Anthony Pritchard
New Member
Let me introduce myself. I have had this account for some time, forgotten and unused, until now. I am a 70 year old man, a child of God, an ardent student of the Word of God, and a truth seeker for all these decades.
My Testimony
By AK Pritchard to Benjamin , Son of My Right Hand
Letters From the Edge Series
Abbreviated version.
I was born on September 3rd, 1955, and raised in a Baptist church from infancy through my teenage years. Our congregation gathered faithfully, Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, Wednesday nights, and for every preaching conference or special event that came through town.
As a child, I remember the era of "flying preachers, evangelists who flew small airplanes equipped with amplifiers and speakers, broadcasting the Gospel across the countryside. One such preacher visited our church, delivering his message from the pulpit rather than the sky. I recall him taking my elderly grandmother on a short flight, a moment that made its way into the weekly newspaper’s column of community events.
Though I was raised in a Gospel-preaching church and knew the plan of salvation, could even quote the verses if pressed, I was not saved. I made several "professions of faith" in my youth, but none were born of true repentance. Some were prompted by well-meaning people, others were made out of convenience to appease my parents. But I knew in my heart I had never truly surrendered. I had never been born again.
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.", John 3:7
By sixteen, rebellion had taken root, not loudly, but deeply. By seventeen, it was no longer hidden. I openly rejected God and His Word. At eighteen, my girlfriend and I were pregnant. Though I now hold a high school diploma and a college degree, I never returned for my senior year.
I hated God. I wanted the world, its plastic shine, its temporary thrills, its lies. But the allure wore off quickly, and the truth emerged: I was living in a pigsty, like the prodigal son, but not a son of God at all.
We married in 1974, young, poor, miserable, and with a baby to care for. I was unprepared to be a husband or a father. More than unprepared, I was incapable. I sinned. I failed. I take full responsibility for the collapse of our marriage, for my selfishness, my immaturity, my sin. No work skills, no prospects, and in mid-70s Michigan, no opportunities for an unskilled dropout. If a man can’t finish high school, how can an employer trust him?
We parted bitterly, angrily, and eventually divorced. I take full responsibility.
But God was not done with me.
I earned my diploma, then a bachelor’s degree. In 1977, at age 21, I joined the Navy. That decision marked the beginning of my journey toward real repentance, surrender, and salvation. I had a praying mother, and a God who listens.
To enlist, I needed a recommendation from someone respectable. I approached a judge who had jailed me, officiated my marriage, and signed my divorce decree. To my surprise, he gave it, attributing my past to "the errors of youth." But I knew better. It was sin. And only sin.
When joining the Navy, I had a choice: a guaranteed coast or a guaranteed job. I didn’t care about the job, I wanted the West Coast. That’s where the deployments went, Westpac tours to the Pacific Rim, to the party, to the debauchery. That’s what I wanted. But God was working. He was answering my mother’s prayers.
I ended up in Norfolk, Virginia, after graduating from Boiler Technician 'A' School. The needs of the Navy superseded my preferences. But it was God’s hand. I was assigned to the USS Blandy (DD-943), a destroyer with an unusually high number of saved, on-fire-for-God Baptists, and others too.
Within hours, I met these soldiers of Christ (2 Timothy 2:3). They asked if I was saved. Not wanting to be bothered, I said, "Sure, since I was a kid." They didn’t believe me. They were right. They witnessed to me often. And when you’re 3,000 miles from land, you can’t run far from the truth. God was moving. Convicting. Inviting.
Two years and two deployments to the Mediterranean passed in a drunken haze. Then, in late 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran and established a Muslim state governed by Sharia law. The American embassy was overrun. Hostages were taken. We were deployed to the Persian Gulf.
We passed through the Suez Canal, a sewer pit, with human waste floating beside Egyptian children swimming and drinking from it. We spent Christmas Day traveling down the Red Sea. Eventually, we anchored at the edge of Iranian waters. The heat was unbearable. The sandstorms were vile. It was a miserable place.
But for those two years, God had been working on my heart. Answering my mother’s prayers. And His Word does not return void.
"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please…", Isaiah 55:11
God’s Word is not passive. It pierces. It convicts. It demands a response. Whether that response is repentance or rejection, the Word does its work.
Under intense conviction by the Holy Spirit, I finally grasped the terrifying truth: I could do nothing to save myself. I could die at any moment, especially in that part of the world. But I also saw the love, mercy, and grace of God. I surrendered. Fully. Through repentance and belief, not only that He could save me, but that He absolutely would.
I was born again. The new man was raised. The old man was buried.
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." , 2 Corinthians 5:17
Gone were the drunken days. Gone was the alcohol. Gone were the three packs of Marlboros a day. Gone was my desire for the falsity of the world.
That passage is not a promise of ease, it is a declaration of transformation. The "old things" are the dominion of sin, the blindness of the natural man, the estrangement from God. The "new" is the life of Christ within, a new heart, new desires, new standing before God. But this newness brings warfare, discipline, and suffering for righteousness’ sake.
And so it has been for me. A life not repaired, but made new. Born again. Never to return to the pigpen of the world. All by the grace and mercy of God. None of my own doing.
All my love,
Dad
My Testimony
By AK Pritchard to Benjamin , Son of My Right Hand
Letters From the Edge Series
Abbreviated version.
I was born on September 3rd, 1955, and raised in a Baptist church from infancy through my teenage years. Our congregation gathered faithfully, Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, Wednesday nights, and for every preaching conference or special event that came through town.
As a child, I remember the era of "flying preachers, evangelists who flew small airplanes equipped with amplifiers and speakers, broadcasting the Gospel across the countryside. One such preacher visited our church, delivering his message from the pulpit rather than the sky. I recall him taking my elderly grandmother on a short flight, a moment that made its way into the weekly newspaper’s column of community events.
Though I was raised in a Gospel-preaching church and knew the plan of salvation, could even quote the verses if pressed, I was not saved. I made several "professions of faith" in my youth, but none were born of true repentance. Some were prompted by well-meaning people, others were made out of convenience to appease my parents. But I knew in my heart I had never truly surrendered. I had never been born again.
"Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.", John 3:7
By sixteen, rebellion had taken root, not loudly, but deeply. By seventeen, it was no longer hidden. I openly rejected God and His Word. At eighteen, my girlfriend and I were pregnant. Though I now hold a high school diploma and a college degree, I never returned for my senior year.
I hated God. I wanted the world, its plastic shine, its temporary thrills, its lies. But the allure wore off quickly, and the truth emerged: I was living in a pigsty, like the prodigal son, but not a son of God at all.
We married in 1974, young, poor, miserable, and with a baby to care for. I was unprepared to be a husband or a father. More than unprepared, I was incapable. I sinned. I failed. I take full responsibility for the collapse of our marriage, for my selfishness, my immaturity, my sin. No work skills, no prospects, and in mid-70s Michigan, no opportunities for an unskilled dropout. If a man can’t finish high school, how can an employer trust him?
We parted bitterly, angrily, and eventually divorced. I take full responsibility.
But God was not done with me.
I earned my diploma, then a bachelor’s degree. In 1977, at age 21, I joined the Navy. That decision marked the beginning of my journey toward real repentance, surrender, and salvation. I had a praying mother, and a God who listens.
To enlist, I needed a recommendation from someone respectable. I approached a judge who had jailed me, officiated my marriage, and signed my divorce decree. To my surprise, he gave it, attributing my past to "the errors of youth." But I knew better. It was sin. And only sin.
When joining the Navy, I had a choice: a guaranteed coast or a guaranteed job. I didn’t care about the job, I wanted the West Coast. That’s where the deployments went, Westpac tours to the Pacific Rim, to the party, to the debauchery. That’s what I wanted. But God was working. He was answering my mother’s prayers.
I ended up in Norfolk, Virginia, after graduating from Boiler Technician 'A' School. The needs of the Navy superseded my preferences. But it was God’s hand. I was assigned to the USS Blandy (DD-943), a destroyer with an unusually high number of saved, on-fire-for-God Baptists, and others too.
Within hours, I met these soldiers of Christ (2 Timothy 2:3). They asked if I was saved. Not wanting to be bothered, I said, "Sure, since I was a kid." They didn’t believe me. They were right. They witnessed to me often. And when you’re 3,000 miles from land, you can’t run far from the truth. God was moving. Convicting. Inviting.
Two years and two deployments to the Mediterranean passed in a drunken haze. Then, in late 1978, Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah of Iran and established a Muslim state governed by Sharia law. The American embassy was overrun. Hostages were taken. We were deployed to the Persian Gulf.
We passed through the Suez Canal, a sewer pit, with human waste floating beside Egyptian children swimming and drinking from it. We spent Christmas Day traveling down the Red Sea. Eventually, we anchored at the edge of Iranian waters. The heat was unbearable. The sandstorms were vile. It was a miserable place.
But for those two years, God had been working on my heart. Answering my mother’s prayers. And His Word does not return void.
"So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please…", Isaiah 55:11
God’s Word is not passive. It pierces. It convicts. It demands a response. Whether that response is repentance or rejection, the Word does its work.
Under intense conviction by the Holy Spirit, I finally grasped the terrifying truth: I could do nothing to save myself. I could die at any moment, especially in that part of the world. But I also saw the love, mercy, and grace of God. I surrendered. Fully. Through repentance and belief, not only that He could save me, but that He absolutely would.
I was born again. The new man was raised. The old man was buried.
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." , 2 Corinthians 5:17
Gone were the drunken days. Gone was the alcohol. Gone were the three packs of Marlboros a day. Gone was my desire for the falsity of the world.
That passage is not a promise of ease, it is a declaration of transformation. The "old things" are the dominion of sin, the blindness of the natural man, the estrangement from God. The "new" is the life of Christ within, a new heart, new desires, new standing before God. But this newness brings warfare, discipline, and suffering for righteousness’ sake.
And so it has been for me. A life not repaired, but made new. Born again. Never to return to the pigpen of the world. All by the grace and mercy of God. None of my own doing.
All my love,
Dad