 So my name is Thomas Reif. I was born and raised in Columbus, Ohio. I was born into a very drug-addicted family, generations of drug addiction, and my mother and father were both addicted to drugs. My dad was in and out of prison through my childhood. I just had a very violent, a very traumatic childhood growing up. Eventually I would be placed into foster care with my brother and my sister, and that would end up being a lot more trauma, a lot more violence that it just seemed to follow me through my childhood. At the age of 14, I would be adopted by my mother, Susan. That was a lot better. It seemed like at that time I was pulled out of a very violent environment and placed into a loving home. It still wasn't a Christian home. Throughout my childhood and throughout middle school and high school, I never really thought about God. He just wasn't, simply wasn't on my radar. Now after high school, I went off and I joined the military and I met my wife, Ashley, and right before my deployment to Afghanistan, we got engaged. I went off and I deployed to Afghanistan in 2012. Now, while we were in Afghanistan, it was a mild combat deployment. I did lose my really good friend, Cody Suggs, while we were overseas, and that just took a piece of my heart when he died. I came home and I just struggled with a lot of emotions, a lot of things that I didn't know how to really deal with, a lot of anger. I was just a different person. For me, I thought it was normal just like everyone else that returned from a deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq. It was just a normal part of life. I continued on with life and I kind of just shoved it down. I didn't really think a whole lot of it. I always had this dream. I had a dream of becoming a police officer and eventually to become an narcotics detective. That was my goal in life from a very young age after seeing what drug addiction had done to my family. I got hired by a department in Southern Oregon in 2014 and I achieved my dream. I quickly fell in love with the job and I devoted every ounce of my life to becoming the best police officer that I could be. And throughout my career, I experienced a lot of violence again. I worked in a very violent town, Klamath Falls, Oregon, and there were a lot of homicides. I had to investigate a lot of murders, a lot of fatal car accidents, suicides, child deaths, just a lot of really traumatic things that we would have to investigate, these types of things. It really started to have an effect on me. It started hearted my heart and I would come home and I didn't have any emotions. I didn't know how to feel anymore. I was angry all the time. I was having a hard time sleeping. I was having a hard time concentrating and just focusing and it really started to have an effect when I started to have nightmares and I eventually started to have flashbacks and I would hear kids crying and screaming and I just couldn't get through these emotions and these things that I was feeling and the position that I was in, I had to hide it. I had to keep it a secret. I had to cope with it without letting anyone know. In a way, I did that. I started using alcohol like many combat veterans and first responders do, just to kind of shove down the emotions, to kind of shove down everything that I was feeling. And eventually that didn't work anymore and I started using drugs and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that drugs and being a police officer don't mix very well. I was now a narcotics detective working on a drug team and I got called out to do surveillance one night and I went to the police department and removed what I believed to be cocaine from the evidence locker and I used it and at the time I didn't realize but it was actually 99% pure fentanyl and I had taken enough probably to kill a couple hundred people. The last thing I remember of that night was waking up in the hospital. I was later told that I overdosed, near fatal overdose on the fentanyl. I crashed my detective vehicle and this is where God really intervened into my life. At the time of this crash I was an atheist. I didn't even believe in God. I actually had to argue with Christians as to why God didn't exist and at the time of my crash an ambulance was in the intersection and stopped, loaded me up in the back, rushed me to the hospital that was 10 minutes away and the doctor said if that ambulance hadn't have been there I would have 100% died. Now when I woke up in the hospital I had my lieutenant and sergeant and all these doctors standing around me and I knew that my life had just come crashing down. I knew that nothing was ever going to be the same. I always had a plan for this moment and it was that I was going to commit suicide if this ever came out and that was my plan. I planned as soon as I left the hospital to go home and commit suicide and I went home and all I could think about was the shame and the guilt and the devastation that I caused to my wife and my kids and the people that I had worked with. No one knew that I was struggling like this and I knew inside that this was all going to come out that my secrets of using drugs and struggling with PTSD was going to be a big deal and a few days later my one of my really good friends with the Oregon State Police he came to my house with his pastor and the first thing he said to me was Thomas I'm concerned that if you would have died you would have went to hell and I remember just sitting there thinking about the reality of that and he told me that Thomas I've come because I want to introduce you to God and I remember telling him I said Austin God can't help me I've made a lot of mistakes I've made too many mistakes God can't help me through this and I remember him and his pastor just shared the gospel with me and they said Thomas God loves you it doesn't matter what you've done it doesn't matter the mistakes that you've made God still loves you and he has a plan for your life and he has a purpose and I remember sitting there and I'm like okay well I don't believe that awesome but thank you for coming over and he left and the next day I remember just I couldn't help but think that I needed to figure out who God was I had this burning desire inside of me that I couldn't explain and I became obsessed with trying to figure out who God was and this continued for a few months I would go on to to complete a military Christian program for combat veterans and at that at that time I completely surrendered my life to God and I said Lord if you can reveal yourself to me if you can change my life it is yours and things were still hard I still had to deal with the consequences of my sin the consequences of my actions and I would eventually go on to commit suicide or attempt to commit suicide which led me to being in a military hospital for two months he used this time in the hospital to transform my heart to to give me a heart of flesh to renew my mind and and this was two months where I got to to spend with him and I got to study his word and I got to learn how to be more like Jesus and and how to to follow Jesus and through this I remember waking up one morning it was about five a.m. and I actually woke up and I was just filled with guilt and shame and and this had this heaviness on my heart and at the exact same time I was filled with with this light and I remember it was like a light from heaven just entered into my chest and I was filled with the spirit and and at the time I didn't knew you know what this meant and I and I started to speak in another language that I couldn't understand after about a half hour it stopped and I was sitting there and I knew it was from God I knew that whatever had just happened was from the Lord and he led me to Acts chapter 2 and I began reading where the disciples were in the upper room and they were baptized in the Holy Spirit and everything that had happened in Acts chapter 2 had happened to me and at that moment I remember just sitting there and I was crying and I and I just thought oh my gosh he really is who he says he is and everything changed from that moment forward I remember my wife I called the doctor and she thought I was going crazy and the doctor actually thought I was going crazy but after a little while I was I was no longer on medication I no longer struggled with PTSD I no longer struggled with nightmares or insomnia I was completely healed and delivered from everything in the blink of an eye and after I was released in the hospital I realized that I was called the full-time ministry and I started pursuing full-time ministry and through that the Lord crossed paths with Teen Challenge and I was offered a position to be the director of Adult and Teen Challenge in Tri-Cities I'm now in full-time ministry like I said as the director of Adult and Teen Challenge and and what I have to say though is if you're sitting here today if you're watching this video and you're thinking to yourself that you know I've made some mistakes like that I've destroyed my life maybe you have a broken marriage or you don't see your kids or maybe you're in drug addiction or maybe you're you're simply you're a professional when you made some mistakes and you've destroyed your life but I want to tell you today that Jesus does have a plan for you that God has a plan so I'd invite you today if that's you I'd invite you just to repeat after me Father we thank you we thank you for dying on the cross Jesus for giving us the opportunity to have a new life for rising again on the third day Lord I invite you into my heart to be the the Lord and Savior of my life I invite you to take complete control of my life I surrender my life to you and I thank you so much for being my Savior in Jesus name