Telling stories and telling a story are often two different things… I take this oppotunity as a great privilege to pass on to you this true story about a man who has gone through much and is now a marvelous servant for Jesus. His name is Roy Wolfe… We begin…

I (Roy) was 5 years of age, living in a small town in Northern Michigan. My mom was young with 4 kids when she and my dad were divorced. After a couple of years, my mom was reported by the school authorities for being unfit because we were always filthy. We had to eat food out the garbage and were being beaten.
We were given to our father (who had remarried) and living in Michigan. He was in the Air Force and was shipped to Viet Nam. Our step mom beat us and locked us in the closet or outside. She had an affair while he was in Viet Nam. Later she took us back to my mom in Oscoda and said, “Here, you can have your kid’s back.”
Feeling unwanted, I had no religion, so I went to church with grandma or an aunt or uncle, just to get out of the house. I joined one church after another for the same reason.
During my teenage years, I was physically and verbally abused. When I was 18, I worked at a store just south of Oscoda and worked my way up to a produce manager.
The first woman that ‘blew in my ear’, I married and with not really knowing what true love was, I put up with anything. One night my wife and some of my friends went to a concert and my best friend slept with my wife. We had been married 9 months and were divorced. I was drinking a lot, and had become a ‘work-a-holic’… working two and sometimes three jobs, just so I didn’t have to deal with the pain.
I met a woman working at Arby’s who was coming to work ‘beat up’, so I took her in and we lived together until she was divorced. We got married and moved to the Detroit area, where we had a daughter. We both worked at the same place, but later I found out my wife was unfaithful. She told me, “I don’t need you” and filed for a divorce, but after four years, I won custody of our daughter and raised her myself.
On my 40th birthday, I went on all ‘all-night’ bowling and drinking spree with a girl friend who was an alcoholic. Since I thought I was physically fit, I figured I could handle it. One day my leg started getting stiff and I began limping. I thought I had just pulled a muscle. I fell out of bed that night and couldn’t stand up so I went to the hospital and they found a brain tumor and Multiple Sclerosis. Barely making it through surgery, I woke up totally paralyzed and was told that “You will never walk again.”
Roy’s story is not finished… hard times were not over… Perhaps you are going through hard times as well, and are tempted to ‘give up’. I hope Roy’s story will encourage you to look to God.
Yes, God really does love you, and as Paul said, “God demonstrates his own love for us in that while we still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).