About

. My name is Mark Anthony Darling, born December, 03, 1988. I grew up in north Mississippi in a small town of poagville Mississippi. My father left when I was barely 1 year old, which was hard for my mother who was trying to raise 2 small children by herself. I might not of had a lot of nice things growing up or a father to teach me things that a young man should know, but I had a mother who loved and cared for me very much. When I was young I watched my mother abuse alcohol and live a life that was destroying her. I had no friends when I was young I had my mother and my sister and I usually just kept to myself enclosed in my room or out in the yard. I grew up in a public school and started making friends there but was too shy to ever ask them to come over to my house or to ask my mom to let me stay at their house and play. One night I, my mother, and my sister headed to town for my mother to make one of her regular beer runs. On the way home we got pulled over on highway 306 by a Mississippi state trooper. My mother spent the night in jail and we stayed at a babysitter’s house for the night. Early in the morning we met my mother as she was released from the Tate county jail. She seemed different and I didn’t know what it was. I later found at that she had called on Jesus Christ to save her, and ever since that night my mother made sure we went to church every Sunday and Wednesday. This would be the beginning of something that would change my life forever. I loved going to church and I loved my Sunday school teacher, who taught me to memorize bible verses and where certain books of the bible were. Even though I loved going to church, I still felt so out of place. My mother loved the church also, but she felt the same way I did. The people in the church looked at us as if we didn’t belong there for some reason. At 10 years old I felt that I should walk down the aisle and pray the prayer everyone talked about every Sunday and I should do this because it was the only way into heaven. So one Sunday morning I walked down that dreadful aisle and I prayed the prayer after the preacher and the preacher pronounced me saved!! I thought to myself “wow I am going to heaven now” I didn’t even know what I had just done. I was failing miserably in school because I was more worried about making friends and fitting in with others, rather than what I should have been doing in school which was doing my homework and learning. I met a friend at school that was moving very close to my home in poagville, and I was very excited. He moved in and I started to go to church with him at Mt. manna Baptist church. We were young and wild and I fell into a very different crowd at school and my interest was now into music, girls, and extreme sports. I was spending a lot more time with my new friend and his family and that meant that I would be spending more time in this new church that I was going to. It was a cool church where they had a lot of different activities for the kids there and I made friends there and I seem to be fitting in with the people there. I had no concern for what the pastor was trying to preach about nor was I concerned with anything concerning Christ. I was making friends, having fun, and found a girl that I liked. I was now 14 and in the youth group at church, and I loved it. The youth group went on various trips together and had a lot of fun, but again I was more concerned with the new girlfriend that I had. The girl lived a ways away from my house and I didn’t get to see her during the week, only when she was at church. So her mother agreed to let me stay at her house on the weekends so we could see each other more. We spent a lot of time together and the fleshly desires started kicking in and we started to experiment with those feelings that we had for one another. We dated for a few years, and during those years we both were very involved with the youth group and the friends we had made through it. We went to camp one summer, and I prayed the prayer once again just in case I wasn’t truly saved. I went back home and completely forgot about the prayer I had prayed at camp. I continued to live my sinful life and love the world and its fruit. The girlfriend that I had, broke up with me in the parking lot of the church, and it started a downhill spiral in my life. I got home, completely ignored my mother, and shut everyone out of my life. I sat in my room that night and tried to kill myself and just end it all. I continued going to the church, but It was different now. I had no desire to go anymore because I had shut off all of my friends and I had lost someone very special in my life. I started to work at the age of 16, and felt a need to take care of my mother who was in bad health at the time. I dropped out of school at the age of 18, and got more involved with my work. I was deeply depressed and I didn’t know what to do about the situation. I thought that god had just given up on me and I had no hope. I started to drink heavily and experiment with marijuana; I didn’t like the drugs so I just stuck to drinking. I partied very hard and I stopped thinking about Jesus Christ and Mt. manna Baptist Church. I was making very good money at a very young age of 18 and I met a girl at the place I was working. I was lonely and wanting female attention so I started dating this girl who I would later marry. Due to our sinful nature we had sex and she got pregnant. Our parents told us both that it was best that we get married before that baby is born, so we did. I remember standing up at the courthouse and looking at my fiancé and saying my vows just like I did when I was 10 years old saying that prayer after the preacher. I didn’t mean it, the vows that I was repeating were just words that I thought I had to repeat in order to get married. Shorty after we got married we started renting a house and we had our beautiful son, and seemed to be happy. My wife was concerned and she felt trapped, not able to hang out with friends or go do things on her own. She started hanging with a bad crowd and doing different worldly things and she started to cheat on me, I had no idea any of this was going on. She later convinced me to move in with a couple of her friends so we could save some money, so I agreed and we moved. 7 months later I found out that the friend’s house we were living in was the guy she was cheating on me with. I moved back in with my mom because I couldn’t trust anyone of my friends because they all knew of this affair. It wasn’t long living with my mom that my wife and I got back together and decided to start off fresh. We moved into the house I grew up in as a child and began to plan parties on the weekend. I was at a point in my life where I again felt that god had forgotten about me and I abused alcohol and neglected my wife and my son. We had parties every weekend, which were growing in numbers, and I had surrounded myself with people who I thought were my close friends. I remember sitting in a smoke infested room full of 30+ teenage kids who were heavily intoxicated, thinking to myself, what have I done with my life. I wanted to be a better husband to my wife, and to be a better father to my son, but somewhere along the way I had lost it. My house was getting destroyed because of the heavy partying and drinking in the house. One of my friends at the time wanted to have a party for his birthday, so I agreed to let them have it at my house; after all it was another chance to get drunk for me. So the following weekend we had the party and lots of people showed up and I remember drinking and drinking just trying to remove the pain I had inside, but it never was enough. I had suicidal thoughts and I didn’t care anymore. The party got out of hand and the sheriff’s department was called out to my house. The officer walked in my door and the first thing I thought was I was going to jail and I was going to lose my son (who was in the house during the parties). The officer just told us to be quiet, and that he knew what we were doing, and it was ok just keep it down, because the neighbors were having trouble sleeping. I cleared out the house and I passed out on my couch. The next morning my wife woke me up, telling me it was time for me to go to work. I was supposed to open the store that morning. I was too drunk to sit up and try to stand up so I said forget it ill just quit. She left me there on the couch, and she went to work. later she told me that she was moving out, and not coming back. I just sat there and watched her move out of the home. She took the only car we had; she took my son, and left me there. I had no money coming in, so I didn’t have a way to pay any of my bills, so my cellphone got cut off, my lights got cut off, and I had no food in the house to eat. I sat there in my house dark, lonely, and hungry. I picked up my guitar and just spent my days playing songs and sulking in my depression. I sat on my couch one night and it had just hit me what had just happened. I have spent my life trying to collect worldly treasures, and when I looked back on my life I realized that everything that I had collected on this earth had been taken away from me. I lost my wife (due to not being a husband to her), my son (due to my selfish worldly desires), my house (due to my drunken stupidity), my job (due to working to please myself, not the lord), my vehicle (due to not having self-control and patience), but most of all I had realized that I was lost and that there was no reason that I could be saved and living the kind of life that I was living. I somehow knew that the lord god almighty was not the god I was following. I was following Satan as my god. I called on the lord and asked him to save me. It had been 2 weeks since my wife had walked out on me and everything I had. I had no food in this house, I was starving, and I needed help. The next day my wife’s dad came and picked me up and let me stay at his house with his family. This was a huge step for me because I didn’t know her family that much, and I was shy. He shared the gospel with me and it went in one ear and out the other. Even though I had called on the lord to save me I was still lost. I wasn’t drinking anymore, and hanging out with the people I called my friends anymore, but I still was lost. I was a better man as far as the world was concerned but I was still a corrupt lost soul. This man and his family tried to share the gospel with me every night. I was blind to the things of god. I didn’t read his word and understand it. One year had passed by, and I was on Facebook one day. I looked up one of my relatives that I hadn’t heard from in a while, and she had posted a video of a brother Paul washer preaching about conversion. I had never heard of the term conversion before, but I had heard the name Paul washer, so I watched it. He preached out of Matthew chapter 7. I loved the message! I had never heard anyone preach like this before. He was talking about how people go down the aisle and they pray a prayer and the preacher says at the end of the prayer “if you prayed that prayer, and you meant it, and was sincere, then by the power of god I pronounce you saved!!) I said to myself “I did that!!”. He went on preaching about fruit, and how a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. It opened my eyes to what the scripture was telling me. I was lost. I had prayed that prayer many times, but judging by my fruit I was lost and headed for condemnation. About a week after watching the video of Paul, I realized that I am saved now. I felt the Holy Spirit inside of me and I was finally happy. No more crying, no more depression, no more worrying if my wife will return, or if god will provide a woman for me. I was now saved and I couldn’t wait to get in his word and learn about God. Since my conversion I have learned things about the bible that I never knew. I have learned and god has been showing me my sin before a holy god. I am learning who god is, and how he hates sin. I am learning to fear the lord because the scriptures teach it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living god. I walk with Jesus Christ daily now and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I have compassion for the people who have falling into the same trap that I fell into, where they pray a prayer and someone pronounces them saved and no fruit of the spirit is ever produced. I am learning how to be a more biblical man, father, and husband. Now that I know what I know about god and his word I know why I lost everything that I did, but the great thing is , is that by god’s grace he saved me and gave me eternal life. I wanted to write this to you to help you understand something. Take a look at your life, just as I did, and look at your fruit. Are you producing fruits of the spirit, or are you fruits and desires of the world. The bible teaches that you cannot love the world and love Christ too. If you love the world your god is Satan not Jesus. If you love Jesus then you will hate the world. Now salvation isn’t a decision you made one time, and it is not avoiding the things of the world in order to love the things of Christ. It is HATING the things of this wicked, evil, and corrupt world and LOVING the lord God almighty!! I am living happily with my son and I enjoy going back to the church I went to as a teenager and hoping to be an inspiration to others to follow Christ in every aspect of their life. I have reunited with some old friends and I am enjoying learning about our awesome god. I stay in the word daily, and I encourage you to also. If you have any questions or comments come find me and I will love to sit and talk with you as long as you would like. For God did not send his son into the world to judge the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17 Mark Anthony Darling April 30th 2012

Education

• Independence High School