What you’re used to doesn’t work.” He was a
charmer. Good at lying to others, great at lying
to himself. He was an outstanding marine but,
according to David, “a horrible person.” He
put on a mask to hide the brokenness of his
life, and he lied the most common lie on earth:
that he was okay. He came out of the marines
married to a woman whom he’d gotten
pregnant with a son he’d never met. “I felt the
light go out of my eyes,” he said. It wasn’t until
he went in for a routine blood test that he was
forced to confront the thing that he’d created
of his life. He was diagnosed with Hepatitis C.
“It’s not just a little positive,” his doctor
told him. “You’re in serious trouble. You’re
dying.” And David was terrified. The
treatments would be painful - lesions, cysts,
a loss of muscle mass and his hair. Everything
that made up who that mask was would be
taken, forcing him to face the monster of his
own making. This he did...but with his family’s
help. It was his older sister, Rachel, who threw
the rope to help him climb out of the pit. She
busted into his life on Father’s Day of 2005.
“I love you,” he remembers her saying, “and
I’m not going to watch you die.” She went on
further to say that she was going to teach him
how to be a father, how to be a man of God.
She took her little brother into her home, in a
nice room in the basement, and it was the first
love he’d allowed in for a long, long time.
During the year-long treatment, he read books
to pass the time. He was still scared and lost.
Man’s Search for Meaning, he recalls, was
the one that convinced him to get ahold of
himself. The book was penned by a Jewish
man named Viktor Frankl who’d survived the
Holocaust and his creation of logotherapy.
“Why haven’t you killed yourself?” the book
asked him. “Are you worthy to bear your own
cross?” This was the question that brought
him to his knees. He realized he didn’t have
to. He was not alone, and his cross was
already borne for him. In that moment, he
begged God to take him back, for what he’d
done was his fault. David didn’t experience
just an inkling of hope - it was so much more.
“I felt what I’d been searching for this the
whole time... I was filled with the Holy Spirit.”
It wasn’t smooth sailing from then on, however.
He described his journey as climbing uphill,
on sand. He had to become a Christian again
every day, and he had several slips as he
struggled closer to God and His grace. He
continued to live in his sister’s basement as
the treatment continued. “I’m not gonna
say that it wasn’t painful,” he says in his
testimony, “but is was so much better than
a decade before: running and being in pain
and shame.”
He began rebuilding his foundation of faith
about 4 months into the treatment, when
three storm clouds brewed on the horizon:
custody of his son, pending felony charges
and a blood test. After three days of fervent
prayer, God answered him. The felony
charges were dropped, he won custody of his
son and his doctor told him that there was no
more Hepatitis C in his liver.
After his ordeal, he decided to graduate
from UT. He originally wanted to use his
experience to reach out to troubled
youth, but after meeting with a
mentor named Tom Henry and
another answered prayer, he decided
instead to minister in China. Tom took
him on a mission trip to several cities in China,
including Beijing and Shanghai. With his Marine
Corps training, he was a great help in his six
years of working with the underground church.
During his work, he was led into ministry with
gang members, triads and the addicted. This
only opened more doors. He was able to meet
with the Hong Kong elite and chose Hong Kong to
live with his new wife and open his own business.
In his testimony, David asks
his father, John Wood, why
he didn’t give up on him. The
answer was simple: “Because
I have been loved well, by my
earthly father and my heavenly
father.” He went on to say that
David was no worse than he,
just braver and more successful
at sinning. “I heard members
of the family...they said, ‘You
know what? Just give up on him’... And my dad
would say, ‘Don’t you ever give up on that young
man, he’s my son, and I love him.” And John
felt the same.
Vaiva Paulauskaite Wood,
Model and Mother
Oftentimes society pressures us to hide the storms
we’ve been going through, to pretend we are not
drenched in self-hate and grief and brokenness.
John has taken his and David’s testimony as
an inspiration to his own church. He wants his
church to be a place where the congregation can
take off the masks and find hope in the salvation
of Jesus Christ. Because if church is not a place you
can take off the mask, then where will people find
hope and fellowship?
John Wood, retired Cedar
Springs Presbyterian
Pastor, with son David.