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How God Healed the Pain of a Horrific Childhood

by | Mon, Jun 8 2020

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Abused child
Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

As a teenager, Mark Johnston attempted suicide dozens of times. Even drugs couldn’t numb the emotional pain he bore from his horrific childhood. Now he’s director of the drug rehabilitation centre where he got clean. His incredible transformation, of course, began with the intervention of his heavenly Father.

When his parents divorced, Mark’s biological father wanted nothing to do with him. So he looked to his mother’s new partner for fatherly affection. But his stepfather had been scarred by an abusive upbringing, and grew increasingly violent and unstable.

[audio src="https://getmediapoint.com/document/episode/podcast/MDAwMTUwMDU4Mi5tcDM.mp3" /]

“I just glued to him, and looked to him for everything,” Mark told Vision’s Eric Skatebo. “And it was really sad, because I’d be always getting mixed messages from him. He’d love me one moment, but then the next thing you know it was almost like he’d reject me.”

Mark remembers his childhood as a series of horrific images. He couldn’t remember what happened when, but even worse than his own suffering was witnessing his mother subjected to her partner’s repeated violent attacks.

He ended up going to prison, because the police caught him suffocating my Mum with a pillow.

His sense of betrayal hadn’t just come from his stepfather. He remembers his Nan’s husband beating him viciously with a pool cue, while his uncle in the next room did nothing. “I just had a bunch of belligerent insecure addicts and alcoholics around me. I felt isolated. I felt abandoned. I felt lonely. I felt helpless and powerless in every situation.”

For a while, he was able to control these feelings through drugs. “When you’re on acid, you feel great. When you’re on speed, you feel high. When you’re on heroin or morphine, it sort of makes you feel comfortable and at peace.”

But soon enough, the police were attending to deal with him as often as they had for his stepfather. “I remember the day my Mum said that she loved me, and I grabbed a knife. Apparently she said I threatened to kill her first, I don’t remember it. But then I turned around and cut halfway through my arm with a knife, because of the internal pain I was feeling. I just could not get rid of the pain.”

Mark Johnston

Finally, after years of suicide attempts, violence, and drug-induced delirium, his mother sent him to a Christian family in Sydney. It was there that, in desperation, he first picked up the Bible. He knew so little about it that he initially thought he was reading “the book of psalms”. But around Psalm 72, he suddenly saw a face in the Bible.

“And I felt His eyes. I felt His face looking at me, as though someone would be up in front of your face. And the words didn’t jump off the page. I actually had a person speak the words off the page to me, personally, from His own heart.”

“I’m going to rescue you from oppression, violence and fraud,” God told him, “because your blood is precious in my sight.” That encounter completely changed the course of his life. From that point on, every moment of spare time he had was dedicated to reading the Word. No one ever needed to encourage him to pick up a Bible again.

“The addict, they pick up drugs, and take as much as they can, when they can and how they can. Well that’s what I did with the Bible. I was just ravenous. I was so hungry for the truth. I was so hungry to know more about what that person said to me.”

At one point, even Mark’s own mother didn’t believe he could ever recover. She waited fearfully at home for the phone call telling her he was dead. But though his struggle wasn’t over, God, in one stroke, saved him from his agony, with the love he’d never known from his father figures here on Earth.

Listen to Mark Johnston’s conversation with Eric Skatebo for a lot more about Mark’s childhood, his recovery, and how he eventually ended up running the rehab centre where he’d gotten clean.

[audio src="https://getmediapoint.com/document/episode/podcast/MDAwMTUwMDU4Mi5tcDM.mp3" /]

You can also read more about how God transformed him and healed his pain, in his book, Marked by Mercy, a powerful reminder that no situation is too difficult for God. It’s available to buy from our store.

Tune into The Story on Vision for true testimonies from extraordinary people. Click here for your local times.

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