As I reflected on working in a Teen Challenge Youth Emergency Accommodation Shelter, I began to realize that in serving others, I too had been greatly served. I didn't work at the shelter to receive blessings or any such thing. My understanding was that I worked there to help others less fortunate than I, in obedience to God's will for my life. But I did get blessed. Abundantly! It's a spiritual dynamic that when we serve others, we are also served. As I served the homeless youth in Brisbane, Australia, God served me through those very same homeless teenagers. The lives and issues I faced were used by God to grow and mature me as a Christian. Without knowing it themselves, different residents were used by God to speak to my heart and teach me his ways. It came through reminders of God's grace toward me in my adolescent years. I gained insights on how to grow the ministry using scriptural leadership principles. I also saw the power of prayer in action. God used all those things, and…

My walk with God has been marked with real life-changing encounters initiated by God. Little by little God transformed my heart, and I was renewed by what I call "inside miracles." In the twinkling of an eye, God worked miracles in my heart that set me free from bondage and sin. These were significant deliverances and turning points in my spiritual growth as God quite simply and profoundly stepped into areas of my life that he needed to deal with. In my ignorance, God met with me and renewed my life. This is the story of an ignorant person who God deemed relevant to touch and set free in specific life areas in his way and in his time, from miraculous salvation experiences to dealing with me step-by-step over an approximate thirty-year period and finally setting me free from the deep dark dog of depression. It is a book to encourage hanging in there with your Christian walk and to highlight that, by the grace of God and in his time, there can be deliverance, freedom, and renewal.