Angel Dean was a troubled teenager who found himself drawn to Satanism and things of a spiritual nature.  “I think for a lot of people getting into Satanism doesn’t happen while sitting in class one day thinking ‘well, I’m bored. I think I’ll try a new religion.’  It comes from a lot of hurt, pain, bitterness and resentment.   I was hungry for power to overcome the loads of hurt I was feeling in my life.   At first, it was exciting, intriguing and supernatural to a degree.  So, I was sucked into the self power and the power to deal with the things I didn’t like.”

 Aside from taking charge of his life, Angel’s obsession with Satanism and witchcraft took its toll on the teenager’s home life.  “It keeps fueling the anger and bitterness.  Before you know what’s happening, you don’t fit…you don’t belong.  It’s a chain reaction.  The devil’s trick is to isolate and confuse.  If he can get you alone and separated from anyone who can speak truth in your life, you’re easy prey.”

While in the grips of this darkness and confusion, Angel’s frustrated parents placed their sixteen-year-old son in a foster home.  “I was flunking out of school and living with a guy who was my alcohol buyer.  I was a junior in high school and in trouble with the law.  I was collecting money for the boys scouts to help the needy during Christmas.  But, I didn’t belong to the boy scouts!   My life was spinning wildly out of control.  While all this was going on, the courts assigned me to a foster home which just fueled the anger and the bitterness all the more.”

So much so, Angel wanted to take his life.  “All the isolation and hatred caught up with me.  I knew this wasn’t good.  I felt nothing on the inside.  If this is life, I reasoned at the time, you can just keep it.  I didn’t want it anymore.  I was ready to cash it in and just end my life.  I found myself wanting to die.”

Angel made a suicide pact with himself.  “Fortunately for me, I called somebody who was the only person who would talk to me.   Lehla was a Christian.  She came over to get me at one o’clock in the morning.  It was early March and snowing lightly that night.   I told Lehla I wanted to go for a walk around this huge dam.  But, in reality, I was planning to go for a swim and hypothermia would set in.  Once I got in the water, it would be too late to chicken out and swim back to shore.  Lehla knew something was wrong and drove me to a church instead.   Once we got there, the youth minister, who was hosting a lock in for junior high kids, talked to me.  I wasn’t interested in talking to him.  But, there was somebody else there that night and that was God.  I had chosen to be an enemy of God, but fortunately, He didn’t chose to be my enemy.  Not only didn’t I take my life that night, but I had given it over to Him.”

For the first time, Angel was filled with life and in the power of faith.  “The only real advice I can give to anyone is this:  don’t underestimate your potential.  God has a wonderful way of taking the broken and the humble and doing exciting things with them.  John 14:12 says ‘I tell you the truth; anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.  He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.’  That was Christ speaking to our potential.  I believe those words with all my heart.”

How does Angel, a one-time follower of Satan and now a Christian entertainer, view life today?  “Right now, my life is wonderful.  I seriously don’t have a complaint.  I have to keep coming up with new dreams because everything I’ve dared to dream God has given to me.   As a little child, you grow up wanting to be two things—a rock star or an actor.  For somebody who got a ‘D’ in choir, I didn’t think a rock star was on my list of things to do.  Fortunately for me God has a sense of humor and He was able to use me as a singer.”

Henry Ward Beecher once said, “Every tomorrow has two handles.  We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith.”  Angel Dean, a devout Christian, is firmly grasping the handle of faith as he lives his life and joyfully shares his testimony.

 

 

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