I HATED EVERYONE ! MOSTLY MYSELF! 
by Charley Stackhaus

This is my testimony of what God has been doing in my life and how Vision Life Ministries has been the instrument God used to reach me. It all is the faith and love that Henry and Tina Malone have for the Lord and how they let that love flow thru. 

I had given up on life, on God, and on myself. On myself as a father, brother, son, husband. I hated everyone!!! Myself most of all. I hated everyone who tried to love me. I felt justified in hating them. Because they said they loved me, I knew something was wrong with them so they deserved my hate. ALL LIES!! The devil hates you and me.

I have seen demons all my life. They did not all appear to be scary. Some as people I knew who had died. Some others I thought might be angels; the thing was I didn’t know I could do anything about them. I thought God had wronged me and I needed to get this life over fast; I felt I couldn’t take it any more. I thought that the next life would be better because at the time, I believed in reincarnation.

BUT GOD!!!

Someone was praying for me and reading the scriptures to me and I gave my life to Jesus! The devil tried to make me think that his way was easy and that I could live for him up until time to die and then pray and get saved as I was dying so I could go to heaven. This is a lie! The Bible states that the devil came to kill, steal, and destroy. Not give pleasures, riches, a good feeling. But, he will promise these things to you in order to kill you, destroy you, and your family and generations to come. The devil stole a lot from my family and gave back sickness, disease, cancer, death, embarrassment.

I had lost two marriages and my son lived with his mother and didn’t even want my name anymore. At age 18 he changed his last name to his mother’s maiden name. When he did come to visit me, I had already given up. The second marriage had failed. I would not stop drinking and smoking pot because I had stopped for 8 years but I still lost everything.

Then I gave my heart to the Lord Jesus Christ and was saved in July of 2003. I didn’t instantly stop every sin. BUT sin started hurting very bad. I drank 3 times that August; then I met Rick Wilson on Sept. 2, 2003. He visited our CIRCLE OF LIGHT group. Most people were recovering from something. He told us about deliverance and that Vision Life Ministries was the place to get it. I knew this was the answer for me. 

A young woman who had been selling her body since she was 12 and had been offered to the devil at conception wanted to go to a seminar but could not come up with the money unless she went back to the streets. So I put up the money for her, and her life was so dramatically changed that she was now preaching the Gospel. It was a “chicken” thing to do - sending her first to check out the results. I went to a Freedom and Fullness seminar in November 2003. Two weeks later the seminar was held at the church I was attending. Then I began getting ministry in personal sessions. I repeated the seminar in April 2004, then attended the School of Deliverance Ministry in July followed by the internships 1 and 2 by September.

So in only one year my life was COMPLETELY changed. I have a key to my son’s house and we are mending our relationship. I pray for his salvation.

I pray that he will reach the destiny God has for him. All of the teaching I received at VLM has not sunk in yet. I still have a lot of hurts and vows and judgments to deal with, but I am on the journey of following Jesus and life is getting better all the time.

 --Charley Stackhaus