theUprising

StoryTeller: Darrin Seamster – The Story

Let me start at the beginning.  I was born in the home of a an evangelist.  I was the youngest child of my parents.  I traveled all over the country with my family as my dad did his evangelism.  When I was seven my dad was arrested as a pedophile and set to prison.  I haven’t had contact with him since that time.  This was my first brush with hypocracy in the church.

We moved to Maryland where my mom’s family was.  While we were there I turned into a bully.  My older brother was little for his age and got picked on at school so he would take that aggression out on me.  I was big for my age and I would take that aggression out on my class mates.  I was mad at everyone and everything, I beat up a lot of people.  Around this time I also found pornography.  Since I was big for my age I was able to purchase things that I wasn’t supposed to be able to get my hands on.  I was hooked on porn.

Eventually I found football!  I was rewarded for being aggressive!  It was great!

When I was 15 I gave my life to Christ and everything changed.  I went from being a bully to leading bible studies in the school.  People couldn’t believe the change they saw in me.  At 17 my family (including my step-dad who my mom had married while we were in Maryland) moved to Florida, I had a strong calling to go there and the family packed up and headed down there.

In Florida I was a leader in my high school and in my church.   The church I went to was great!  Prayer permeated everything we did.  There were all night prayer meetings often and everyone was focused on prayer.

When it was time to go off to college I went to Liberty University and was a starting center on their Division 1 football team as a walk on freshman.  My time at Liberty was cut short because my dad started drinking again.  I needed to go back home to be there for my mom.

I went back to Florida and did odd jobs.  I tried to get back into the church but things weren’t going well there.  There were moral failings of some key leaders and the focus of the church had completely changed.  So rather than finding a new church I just stepped away completely.

In 2002 I joined the Army.  I was still struggling with this battle of, “Will I go back to Christ?”  But while I was struggling with that I was still frequenting bars, hanging out with unbelieving friends, my best friend was a Buddhist – obviously he wasn’t encouraging me to turn back to Christ.  During this time (right before I deployed to Iraq) I met a gal in a bar and proposed.  I turns out she was just trying to get money from me because she already had a boyfriend.

In Iraq I saw some pretty terrible things.  I was a medic and our unit treated over 70% of the wounded in 2005.  I was seeing all of this horrible stuff and thinking about what was going on back home with my step dad and mom.  When I came back for a mid-tour leave I went to a pastor I respected and asked to get together for some prayer and counsel.  I tried numerous times to connect with him but he never got back to me.  Completely blew me off.  That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I went off the deep end.  I was completely opposed to God, the Church and believers.  I ran from God as far and as fast as I could.  I decided that I am going to do whatever I want to do.  I completely stopped caring about God.

On August 18, 2005 – one of the trucks in our unit was hit with an IED, everyone in the truck was killed. My best friend was killed.  I was mad at God for allowing best friend (Buddhist) to be killed.  This pushed me further away from God.  If I believed in Him I would have to believe that my friend didn’t make it to heaven.  I couldn’t go there.

After my tour in Iraq I went back home.  I thought it would get better when I got home. NOPE!

Ever had one of those years where nothing seemed to go right?

First, I tried to re-enlist in the Army.  I had a dream job set up for the re-enlistment, I was going to San Antonio and I was going to party it up!  But the Army wouldn’t allow me to re-enlist because I exceeded the Body Fat test by 1%!  This made me really angry!  I started disrespecting my superiors, I was mad and depressed.

After I got out of the Army I started working in a strip club.  I had all of these plans to start hanging out with women, get a ton of money, I thought I was living the life!  Even though I was running from God, I still wanted to help people. In the strip club I was watching people’s lives fall apart and there was nothing I could do to help.  Along with this, the VA they diagnosed me with post-traumatic stress. When I was working in the club, if there were a lot of people around me, I would have a panic attack. I couldn’t have my back to anybody. I could never rest. Didn’t sleep more than 2-4 hours every night. The feelings of emptiness continued.  Eventually I ended up quitting the club.

I wanted to do something better with my life. Went to community college to be a teacher.

I thought that would fix everything.  Nope.  My depression was getting worse and worse.

Then I got a job working security and discipline in my old High School.  I thought I would get to help kids.  This should make things better! Nope!

While I was at the school I was able to help coach football.  As I did that I remembered how much I enjoyed the sport and that I still wanted to go play.  Since I only played one season at Liberty I still had eligibility to play college ball and I also had the GI grant for school so I decided to go back to college.

One of the guys I coached with was friends with a coach at Simpson College. Turns out that they were excited to have a 6′4 350 nose guard whose school was paid for by the government.  I got here and I was 28, not in the same shape I was in in college. I went from starting at a division 1 school, but now I’m not starting at a division 3 school.  I did not feel better.   Not only was football not going the way I wanted it to but I didn’t find the comradery I was looking for.  I was too old for the college parties (I realized that that didn’t make me happy) and yet I didn’t connect to the coaches because even though they were closer to my age they had families.

NOTHING WAS FIXING MY DEPRESSION.

The depression kept growing. I started to feel like I wanted to take my life. What is my purpose? It really came to a head on fall break.  It was a bye week so there was no football and NO ONE was around! I was really lonely, very depressed.  I decided that this would be the weekend that I would take my own life.  I was sitting in a Burger King (why Burger King? I don’t know) getting ready to drive my car to my death.  All of a sudden my brother called me.  Then my mom called me (I’m a mommas boy).  That broke me.  I let them know I was having a hard time.  Those calls brought me back.

The depression would get better and then worse and then better then worse.  I went home for the summer, things with my step dad got way worse.  I got back from the summer to college, and found out my dad had hit my dad.  Here I am away in Iowa, playing JV at a division 3 college.  Nothing was going well.  Nothing would make me happy.
I keep looking for happiness.  Found a gal on line.  She was a satanist, she was telling me this crazy stuff.  She said that satan wanted me.  If satan is real and wanted me, then God must be real. That woke me up!

I went to a talk with a friend’s mom about what I was going through, she encouraged me and prayed with me.  Later, I talked with my sister and told her that I don’t know if God is real.  The next morning I woke up felt the Holy Spirit, I realized that God is real! All of sudden I realized that as I was running from Jesus but He was right behind me running with open arms! All I had to do was to turn around.  Bam!  Everything changed!

I had a peace!  The depression was gone.  I had a hope and an identity!

I let God clean out my heart and my life.  I asked what do I need to do now, what do I need to get rid of?  God slowly broke me of the old stuff.

God began the process of restoring me.  He has been giving me back the things that I lost.

Even as I began that process I would still get lonely.  I wasn’t like before with the depression but it was still tough.

God knew about that need and met it.

Around Easter, I came up to Valley for the Saturday night service and all I saw were families and I was sad again.

I told my mom and aunt about being lonely and they started praying.

The next morning at church a guy came up to me (Dolan Pedersen) and said I feel like God is asking me to invite you to my house for lunch.  I started to make connections with others and began to be a part of the community.

Even after I gave my life back to God I still had struggles with sin.  But I realized that the way that Jesus dealt with temptation was through quoting scripture so I’ve been  memorizing scripture.

Through my journey I tried a lot of things to find peace but only one thing actually worked.  Jesus gave me peace.