I went from preacher’s kid to meth addict — what happened at 3am changed everything

I grew up as the son of a A traveling missionary. My mom is truly one of the kindest people you will ever meet. Unfortunately, underneath her elegant facade, there was a deep, fear-driven need to appear as if all was well. Our lives were far from that. The man I grew up watching speak behind the pulpit was not the same man at home behind closed doors, where I had a front row seat to witness the physical abuse he heaped on my mother.

Keeping my father’s abuse a secret was our first rule as a family. No one can ever know. I remember one time when someone at a camp meeting asked my mother about her black eye. I was small, barely tall enough to reach her elbow, and I was overcome with dread. Do we have Family secret exposed? Before my mother could respond, my father jumped up: “I fell in the bathroom.” When I heard those words, my whole body trembled with disbelief and anger. Watching my father tell a cowardly lie to protect his image – and my mother shamefully pretending to be a stupid wife who fell in the bathroom – was unbearable. At such a young age, I didn’t know how to process any of it.

As I entered my teenage years, I became a wrecking ball of bad decisions. In my mind, my earthly and heavenly fathers were the villains in my story. When I was 11 and 12, I was smoking cigarettes, stealing, and drinking alcohol.

When I was a teenager, I would stay up almost every night, taking cocaine, drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and finally, taking painkillers to sleep. When I was 17, someone introduced me to a drug called crystal meth. This was a new low. Looking back, it feels like an out-of-body experience. How could I create such a memorial? Destructive choices? I have built an entire life around my trauma, hurt, anger, and addiction.

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At 3 a.m. one night, I was in a dark place when Jesus revealed Himself to this wounded preacher kid. There, that night, I put my trust in Jesus. I share more about my conversion — and how Jesus changed my life overnight — in my new book,“Radically Restored: How Knowing Jesus Heals Our Brokenness.”

That’s why I believe that God heals, and that He still works miracles. I believe because I follow The same as Jesus Who “cast out evil spirits with a simple matter and healed all who were sick” (Matthew 8:16). But what about the deep wounds left by trauma? What if these wounds were caused by a parent or spouse – someone we should have trusted, someone who should have been a safe place? We all know those wounds run much deeper.

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When Christians are asked whether God can heal emotional trauma, the church may knee-jerk answer: “Yes—and He won’t!” We want to assure others – and perhaps ourselves – that we are sincere and believe without a doubt. We tend to avoid asking difficult questions because, as Christians, we are not sure that it is permissible to do so.

As I entered my teenage years, I became a wrecking ball of bad decisions. In my mind, my earthly and heavenly fathers were the villains in my story. When I was 11 and 12, I was smoking cigarettes, stealing, and drinking alcohol.

My point is that true faith asks questions, but it does not question who God says He is. This may seem contradictory, but it is not. God wants authenticity, but we must trust Him even in painful trials. When we are honest and trustful, God reveals the chains that bind us so that we can lay them at the foot of the cross and walk in freedom.

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This is easier said than done – especially if these restrictions were put in place by people we once considered safe, or by a parent or spouse we should have trusted. Unresolved trauma It became my prison. I didn’t know how to be released. The hardest part was that even after the physical abuse stopped, my father never talked about what happened. As a child, his presence was enormous and terrifying. But throughout my teens and early twenties, it was there – but not really there. In the movie of our lives, he becomes less of a monster and more of an extra blended into the background. His absence during those years was a new and different wound.

Stephen McWhirter attends the 11th Annual K-LOVE Fan Awards at The Grand Ole Opry on May 26, 2024, in Nashville, Tennessee. (Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

I wonder if my father’s breakup was because he believed that, after everything he’d done, he no longer had the right to be my father. He may not have talked about past abuse or made amends because he had to deal with what happened. He had to bring her out of the shadows and into the light. I don’t know the answer for my father; I just know he pretended it never happened.

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But it really happened. And at some point – for my father and for the rest of us – everything we try to hide will become exposed. Jesus said: “For everything that is hidden will be made known, and every secret will be made known” (Mark 4:22). Everything, even the things we want to keep hidden in darkness, will come to light. This may sound scary, but it doesn’t have to be. When we willingly bring those hidden things into the light for confession, repentance, and atonement, they begin to lose their power.

Unfortunately, my father could not face what he had done. I think this kept him imprisoned by guilt and shame. If you are in a relationship, know that Jesus loves you and is fighting to set you free and heal every broken part of you. This promise is not limited only to sons and daughters who have been harmed. It is also for the father, mother, husband, or anyone who has harmed others. Jesus doesn’t just heal and take back the bad things that happened to us. It also fixes the unimaginable things we may have done to others. When we feel guilt and shame, true healing and freedom await on the other side of so-called repentance.

Excerpted from the book Radically Restored by Stephen McWhirter. Stephen McWhirter Copyright © (May 2026) by Zondervan. Used with permission from Zondervan, www.zondervan.com.