07/02/2025 My dear husband has been walking with God for many years. Yet, especially in the past two years or so, his relationship with God has changed and deepened enormously. He, too, has a powerful testimony that I couldn’t wait to put down on paper. A little awkwardly on his part, but mostly with a lot of fun, we started this conversation at home, on the couch. Introduce yourself. Who are you, and where are you from? I’m René, and I’m forty-nine years old. Born in Rotterdam, raised in Spijkenisse. I have three beautiful children and two bonus children, LOL. Amen!! You weren’t raised Christian, were you? Absolutely nothing. No, absolutely nothing. Not consciously. My mother was raised Catholic by tradition. When she still lived at home, she sometimes went to church with her parents. She and her sisters also attended a school taught by nuns. But she didn’t have very good experiences there, which is still discussed regularly among my mother and her sisters, my aunts. “Do you want something? Then you’ll have to work for it!” My father was raised without faith, in a typical Rotterdam way: if you want something, you have to work for it. When my parents got together, they didn’t do anything with faith, not even getting married in church. So, as a family, we lived completely without faith, God or church. But how did your walk with the Lord begin? If it was so unfamiliar to you, how did you still find your way to His love? I was about twenty years old, and I’d already been through a pretty rough time. At a young age, I was bullied a lot, which resulted in me really searching for the best way to grow up. I went in the wrong direction and became rebellious and rebellious. I wanted to fit in and act tough. Moreover, the bullying and teasing escalated to such an extent that I saw no other way out than to resort to violence. Although my character isn’t naturally like that at all, and I actually prefer to avoid things. Of course, I’m very tall, even then, so I was regularly challenged, which didn’t help, and things went from bad to worse. I became increasingly hardened and rebelled more and more. I eventually encountered some boys from my past who behaved the same way: rebellious, loudmouthed boys. Rebellious against society. Well, this didn’t help my behavior at all; I started copying them and brought it home with me. By the time I was about sixteen, my relationship with my parents was strained because of this. I increasingly rebelled at home to get my own way. Around that time, the “Gabber era” began in the Netherlands. The hardcore music and lifestyle appealed to me enormously. People around me were using drugs, which I wasn’t at the time, but eventually I gave in and started using them. This started with smoking marijuana. “I started smoking weed, but soon other things were added: speed, LSD, and cocaine.” Oh man, straight to smoking? I’m not familiar with drug use or smoking at all, but didn’t you start with a cigarette? Oh yeah, but I was already doing that when I was twelve, in my last year of primary school! Everyone in our house smoked: both my parents, my sister, and some of our friends. I was just so bold as to come home with a pack of rolling tobacco and throw it on the table, telling my parents, “There, I’m smoking!” And because my sister was allowed to smoke it at the time, they didn’t put up much of a fight. So yeah, by the time I was sixteen, I switched to smoking weed, but soon other things were added: speed, LSD, or cocaine. It started with occasional weekend use, and then pills were added, but soon it became more frequent, even outside the weekends. “I drank so much alcohol every weekend that I only stopped when I really couldn’t take it anymore or the bar closed, and I had to leave.” Did you feel like you really needed it at that moment? Well, no, not necessarily. I was more looking for a rush, but looking back now, maybe it was already a search for happiness. After a few years, my “Gabber” period transitioned to rap music, which also changed the people I associated with. Anyway, the going out, and drug use didn’t change; alcohol, however, was added—a lot of alcohol and magic mushrooms. At one point, I tried to quit smoking weed. Although that was going pretty well, I compensated with heavy drinking on the weekends. While I could easily give up the hard drugs themselves, I had more trouble with the weed, which I was doing daily at the time. I lied to myself by convincing myself I wasn’t addicted. I could easily quit if I wanted to, right? But I just didn’t want to; that’s what I told myself. Anyway, the moment I finally wanted to let it go, I realized I was struggling more with it than I’d always believed. During that period, I drank so much alcohol every weekend that I only stopped when I absolutely couldn’t take it anymore or the pub closed, and I had to leave. That was around the age of nineteen to twenty-one. Weekend after weekend, I’d be in the pub, even going by myself, naturally meeting people there, and if I didn’t, I’d be there alone. “With every religion I researched, I came to the conclusion that it was mostly about hard work and hoping to receive “something.” If not, you’re out of luck and reincarnated…or not even that.” Was that also the moment you started asking if there might be more to this life? If there might be a God? Well, that was more or less the period when, between going out and drinking, I started searching. Although it wasn’t directly for God. My sister was into spiritual matters at the time and
