Chapter 3 — Raised Up Into Freedom

2 Corinthians 5:17 (KJV): “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; and behold, all things are become new”

September 2023 feels like a lifetime ago when I consider how much has shifted in just two years. Something in me was changing — not in a dramatic, cinematic way, but in a quiet, undeniable one. The life I had lived until that point felt motionless, almost stale, yet suddenly there was a momentum pulling me forward. I didn’t know where it was leading, but for the first time in years, everything felt right.

The Prophet eventually returned to his native country, but before he left, I spent a month attending two services a week in London. What I witnessed there reshaped my understanding of what was possible. Prophecies. Healings. Things I can only describe as miracles. My analytical brain fought to understand it, but this was no trick, no performance, no illusion. Each prophecy came with evidence. Each healing came with proof. Each moment chipped away at disbelief and strengthened the faith I was only just beginning to discover. I needed to know this God — truly know Him.

So, I began reading the Bible. And that first reading? It was hard. There were moments I closed it, overwhelmed, ready to give up. But I kept going. Some stories were familiar from childhood books or films — Moses parting the sea, the feeding of the 5,000, Joseph and his famous coat. Hearing the Prophet’s teachings in my mind helped the words come alive, and slowly, something clicked. I began to enjoy it.

The Prophet also had a catalogue of YouTube services, and I listened to them religiously. Even on days when I couldn’t connect live, I’d replay old ones. His teaching was powerful; his singing even more so. His worship songs became the soundtrack of my days — at home, and on the tube travelling to work.

As my understanding of God grew, so did my desire to live according to His word. I gave up alcohol. And then came my own miracle: after forty years of being a committed, professional smoker, I gave that up too. September 2024 marked the first time in four decades that I was free from it.

That same month should have broken me.

My father had recently passed away. And then — without warning — I was made redundant from a job to which I had given everything.

Anyone who read Setting the Scene, Part 2 will know how deeply regret wounded me after my father’s death. I had caused him pain. I had disappointed him. And dementia stole the chance to speak to him, to apologise, to reconcile in the way I longed for. The weight of that regret was suffocating.

And yet… his passing was strangely beautiful. He left this world exactly how he would have chosen — on his terms, not under the constant care he despised. In the weeks that followed, something unexpected happened. I felt closer to him than I ever had while he was alive. I found myself speaking to him constantly. And I felt comfort — real comfort — knowing he was with God, and that one day I would see him again.

Without God, I don’t know how I would have survived that grief. The shame, the guilt, the memories of all the things I had done… it would have consumed me. But as God forgave me, I knew my earthly father had too. That peace changed everything.

So with all this happening — loss, redundancy, upheaval — I say again: September 2024 should have been one of the most stressful months of my life.

But it wasn’t.

It was the beginning of something new. The kind of beginning only God can orchestrate. September, once again, brought its familiar theme: renewal. And suddenly, I had freedom — not the worldly kind I had chased for years, but the kind that comes from God alone.

Freedom. Just as I wrote in Setting the Scene, Part 2. It remains the most powerful emotion I have ever felt. We spend our lives chasing it — through work, money, love, status — yet the freedom I found was in one place: in my God and King, who gave me peace, love, and the sense of belonging I had longed for my entire life.

And so, I made plans to travel to the small Asian island where my grandparents lived, where my father was born, and where the Prophet had returned. With the next chapter, I will tell the story of this last year — how the journey that began with my salvation prayer in 2023 led to my baptism in 2024, and how God raised me up in ways I never could have imagined.

Until then, dear Readers ………….. All Glory Goes to God