My name is Steven Kaliszewski let me tell you my story…
From my earliest memories, my life was a mess. It may have looked like a laugh or a smile on the outside, but on the inside was endless nothingness. By the time I was 10 I had tried suicide and was sexually abused by an older boy in the neighborhood. Everyday was constant ridicule and verbal abuse from kids in school. I simply didn’t want to live. I grew up in a house of extreme tension where there was daily fighting. I did all I could to be away from my home to try and find some degree of peace. With how unhappy I was, I was highlighted by elders in my family by how “successful” I was, as their “favorite” and I felt obligated to succeed, or do more to live up to that. Before I began college, my parents were divorced. I blamed them and never took responsibility for my own actions. In college I was part of the cool fraternity and it was the first time I had attention and popularity. I thought parties, alcohol, drugs, women, attention, and status would fix my pain. It all ended up the same; nothingness. I went into the Marines and came home after 2 combat deployments wondering what I was really doing with my life. I thought I had it all together because I had put together a plan to “succeed” and “be somebody”. While working at a restaurant as a waiter a few months after finishing my time with the Marines, an elderly lady screamed at me because I forgot her ranch dressing. I snapped. I saw myself punching her in the throat. That scared me. I separated myself from the situation, was crying, shaking, I was seeing red. Every pain in my life had just boiled to the surface. I went back to a server station and cried out to God with all I knew, “You have to come down here. You have to take this. I can’t do this anymore. Either I’m going to kill myself, or I’m going to kill somebody else.” While at that restaurant, there was another server who was consistently sharing the gospel in my life. That very night we went to another restaurant and talked. That night was the first night I really heard the gospel. I heard it before, but at that moment, it went deep. I knew this is what I was searching for my whole life. I was open and it was received. A short while later, I received Jesus Christ as my Savior. It was a short time later that I came to know Him as Lord over my life. Freedom came into my life when I took responsibility for my decisions, acknowledging my sins. My life did not truly begin until I confessed that I needed Jesus Christ and repented for my sins. That was January 2009.
Jesus Christ has not only changed my life, He has changed my heart. Not only has He changed my heart, but He has healed my life. He showed me that everything in the world is nothing and anything in Jesus Christ is everything. The greatest thing I aspire to do is to know Jesus Christ more, hear His word, read His word, think about His word, and tell people about His word, tell people about His love, ultimately striving to be like Jesus. My life is no longer about any of my aspirations or my dreams or wants because my desires led me to that server station. I know what Jesus wants for me and others is far greater than anything I can fathom. I was raised in a religious home, but this is the first time in my life that I have relationship, with Jesus Christ, and with a family of believers who have cast their every burden upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ as well. God has brought me into a family of believers through the Vine Fellowship Family and it has been healing for me since day one. What encourages me more than anything is to hear how God is speaking to others, how He is using others to share His gospel, His love. To hear the voice of the creator of the Universe, God, is what we were created for; for relationship, relationship through Jesus Christ, not a religion. Thinking back on my life before I knew Christ, I realize why I was where I was: 1 Corinthians 1:18 says “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God”. Everything is just simply nothing apart from Jesus. In Him is the love every one of us searches for. The truth is, He is the answer.
I know there are other people out there wondering if they matter, wondering if there is more to life. That is right where I was. Jesus Christ has been next to you every step of your life, waiting for you to choose Him, and only Him. John 14:6 says, “I (Jesus) am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Life is not found on this earth, or through what is offered by the world. True life, eternal life is only found in Jesus Christ. Don’t look to the world, look to Jesus to give you strength with everything.
If you’d like to invite the Lord Jesus Christ into your life as I did read more
From my earliest memories, my life was a mess. It may have looked like a laugh or a smile on the outside, but on the inside was endless nothingness. By the time I was 10 I had tried suicide and was sexually abused by an older boy in the neighborhood. Everyday was constant ridicule and verbal abuse from kids in school. I simply didn’t want to live. I grew up in a house of extreme tension where there was daily fighting. I did all I could to be away from my home to try and find some degree of peace. With how unhappy I was, I was highlighted by elders in my family by how “successful” I was, as their “favorite” and I felt obligated to succeed, or do more to live up to that. Before I began college, my parents were divorced. I blamed them and never took responsibility for my own actions. In college I was part of the cool fraternity and it was the first time I had attention and popularity. I thought parties, alcohol, drugs, women, attention, and status would fix my pain. It all ended up the same; nothingness. I went into the Marines and came home after 2 combat deployments wondering what I was really doing with my life. I thought I had it all together because I had put together a plan to “succeed” and “be somebody”. While working at a restaurant as a waiter a few months after finishing my time with the Marines, an elderly lady screamed at me because I forgot her ranch dressing. I snapped. I saw myself punching her in the throat. That scared me. I separated myself from the situation, was crying, shaking, I was seeing red. Every pain in my life had just boiled to the surface. I went back to a server station and cried out to God with all I knew, “You have to come down here. You have to take this. I can’t do this anymore. Either I’m going to kill myself, or I’m going to kill somebody else.” While at that restaurant, there was another server who was consistently sharing the gospel in my life. That very night we went to another restaurant and talked. That night was the first night I really heard the gospel. I heard it before, but at that moment, it went deep. I knew this is what I was searching for my whole life. I was open and it was received. A short while later, I received Jesus Christ as my Savior. It was a short time later that I came to know Him as Lord over my life. Freedom came into my life when I took responsibility for my decisions, acknowledging my sins. My life did not truly begin until I confessed that I needed Jesus Christ and repented for my sins. That was January 2009.