CLIENT STORIES

Lee doesn’t remember who it was that brought him to the Channels of Love Bible Study in 1994, but he is glad that he came. He describes his life before he was diagnosed as carefree, irresponsible, unaccountable and in denial about what his lifestyle could bring to him. When he found out, he was shocked and couldn’t stop crying. He said, “I still cry every day over the recognition that I brought this on myself and my family. I have had many thoughts of suicide, but my faith in God has kept me alive. At one point, my family turned their back on me. My mother told me to take care of myself. It was the most painful thing I have ever dealt with. I started waiting on death at that point. I had nobody, and then one day I heard a voice saying to me, ‘God loves you.’ That’s what kept me from dying.”

Lee says that he tries to take better care of himself now, eating better, getting enough rest, but his hardest challenges have come in being lonely and ostracized from friends and relatives. The blessings since diagnosis have come in the people that he has met and a closer relationship that he has with God. He ways, “There are still issues in my life, many issues, and even with a closer relationship with God, I still feel distant from Him. I need assurance of my salvation.”

He does have opportunity to speak to others that come his way. He declared, “I’ve told many young kids with different boyfriends that they need to remain abstinent. I tell them: ‘Hey, look, at me. I have so many health problems. I took care of a man who died with AIDS. It doesn’t need to happen that way.”