, it the people that's around you,
they know you better than you want to know yourself.
So yeah, she was like, okay, whatever.
S1 (06:22):
I'll believe it when I see it.
S2 (06:23):
Yes. So I go to pick her up. That day
when she got off, she was like, she got in
the car because alcohol comes out of your skin, your pores.
And she was like, have you been drinking? I said, no.
I said, babe, I'm done drinking. And she just laughed.
She said, okay, how long this one's gonna last till
you get paid again. Mm. But I knew in my
(06:45):
heart I knew like this. This ain't the same thing, babe.
Like this is not on my own power. I know
what I felt like I know what I heard. Yeah,
but I didn't say that to her, but I just,
I just knew, like, nah, this ain't this ain't that time. Yeah.
This is, this is really different. And that, that would be.
It would be two years this coming July. Wow. Like,
(07:06):
the Lord has really dramatically just changed my life in
a in a dramatic way. And I, I work with
guys on the train from all over, you know, and I've,
I've been like, I prayed to ask the Lord to
help me or to present me with opportunities so I
can because I'm, I'm I'm excited. Like, I'm like a
kid in a candy store. So I want to tell
(07:28):
people about, like, what he's done for me.
S3 (07:30):
So yeah.
S2 (07:31):
I talked to guys and he just put me in
like situations or put guys around me or people around
me that either whatever they're going through in their life,
I had been through it, or I had some connection
with it and some type of way where I can, like,
minister to them and tell them about the love of
(07:52):
Christ and and tell them, like what he's done for me,
like how he how he set me free. Even when
I talked to this guy, I met this, this, this, uh,
police officer, and we were just talking, and he said, uh,
he had to let me know that he was used
to be an alcoholic. I said, man, I used to
be one, too. He said, oh, really? I said, yeah,
(08:12):
but I, I let Jesus Christ help me because I
couldn't do it on my own, man. I couldn't, I couldn't,
I couldn't do it on my own. And he just
looked at me like, really? I said, yeah, man, I
had for 20 some years of my life, man, I've
been an alcoholic. I just, I couldn't travel, I couldn't
do it on my own. And I said, I said, man,
I had to have the Lord take it from me
(08:32):
because it wasn't. It wasn't doing me any good. And
I had told, told my brother, I said, man, I
was giving, I was giving Satan the best years of
my life and he wasn't giving me anything in return.
S1 (08:45):
That's a true statement.
S2 (08:47):
Like he wasn't giving me anything and and I was
telling I was ministering to this guy. I'm like, that's
how he deceives us, man. He he shows us these
things and put these things before us. But he don't
give $0.02 about us. He don't, he don't he don't
care where we end up or how the choices that
he influences us to make. He don't care what the
(09:07):
outcome is and how it affects us and the love
us around us. Because even my children, I have a
my daughter, she's a senior now. She'll be 18 in
a couple months. And my oldest son, he's 16, and
they can just see the transformation that the Lord has
done in me. And that was that's Ali. That's one
of the biggest things to me.
S3 (09:28):
Yeah.
S2 (09:28):
Like, like to be an example as a God fearing
man to my children first, first and foremost at home,
because the Bible says, if a man can lead his household,
how can he lead anybody else?
S1 (09:42):
Because I'm sure it's more than just the alcohol. I mean,
as they've seen your transformation, obviously the drinking was a
big part of it. But your different husband, you're a
different dad.
S3 (09:53):
Like.
S2 (09:53):
Me and my wife are so close, like me and
my wife. We actually met in high school. We've been
together since we were freshmen in high school.
S3 (10:01):
Wow.
S2 (10:02):
So this year, actually, since we started talking, it'll be
this November 12th. It'll be 22 years.
S3 (10:10):
That's awesome.
S2 (10:11):
We've been married for eight years. This. This, uh, June 15th.
So she's like, when I say we grew up together
in every sense of the word, we actually grown together. But, yeah,
she She's been dealing with so much, and I was
being such a strain and such a burden. But the
Lord has brought us together like we're closer than we've
(10:33):
ever been. Praise God like I thank the Lord for
what he's what he's done in my marriage. Like, yeah,
it was more. It was the alcohol. It was. It
was pornography. It was me committing adultery. It was. It
was all these things that I had been doing and
have been basically just destroying. Destroying my family from, you know,
(10:56):
from the inside. Just not not worrying about not caring
about it, you know, not giving any thought to how
it's affecting my, my marriage and my children, how my
children see their dad. And when you're in an addiction
state or when you when you're so wrapped up in sin,
you don't you don't have no, you don't care about
how it affects those who see you or those that's
(11:18):
in your household. Because my your children, our children, I
don't know if you have kids. I think you say
you have kids on the show. I have two.
S3 (11:24):
Kids.
S2 (11:25):
So. And they soak up more than what we think
they do.
S1 (11:28):
You know, the ways that my kids are similar to
me and my husband are so funny. I mean, the
like my the way they walk like little like my
daughter plays basketball like people always like she plays just
like her dad. Like they move the same.
S3 (11:41):
I'm like, it's not a.
S1 (11:42):
Play, it's not planned.
S3 (11:44):
But it's. Yeah.
S1 (11:45):
When you're around, they they pick up the good and
the bad, right?
S2 (11:49):
Yes, ma'am. So and like I said, I grew up
in foster care, so. And my parents weren't married. So
I grew up in, in an ever changing environment like.
S3 (11:58):
Yeah.
S2 (11:59):
But I remember like the families that that the men
in my life that I did see, it was men
that were raised in the church or that that took
us to church, like they kept us in the Lord's house.
And then as the Lord began to change my life
and work in my life, now I can. My son
(12:19):
just got saved. This past Sunday. My 17 year old
son just got saved this past Sunday. So that just
that goes to show like when when we when that
like for me speaking when I actually let the Lord
in my life what he always wanted me to do.
Just just let me in and I will. I will
bring everything together. I will, I will do it. It's
(12:42):
not going to be how I wanted it to, but
it's going to work better than I could have ever imagined.
And like, it's so my my daughter, she just she
has a phone. We all have the Bible app on
our phone.
S3 (12:55):
That's awesome.
S2 (12:55):
But she went the next step. She went and got
a physical Bible, okay. And ordered highlighters. So now she's
highlighting scriptures in the word like and it's it's I'm
so happy. Like it's God has been doing an amazing
thing in my in my life and it's been it's
been an amazing ride so far and I know it's
going to continue to get better.
S1 (13:15):
Thank you so much for hanging with me for this
week's snapshot testimony. If you enjoyed Dexter's story, please take
a quick moment to leave a review. Your feedback really helps.
Stories like this one reach more ears. I'm your host,
Ali Dumersan, and together we're sharing the moments that shape
a life of faith in Christ. Thanks for listening.