A Gift Led to Getting off Road to Destruction

“I was really greedy. I didn't care about anybody. I just cared about having more drugs. I didn't even care about the money. I just wanted more meth.” 

Jeff Tomlinson spent most of his life involved with drugs and crime. When he was young, he had his mind made up about religion. “When I was a child, I thought people that believed in God were kind of foolish,” he says. “I thought it was a lot of nonsense. I never went to church as a child. My parents never took me to a church. I did have friends that went to church, and I just thought that they were kind of weird.”

When he was 12, he took a job with an older neighbor. The attention made him feel good—and so did the drugs they did together. “He was in his thirties, and he owned a boat shop. He was just a partier, and it gave me easy access to a lot of drugs. I started free-basing cocaine when I was twelve years old, and from that I started doing methamphetamines and I got addicted. I think it was just curiosity. I mean, my home life wasn't all that bad. I wasn’t trying to escape. For the most part, I just wanted to have fun.”

Jeff’s drug use propelled him into a 30-year addiction. A life of violence, crime and incarceration followed. “I got in trouble when I was sixteen, I got in trouble with my friends. We were all on LSD. My friends beat up a disabled veteran and the sheriffs came up and arrested us.”

Because he was still a juvenile, he often only received probation. “The judge looked at me in front of my parents, and said, ‘I guarantee you'll be in prison by the time you're twenty-one.’"     

Jeff knew he needed to change. “I wanted to get away from the drugs, but they were so enticing that I just kept going back. I went to the Army recruiter. And the Army recruiter was a guy from my neighborhood. And he said, ‘You know what, I think we can help you out.' And he gave me a way into the military.” 

The army’s structure and discipline helped Jeff stay clean for a season. However, an injury put Jeff right back on the addiction roller coaster. “I almost lost my leg. I had knee surgery, and then it got infected. They gave me a narcotic, at the time, called Tylox. And I was addicted to that.”

Once out of the service, Jeff quickly went back to his old addictions. “Something in me just made me realize that I really didn't want to do anything in life except party,” he says. “I got a little bit of money from the military when I got out. It wasn't that much. It was like ten thousand dollars severance pay, and I put it all into partying. I hate to say it, but I was in love with meth.”

Jeff continued to sell meth, all the while spiraling deeper into a life void of purpose. “In that world of meth, everybody is lying. Everybody is cheating each other. And I was able to do it pretty good. I created a lot of enemies,” Jeff adds. “I've had people point guns at me. I've had people threaten to shoot me, and I've dared 'em. ‘Hey, take me out of my misery.’ I was tired of living anyway. I didn't have any aspect, really, of there being a God or even caring if there was a God.”

Jeff also fathered a child with his girlfriend. Several arrests followed for selling and possession. During one stint in prison, an inmate told him about Jesus. “I sat next to him every day for about a year and a half,” Jeff says. “And he would tell me about Jesus every day. And I would tell him, and he would read Proverbs and things like that, and it just sounded like riddles to me. And I'd tell him, ‘Man, I don't want to hear about your riddles or your fantasy world.”

But the seeds of faith had been planted. When Jeff was released, however, he began living on the streets. “When I was homeless and I was denied food stamps, I didn't believe in God,” he recalls. “I couldn't grasp my head around it. I couldn't really grasp, 'Why is everything so bad right now?' I went to the V.A., and I got help. I finally got some help.”

A gift from his mother, who was not even a Christian at the time, brought a glimmer of hope to his life. “She gave me a Gideon’s Bible. A little orange Gideon Bible. And I started reading it. I came to Psalm 40, I came to a verse: ‘Behold, I come, in the scroll of the book it is written of me, 'I delight to do your will, O my God, and your law is within my heart.’ And it talks about how God has taken you up out of the muck and the mire, out of the horrible pit. And my life was just horrible at this time. And I was like, ‘Man, this is it. This is real. God is real, and He has a plan for my life.’ I realized 100%, Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior. He's given me a chance at life.”

Jeff got sober during treatment. He later reconciled with his parents and led them both to Christ. “I was willing to rob my own parents. I was willing to rip anybody off to get this drug, methamphetamine,” he says. “I mean, in the beginning, it seems like fun, but in the end, it's nothing but destruction.”

In 2015, he met and married Patricia. He was also able to get custody of his son. He is pursuing his master’s degree in counseling, and his once purpose-less life now has meaning. “I still want to make a difference in life,” Jeff says. “I want to help others as a social worker, because when I do meet Jesus Christ, I want to be able to say, ‘Hey, look. You've been so good to me. My life has changed so much.’ Sometimes I do focus on all the wrong. But I also know that God has forgiven me. And He doesn't see the wrong no more. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done on earth. If you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior, you are forgiven. And it doesn't matter what you've done. If He forgave me, He could forgive anybody.”