My name is Thomas Corey Bannon. I am 23 years old and this is my testimony.

I never really was a true believer in God until about two weeks ago. I guess I thought that if there was a Jesus, he didn't have much to offer. Let me tell you why.

I was born in Maryland and at the age of 3 I was taken away to live with my aunt and uncle in New York. The reason was, my father worked out of the country and my mother had a disease, alcoholism. My whole life growing up I didn't know who to blame for this. Who easier for a kid to blame than God.

When I was 16 I had the choice to leave my aunt and uncle and live with my mother. My whole life all I wanted was to live with my mother and father like a normal family. So of course I said yes. Well let me tell you, you don't know what you have until it is gone. I moved out of my aunt and uncle's and in with my mother who I loved more than anyone in the world. Yes, I loved my aunt and uncle, and they treated me like one of their own, but I always felt like sort of a blacksheep.

My mother and I moved to Virginia Beach, near my sister Teresa. I thought, "This is great." My mother and father finally married, even though he still worked out of the country as a defense contractor. It was me and my mother. I thought I could handle her drinking and my sister moving away to California, but I was wrong. I ended up moving to Maryland with my other sister.

Everything was alright, or at least I thought it was at the time. During all this I was messing up in school, just doing bad and stupid things. I didn't have a care in the world. Then, I actually started going to school and doing okay. I was staying out of trouble. One day my sister walked into my room crying hysterically.

"What's wrong," I aked. I will never forget the look on my sister's face. "Mom is dead," she cried. She burned in a fire. Her partying days and smoking had caught up with her. She was on home oxygen. The house caught fire and the oxygen blew up the whole house. The firefighters didn't know how the fire started since the evidence burned away. They believe she was smoking, fell asleep, and the ashtray caught fire and fell over. I felt I could have saved her if I had stayed. "Why did God do this to me? Why?" I thought, "There is no God. No God would let this much stuff happen to one person."

My father came home. He ended up having 3 or 4 heart attacks and had to have a 5-way bypass with a defibulator in his chest. I remeber people telling me to pray, but I thought, "What good would that do?" I had no faith at all. I blamed God for everything. I started really messing up. I didn't care about anybody. I just kept getting deeper and deeper in trouble. On Thanksgiving Day of 2000 my father died. I felt like a sinking battleship. I prayed to God, but didn't feel like it mattered. I lived a dark and bad life.

My girlfriend's friend asked me to go to church with them. I said, "Sure," lying through my teeth. My girlfriend said we were going and to make her happy I went. I walked in a non-believer and walked out a firm believer. Pastor Joe said if anyone had sin, which I had a lot of, to come on up and pray. I felt a tingle in my chest. I didn't know what it was. Something made me get up, go to the front, kneel, and accept Jesus Christ as my savior. I had never felt so good in all my life. I felt tears come to my eyes. I felt closure to a lot of things. A great weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

I have become a different person. I see things in a different perspective. I had always been angry about having to go live with my aunt and uncle in New York, but now I realize, Jesus could have taken me from my mother in the beginning because I shouldn't have been in that environment. I was able to return and live with my mom before she passed on to heaven. It was upsetting to leave my mother a second time, because of the drinking, but I may have died in that fire. My father was suffering from COPD, lung cancer, and old age, so Jesus accepted him into heaven to end his suffering. I have received a promotion at work, I have a roof over my head, and a beautiful family. I look at things in life a whole lot differently. I look at everything from a positive point of view instead of negative. Nobody had to tell me these things because God did. I felt it in my heart. For all of you non-believers, I'm telling you, I was the most skeptical person about Christ. But not anymore. Just go to church, and you will feel Christ. I feel Him every Sunday when I am in church. And not just Sunday, but every day.

I would like to thank a special person, Vonna Weekly, for pointing me in the direction of Christ. I thank all of the members of New Exodus for accepting me into the church. I especially thank Jesus for dying for our sins, and for giving me the opportunity to accept Him as my savior. Praise the Lord. Thanks be to Jesus.