I had a broken heart, not just from relationships but also from disappointments in life. If I saw a woman with everything going on, all the men wanted her; if she was beautiful, you know, and had all the attention, I would target her out. I would make it look like I cared about her, make her feel nice, maybe a certain way that nobody else had, and then project that onto her and make her feel the same way somebody else made me feel.<\/p>\n
![\""I](\"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/08\/Screenshot-2024-08-29-at-6.27.14\u202fPM-184x300.png\")
I had a click of guys I used to run around with and do drugs and extort people. I had five or six jobs and was fired from every single one of them. One time, a lady threw ice at my eye, and I picked up a bunch of plates and threw it at her. I would grab people and pin them up against the wall. I was carrying a lot inside of me.<\/p>\n
A friend, who I used to stay over in his house, his father was a pastor, and they used to bring me to their church on Sundays. I had this desire to know God. But one day, when we were inside that church, the older brother of the pastor came inside, and he had a bag, and he gave it to me. I went to the bathroom, and they were like, make sure that you drink it all because it will know if you put it in the toilet or threw it away.<\/p>\n
![\""I](\"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2024\/08\/Screenshot-2024-08-29-at-6.28.52\u202fPM-131x300.png\")
So, I ended up drinking all the alcohol. Actually, I think that was my first encounter with drinking. That\u2018s when I really started to drink. And then I would go over to my sister\u2018s house, and she was an alcoholic, smoke weed, smoke cigarettes. And I used to get high from five in the morning till midnight.<\/p>\n
I used to just be smoking weed. I met a friend of mine, and she would always come to me and just testify and give me a word of encouragement because she\u2018d seen something inside of me that wasn\u2018t happy.<\/p>\n
I would open myself up, and I would start to want more and more to know more and more. So I asked around for a Bible, and one of my friends ended up giving me a Bible. I started to read the whole thing, and things just started to change.<\/p>\n
Eventually, she introduced me to The Universal Church.<\/a><\/span> I made my Chain of Prayer<\/a><\/span> for deliverance. I was there every Friday. I didn\u2018t miss one Friday. Sometimes even there five days a week, you know, strong. And the pastors push you to continuously use your faith. If you have a problem, you sit down and talk with them. They talk to you.<\/p>\n The first result I noticed was just my mind, you know, my body, emotions, everything was just much, much lighter.<\/p>\n When I would go around from church to church, I would see people \u201cspeaking in tongues\u201d and \u201cprophesying\u201d. But then I would look at all the evil and suffering in their lives. I knew there was more to it. I knew something wasn\u2018t right. So when I came to The Universal Church, they helped me to understand that it\u2018s more about your representation than putting on a show.<\/p>\n It took time, but I had to empty myself of everything: evil thoughts, anger, pride, the love of life, everything. I had to empty myself. The day I received the Holy Spirit, it was like a relief that God had really loved me and had forgiven me for all the stuff I\u2018d done. And it\u2018s like my greatest accomplishment.<\/p>\n It was like a student studying and studying in order to graduate. And I had felt at that moment that I graduated. I was just happy. I was telling everybody, \u201dI received the Holy Spirit. I received the Holy Spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n After I received the Holy Spirit, I stopped living based on emotions. Now, I just live by faith in the Word of God. I don\u2018t do schemes. I don\u2018t rob people anymore. I don\u2018t take people\u2018s money. I don\u2018t try to deceive or manipulate people. I don\u2018t have the desire to drink or smoke or do any of that stuff anymore.<\/p>\n Before, I was angry, broken, and hurt, and I wanted to give others what I had. But now, being in The Universal Church, receiving the Holy Spirit, and living for God, I also want to give people what I have, but in a positive way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u2014Gino Mazzie<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I had a broken heart, not just from relationships but also from disappointments in life. If I saw a woman with everything going on, all the men wanted her; if she was beautiful, you know, and had all the attention, I would target her out. I would make it look like I cared about her, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":342034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6063,20],"tags":[282],"site":[],"class_list":["post-341784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-transformation","category-real-life-stories","tag-addiction"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/248"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341784"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":342098,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341784\/revisions\/342098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341784"},{"taxonomy":"site","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/universalchurchusa.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/site?post=341784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}