Focusing My Life On God Helped Me Heal
Chris knew all too well the pain of heartbreak and loss. So he turned to prayer, and concentrated on doing things for God, to help him truly heal.
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Christopher Beaty: I was really put into a very dark place. My entire life had changed. The anger, the rage that was developing within me at that time…I didn’t know how to react to it. With everything that was going on, it really did make me feel almost worthless.
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My name is Christopher Beaty, I’m [was] born and raised here in Kailua, of O`ahu, Hawai`i, and I’m 29 years old. Growing up in Hawai`i was very simple for me with my family always being able to take care of me and always making sure that I was pretty much provided a good happy life. I never had too much worries on, you know, thinking that anything bad was going to happen to me.
My family always had their beliefs for being Catholic. It was never really about religion in my family, especially growing up. The only thing that they would do would be celebrate Easter or do, like, the Good Friday, Ash Wednesday, kind of stuff.
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Christopher Beaty
I did believe in God, but I didn’t really believe in a religion at the time. There was nothing that really drove me to wanting to become more religious or more faithful.
As soon as I was getting out of high school, I still had my high school sweetheart, who I was pretty much committed to wanting to be with at the time. I was putting myself into the position where I wanted to work for everything, wanted to work for us. And she was the one that felt like I was putting too much time into the work. She would go out to, like, raves, parties. She wanted to be able to enjoy herself for that time period which eventually, was the decision of hers to end up leaving me for someone else. I was really put into a very dark place because the only thing that I had at that time was her. Everything that I had worked on for the amount of years that I was with her was just, all of a sudden, thrown away. There was a point where I had the anger, the rage that was developing within me at that time, just simply because I’ve never had my heart broken the way that I’ve had it. This was so traumatic to my life that I just didn’t know how to react to it. It really did make me feel almost worthless.
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“I’ve Never Heard This Before”
At the time, I didn’t know exactly what I was trying to strive for. I was just working a part-time job. I didn’t really have anything that I was really focused on. I really do feel like it was starting to become more of a problem for me when I realized that I was never able to show that I was going to accomplish anything. I would definitely say the thing that had changed was when I got invited to my first [worship] service. It caught my attention from the very first two lessons that was just talking about how everything was described from the Bible. And everything was only said by what the minister said from the Bible. It was never anything other than that. Every question that he asked for us was answered right then and there, which kind of made me say, “I’ve never heard lessons like this before.” I felt so invited to come to a [worship] service and why it actually felt great to be able to come back to those services.
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Acts 20:28
I was about a month away from being baptized, that I realized that everything that I was putting effort into, I realized I had to put it for a specific thing, which was to show that I do believe in God. But now, give me that reason to also say I do have a religion to respect, as well, and how my love for God started to really develop from that point. The one lesson that broke out to me the most was a service that had the full wraparound on the one big verse, Acts 20:28—talking about the flock how [Christ is] the head of His Church, which is the body.
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“Take heed therefore to yourselves and to all the flock, over which the Holy Spirit has appointed you overseers, to feed the church of Christ which he has purchased with his blood.”
[Acts 20:28 George Lamsa Translation]
Never did I ever hear a lesson that would have made so much more sense. Everything in the Bible actually does come together and give you a bigger picture that made me realize—everything is prophesied. I couldn’t feel more comfortable saying that this Church made me feel like there was no other reason why I needed to listen to another lesson anywhere else. Only in the Church [Of Christ].
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“Most Painful Loss of My Life”
From the point of being baptized in 2013 there was not that much that I would say, really hindered me. It wasn’t until, I would say, 2016, where my entire life had changed. I have to endure with the most painful loss of my life, which was the suicide of my sister. She was always there for me in a way that I was never able to have with other friends. Realizing that I had all these negative things happening to me in my life, I tried to look back to God. Everything that I had learned from prayer was definitely the one thing that helped me get by. Being able to learn how to pray was, in the simplest way, the easiest thing for me to overcome a lot of hardships. I can actually pray and have these words be said to God and understand that He would be listening, as long as I put that time and effort into all the things that I needed to do for Him as well.
When we first received the news about my sister’s passing, it had really took a big toll on my dad, who was as religious as a Protestant could be. He actually had kind of turned away from wanting to pray to God and actually even ask for anything because it almost seemed like he didn’t want to believe in God by that point after losing my sister. My prayers at that time was more for my family. Through those prayers, everything was about healing. Everything was about trying to do something that made myself feel better, even though it was only me talking to God. I never shared much of my prayers with my family. But I never wanted to make sure that they were not a part of my prayers as well.
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Being Prayerful
Being prayerful helped me really get by a lot of the hard times that I had.
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Christopher Beaty
Joined the Church Of Christ in 2013
The one thing that I do believe that was missing out of my life that I never had before. was definitely that feeling of welcoming and care. I was always happy in being able to come to these services knowing that I never had these feelings given to me from friends or anybody that I would hang out with. The sense of knowing that I felt complete and felt more faithful.
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Overflowing Joy
For those people who say that they don’t need to be in a church, or don’t need to do anything more than just believe in God, you can learn these lessons provided in the Bible that will show you exactly why joining this Church is absolutely 100% necessary for you to gain your salvation. It can only be expressed in overflowing joy. And that’s the way that I’ve felt ever since I joined. So I can only hope that the people who may have their own side opinions about it, really put to consideration just listen to some of the lessons. It can be the reason why your whole life changed, just like mine did.
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