BOB TETREAULT'S
STORY
BEFORE COVERSION
(Bob Tetreault, appx. 1976) | As I was getting out of high school in 1972, I was searching for direction for my life. I was a drinking, doping, shiftless hippie, yet I picked up a Bible and read that everything man does is vanity and a waste if it's not done God's way and for God1. As that sank in, I slowly began to lose interest in the parties, bars, and rock and roll. Even watching TV began to lose its attraction as I was stung by the hollowness of all these things. About that time someone invited me to a Bible study. I heard how Jesus said that if you hate or insult someone, you've committed murder in God's eyes and are worthy of Hell. If you look on a woman to lust after her, you've already committed adultery with her in your heart2. I heard that God said the human "heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked"3. All this hit home and I saw it was true of my own heart. I realized I was very guilty of many sins before God. I also heard that in spite of my offensiveness to God, He somehow loved me very much4. |
Over the next several years I tried to change and better myself, but always failed. I was a nice guy with some good points, but pride, cowardice, selfishness, lust and deceit were part of my basic nature. I could not shake them. My sense of sinfulness deepened with time. One morning I read God's promise in the Bible, "...Ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them."5 That gave me great hope, yet it somehow seemed far too good to be true. |
I was 25 years old in 1980 and was working as a schoolteacher. One night that winter I heard that a teenage boy had just hung himself off a nearby bridge. Later that night I was alone on a beach, in turmoil and torment. I felt that I, too, had no good excuse to go on living. I cried out, "Lord Jesus, I'm a mess! You're the only one who can help me. I don't know what you want, but just make it plain to me and I'll gladly do it. But, please fix me!" When I woke up the next morning my heart was filled with peace. I had a confidence before God, a reason to live, and a hope beyond death. I immediately began to attend a nearby church. There I learned that God could fully accept me and forgive me because Jesus had suffered and died to pay for all my sinfulness, then he rose again from the dead. Since then Jesus has been my Boss and my Best Friend. He has taught me that if I seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, all that I'll ever need will be taken care of.6 He's given me loving brothers and sisters in His family, and the best wife I could ever imagine. And He has prepared a beautiful home for me when I leave this temporary life to be with Him forever. | 
AFTER 1980 CONVERSION
(Bob Tetreault, appx. 2004) |
-- Bob Tetreault
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1. Ecclesiastes. 2. Matthew 5:22,28
3. Jeremiah 17:9
4. Romans 5:6-10 5. Ezekiel. 36:25-27
6. Matthew. 6:33
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