The beginning to coming to TPOT

[Eric Courtemanche]

I was raised in the United States of America in New Hampshire. My parents raised me in the Catholic religion. I was the last of seven children, the first dying a few hours after birth. I grew up with two sisters and three brothers. The oldest was 9 years older than me and I didn’t and still don’t know much about him except he is still in the Catholic Church to this day. I spent most of my early years playing with my two sisters and next older brother.

I don’t remember too much before I was three. I remember when I turned three I had my mom to myself because all the other children were in school during the day. I got my love of learning from those two years with my mom. I can honestly say those were the only years I liked of my childhood.

Once I got into school, I spent most of my time enjoying the classroom, and hating the recesses. I was constantly bullied until the fifth grade when I made friends with Steven, a large classmate of mine. Even though I started out liking him because he was big and not picking on me, we grew to be the best of friends for all my remaining elementary years.

There are a few things I remember well from growing up. One was my next older brother and his friends making my home life miserable. They would physically assault me as a fun thing to do. The other is the overwhelming need I had to be alone, which I achieved by locking myself in the car and reading whenever I could.

Mom and Dad took us to church every Sunday. We attended services for all the religious holidays. We prayed the rosary every Friday night. Since I was in a Catholic School we did many services in the Church across the street. I do remember wondering the whole time I was going to Church, taking religion classes in school, and celebrating a bewildering array of religious events, where was God? I always looked at my life and wondered why He hated me? The later it became in my schooling the more I hated Him. I couldn’t see at that time why my life was unbearable to me. I couldn’t see my entire life was in ignorant disobedience to Him.

Since all my prayers went unanswered growing up, not knowing then why, by the time I graduated from high school, I’d become an atheist. At that point I chose to believe there wasn’t a God, rather then believe in the One Who gave me the life I’d led to that point. And that’s the way it stayed for a long time.

I did well academically the first two years in college (1977-1981). This is when I met my first wife, Cynthia. We met in our sophomore year. We went out for a while and then broke up when I couldn’t deal with her being a ‘Christian’, I still being an atheist.

In my third year in college I became an alcoholic. My grades and my relationship with my parents and siblings went south. My friends could hardly stand to be around me. My junior year finally passed. God continued to direct my steps. He took my addiction to alcohol from me even though He knew I wouldn’t thank Him for it or give Him the credit. That level of mercy is beyond anyone of us, no matter what we might think.

I stayed at school for a summer engineering project and this is when I met up with Cynthia again. She had given up on God and we started dating again. We dated that summer and most of our senior year. Near the end of my senior year, we decided to get married.

After graduation, we got married and moved to Colorado where Cynthia had obtained employment. I was unable to find work in engineering. I had enough in-person interviews, but was never offered a job.

Near the end of my first marriage (early 1987), I had my best interview with Morton Thiokol, the maker of the Shuttle booster rockets. The interview went well and for the first time I expected a job offer from what was said to me before I left Morton. It was at this time that the first Shuttle accident occurred and soon after that I received a letter that said that they were no longer hiring.

I had nothing but employment trouble while I was married to Cynthia. We got divorced after five years of marriage. So, if you think being an atheist is great, you should reconsider.

Things went fairly well after the divorce. I went back to New Hampshire, and found employment. I didn’t have any time where I couldn’t pay my bills and was able to save money for any lean times ahead. Life seemed to be improving. This went on for three years. Did I give credit to the One Who made me? Of course not, I was still an avowed atheist.

No matter how good life seemed, really how good could it be when I didn’t have Him? Not good at all.

In 1990 I met Cheryl while working for a supermarket. I was filled with lust and fornicated with her from the beginning. We were married for two years, and I went back into debt.

We divorced in 1992. This time things didn’t even seem to go well. I went through another year of drinking to excess to the point of suicide. Yet I know now that it was His mercy that I wasn’t allowed to die.

So I continued on in life, not knowing that He was directing my steps for my good. I went along struggling in every way possible. I went into large credit card debt, unable to find enduring work to support myself. I eventually had to declare bankruptcy to satisfy my creditors.

As the years went on after the bankruptcy, I managed to stay out of debt. My health was not good and I suffered greatly from the revaccinations (1994) that were required to become a live-in aide.

I worked as a live-in nanny for various families until a year after I met Laurie online in 1998. I was living in Colorado and she in Minnesota. Each Friday one of us would fly to the others home and stay the weekend and then fly back. I did most of the flying. I moved to Minnesota and married Laurie in July of 1999. I then worked as a live-out nanny and started tutoring at night. I continued to work as a live-out nanny even after our first son, Max, was born in November of 1999. I took Max to work with me until he was almost two. It was at that point that I was unable to find another position where I could take him along.

In early 2002, I started working as an overnight newspaper deliverer. I worked overnight and then stayed up to take care of Max. Later in 2002 along came my first daughter. I continued with the paper business and taking care of the kids during the day. The next year in 2003 along came my second son, Samuel. I continued as before. All that time I worked seven days a week as required by the newspaper contract for the routes I carried. To say I was always tired does not cover the reality. I did the overnight paper deliverer and daytime care of the kids for five years.

In the last year of paper delivering, my car was stolen twice while I was delivering the papers. I also got hurt a few times falling while running. I decided it was too dangerous to continue.

The judgment of God is a fearsome thing, even when you’ve no idea that’s what’s going on. 2002 was the year we started going into debt. For six years we were unable to fully pay both the State of Minnesota and the Federal Government taxes. In 2004 we declared Chap 13 bankruptcy. The payment we were forced to have taken out of our pay every two weeks was more than we could handle. We continued to be unable to pay the State of Minnesota taxes. In 2005 my third son, Jack, came along. Our inability to pay MN State taxes continued until we left Minnesota.

In the late spring of 2007 we moved to Arizona. In September my last child, Sofie, was born. Life was still hard. I had to beg food from the church we were going to quite a few times. The first house we rented in AZ belonged to an investor in houses. Near the end of that rental year we found a Sherriff’s notice on our door. The house was being foreclosed for non-payment and we had to move out. Life was a disaster through the next two house rentals.

The time was now late 2008 and early 2009, I was 49 years old and living in AZ with my wife, Laurie. It was at this time that the Lord started drawing me to Himself, yet I didn’t know that then. I was in the Lutheran Church, just another denomination that thought only they had the truth. I was struggling with so many issues: my health, my finances, my relationships, just about everything.

Yet the one that troubled me the most was my inability to stop masturbating. I had tried to stop many times in the past and had given up after awhile each time. I now somehow knew it was wrong, but I still couldn’t stop. There came a point where I truly became aware that He could see everything I do.

I was ashamed of what I was doing, but still I couldn’t stop. I kept trying and failing. I finally went to Him and told Him I couldn’t do it, and asked Him to take it from me. Every time I failed I went back to Him and asked Him for mercy. This’s the first time in my life where I didn’t give up trying no matter how much I failed. This was the first time in my life where I went to Him and asked Him to help me stop something that I was doing against Him.

Then one day it happened, the desire to not do it was greater than the desire to continue masturbating. He gave me the grace to stop, showing me His mercy. For the first time in my life I knew I couldn’t change myself, that He was the only One Who could change me.

A little later in 2009, I was sitting in the normal leadership bible study on Saturday morning. When it came to me that the entire Bible was about the Lord Jesus Christ. I’d read the Bible completely two times and been studying it for one year in this Bible study. Then I came across the following verse, which I didn’t understand before:

John 5:39-40 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. 40 And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

Shortly after that meeting, things I couldn’t explain started to happen. I started wondering about many things the church was telling me was true, but no longer appeared that way to me.

Questions arose in my mind about the Sabbath and when did the Lord change that. I looked through the Scriptures that my pastor told me about and saw they were not about the day changing. Then I went to him about that and other things that I saw were wrong, and he listened, but kept telling me I was wrong. I brought up whether my marriage was against Him, and got exposed once again to the false love of this world response.

In mid-2009 I went looking online for another church knowing that I needed to know the truth, but still not understanding I needed to come out from the Harlot. I found others to enquire about my marriage from which I got contrary advice. Some saying I needed to leave my wife, some saying I needed to stay with my wife as I was already in the relationship, and some saying stay but be separate from her. Confusion was my lot.

I found another church (The Living Church of God) that understood the Sabbath was on Saturday and attended twice before I came to see that if you didn’t dress appropriately, you would be shunned.

I didn’t find what I was looking for because God was drawing me to Himself and out of man’s religion and He is always faithful to do what He purposes. I was now searching for Him because of what He was doing in my life.

I was confused about my marriage. There were so many opinions out there. It was obvious that nobody really knew what was right. It was exactly like the situation with the churches. Everyone thought they had the truth and everyone else was wrong. This is when the Lord led me to find http://www.thepathoftruth.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. I don’t know how I came upon the site the first time, and I don’t know how I made it back to the site. That was all the Lord’s work.

I remember I sent an email to Victor with the subject ‘Please Help’. I believe this email is a good summation of what I was going through at this time.

[Begin Email Record][2009]“I have been reading at your site for about a week now. I have read many of your reply chains to people who are lost in the world. Not that I am not one of them. I was raised in a devout Catholic family where we were indoctrinated in praying to Mary and the Saints but not Jesus Christ. I slid into Atheism and then Humanism after leaving home.

I married a very sweet woman who stayed with me for five years, 1981-1987, and then gave up as much as I did. I was single and back home again for three years, becoming more lost and deceived as the years went by. I married for the second time in 1990, in retrospect, for lust and not love. That lasted a whole two years. I was always wondering why nothing seemed to go well, why everything turned to trash.

A few years later, in 1998, I found my third wife and have been married to her for ten years. She brought me into the Lutheran Church where they teach the doctrine of kneeling and confessing yourself to be a sinner and accepting Jesus to be your Savior. I have spent the last nine years wondering why what they preach has not happened. I have never felt the indwelling of Christ. I made that prayer many times and my life did not change.

I tried for all those years, 1999-2009, to make sense of the Trinity they preach. As more falseness became apparent over time, I finally left the formal churches in mid-2009 and found out that there are not any that know Christ. But I do know one thing very much, as lost as I feel, I am sick of my sinful flesh and carnal nature and want very much for all the “I’s” in me to become “He’s”. Yet I do not understand repentance. How is it possible for corrupt me, to change my mind and obey, when Scripture reads that He has to draw me to Him?”[End Email Record]

Now I know that my entire life has been directed by Him to bring me to where I am now (2015). I’ll post the rest onward from where this letter stops in 2009 later.

[Rachel Gerrard]

Great testimony Eric x Yowzers, I thought I had problems!

[Emmanuel Okpanachi]

Good to hear how the Lord has been working in your life, Eric.

Looking forward to reading the next part.

[Kim Barthel]

Your candid testimony is one I am sure many can relate to in one way or another, Eric. Thank you for sharing with us how faithful God is, even when we neither recognize nor appreciate His love and direction.

[Lynn Farris]

Thanks for sharing, Eric.

[Chan Kah Mum]

Thank you Eric for the testimony. It uplifted my spirits to hear someone's testimony on what the Lord has done in your life.

[Piet Barnard]

Something you said got me worried:
1) Does this site reject the Trinity?
2) Please do not leave your third wife - Jesus never told the woman who had many husbands to leave the last one - That is where forgiveness and Grace comes in.

[Corey Hedstrom]

Hi Eric,

Praise God for what He has done with you, and thank you for sharing.

Corey