Meet Tom
​I am the third eldest of eight children, born and brought up in Worcester, I never felt close to my parents or my brothers and sisters. When I was at Grammar school I started drinking alcohol, which turned me from being bullied into being the bully. This led on to violent behaviour and being expelled from school aged 14 and running away from home to Wales.
At 16 I joined the army much to my father's angst as he was an ex-Navy man. I slotted in very well but still felt different to others, which was recognised by my superiors and they utilized my violence and aggression by asking me to join a specialist part of the armed forces. This is a whole chapter in itself and some of the things contained therein would not make appropriate reading. Alcohol and drugs were freely and readily available, and were used by myself and my colleagues to block out some of the things we were ordered to do.
After 14 years I came out of the armed forces, and worked in the car industry, once again I was quite successful but alcohol and drugs once again played a major part in my life. I recognised the need for help and my company paid for me to go into the priory clinic, I stayed clean and sober for a short while but as entertaining clients was part of my job I found staying off alcohol very difficult. Around this time my marriage broke up which led to my final period of drink and drugs. I finally reached rock bottom and in a moment of madness (or was it?) I threw away all my drink and drugs. This led to me going cold turkey, which again is another story in itself, where I was tormented by the DT's. For the first time I reached out to God, with very little understanding and prayed for a miracle. I thought no miracle had taken place ( but here I am 20 years later sharing this with you ) I reached out to a friend in AA, who helped me bathe and fed me soup and looked after me until I was strong enough to look after myself.
I resigned from my position at the company I worked for, needing a complete change of job, moved to Birmingham and started working at a nursing home. Because of the travelling distance I moved to work in another Nursing home where I met Jen, she took me along to her church, where I was introduced to Jesus. I realised that God would forgive me of my sin and after confessing all to God was filled with the Holy Spirit. The following year I married Jen, we went on to have a daughter called Sarah who we sadly lost when she was 7 months old. Throughout this time I knew the Lord walking side by side with me and because of the strength he gave me I was able to support my wife. Another year passed by and God answered our prayers and we were blessed with a healthy baby boy! He's now a wonderful young man of God. The Lord has wonderfully provided for us as a family in all that we needed to move to Leicester over a decade ago, unexpectedly giving me a job at Pilgrim homes. The final blessing has been finding Life Church.