My testimony----

My name is Jeremy Ledgewood. I am a musician who now plays to let people know about how my life has been transformed. I have been a recovering meth addict since May of 2002 & I surrendered my life and music to the Lord in February 2009. I was born with unilateral retinoblastoma & had my eye removed at age 2 (I was told that I wouldn't be able to drive or play sports when I got older & was made fun of for some time in elementary school because of the absence of my right eye). My father growing up was physically and verbally abusive & I leaned on my mother for a great deal for support, encouragement, & guidance. At age 9 I was introduced to marijuana for the first time. I started recreationally smoking at age 15 and by age 17 I was using cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, pills, & steroids on a frequent basis. Just prior to my 18th birthday I was asked to no longer attend church or youth group functions over the break up, funny how Satan works that way. My senior year in high school was a blur. I started experimenting with ecstasy and meth, on top of the other slew of drugs I'd already been accustomed to and had quite the cocaine habit. I’d do anything put in front of me. After graduation I transitioned from being in a small town in the Panhandle to university life in West Texas. I'd already lost a few friends to intoxicated car accidents. On top of the losses I'd gone from being a star athlete in many sports, primarily football, to being nobody on a big campus. By the end of my first semester meth had really started taking its hold of me (I was sleeping on couches and went from buying to getting to selling).I still enrolled (not attended, just enrolled) for my second semester and it wasn't too far into that when I'd had a very close friend of mine pass away (they found him out behind a bar after taking ecstasy deceased in a water run off). That was the turning point. I went from doing drugs to spiraling out of control with them. I'd started living in a trailer house where I lived with a hand full of other people. I started manufacturing & mass distributing meth, as well as, selling and doing a variety of other drugs. Before I knew it I was traveling back and forth between cities to sell and collect profit. I’d stopped caring about anything, really (maybe my family & I didn't really treat them that great). I didn't care about my body or the poison that I sold to so many people- daily. I saw and did numerous horrible, regrettable things. I’d stay up for weeks at a time until I’d be getting up off the couch and my body would just kind of shut down and I’d pass out. Luckily I had a roommate at the time who, although was also on meth, would make me drink some water, eat occasionally & usher me to the shower… I’d loose track of time and sit in the same place for days at a time. I hated myself and started trying to do as many drugs as possible, just trying to die. I moved from Texas to Colorado to Arizona trying to get clean. And I was clean, shortly, in Arizona, relapsed briefly and then relapsed heavily and went on a binge for two weeks. I’d even come to the point where I was going to take my own life. Then, I woke up one day and looked in the mirror… I knew if I didn’t change my life I was going to die. I called my Mom and best friend and went back to Texas, by myself. My best friend had an apartment and a job waiting for me; working in Thermal Remediation, aka- cleaning dirt (after chemical spills). It was truly God in all of this when I didn’t even realize it. I watched dirt go by on a conveyor belt for 12 hour shifts at night. That helped me get my mind back and get past the evening to early morning ritual. Then, I got a job as an aircraft electrician and that helped me get back my fine motor skills. About a year after cleaning up from meth I met my now wife. We weren’t doing meth or pills or hard drugs, really, but there was still the pot and alcohol. She was in college and was still very much accustomed to the life that went along with it. I usually just stayed cooped up in my apartment. We had a rocky start (you know that saying ‘If you love something set it free and if it comes back, it was meant to be?- well, that was the overall view of the beginning of our relationship). But from the moment I met her (and she says the same about me) it was electric. Before we even spoke. It was amazing. A year later Randi and I moved in together and moved closer to Dallas, the partying kind of stepped up for a while. We were closer to the downtown scene and friends in that area, we kind of fell into that life style for a bit. Nothing like my meth days but still blurry all the same. We’d lost twins just after we got married and I think that took more of a toll on her and me than we realized at the time. But life carried on and then another ton of bricks. My dad left my mother after 33 years of marriage for his secretary and just left the state. My mom had never really worked full-time, just always did the mother and house wife gig. I watched the house, her car, and almost everything else she owned slowly get pulled away. My wife and I helped her as much as possible for months until we were out of funds and she had to move in with us. Shortly after her moving in we found out we were expecting, again. Needless to say, things weren’t exactly stress free for a while. But we all got through it some what intact. A little while after our daughter was born my wife started kind of changing. The summer after her birth she went to a women’s Beth Moore, 6 week bible study (her first ever) at the church we’d attended a couple of times a year since we’d moved to Fort Worth. That must have planted a seed in her. Months after the bible study had ended she’d come to me and told me she had been getting up after I’d gone to sleep and doing bible studies on her own. She said God told her to. She showed me journal she had been keeping and the scripture He had been leading her to. It was all sort of surreal hearing this come out her mouth. She wasn’t raised going to church and I didn’t even know if she was really saved at that point. That was the point things started changing, slowly. I’d been mad at God for while for what I said that He was putting my Mom through. But things were changing in the Ledgewood home whether I was ready for it or not. I’m not sure when or what happened but she just came to this point one day where all the things we’d been doing, the way we’d been living and acting was just old hat to her. I think she really had started talking to God and He had started talking back. We started attending church regularly, although I still wasn’t really in it with my heart, just going through the motions. And she really took it all serious- she started serving in the church, going on Wednesdays for additional bible studies, getting dedicated to a Sunday night life group, and even started a new service group for the church. I was there, along side, but just in the physical aspect, not the mental or spiritual really. She was baptized at the end of January 2009 and really went to cloud nine at that point. I’d been fighting God through all of this. Fighting with Him, my music, my creativity, my wife… everything and everyone. I was haphazardly putting together songs and saying that someday I would put together an album. But I couldn’t really create. And then, He was there. I was in the bathroom playing my guitar and singing in the mirror when He told me that He wanted me to play music that glorifies Him.. And I told Him ‘NO!’. For about a month I was running hard from the Lord. I was sitting in the computer room learning a new song that I had to play for the Youth Group (Casting Crowns ‘I Will Praise You in the Storm’) and there He was, again. That’s when I hit my knees and started crying. I promised Him that if He gave me a mountain top to praise His name from - I would… and I am.
From that point forward He has totally taken over. I owe everything to Him. My creativity has poured out tremendously. So much it’s hard to stop sometimes. My marriage has become even greater (and I didn’t think that was possible until I realized what TRUE LOVE really was). We work together now on music and creation projects and God has blessed us in everyway. And I was rededicated and baptized in April 2009 (sometimes I question if I really knew what being saved was before and if I even was). I still mess up but strive not to and I’m ate up with guilt when I let Him down each time. But thank God for His grace and continual cleansing. He has made a time in my life that was so dark into something that has produced true, everlasting fruit. I give thanks to Him for everything. All of this has been from Him and it is all for Him.