This Thanksgiving, Mary and I will be traveling to Texas to celebrate with our family. And while I know we’ll enjoy our time together, it isn’t lost on me that the holidays can be incredibly difficult for many. My heart keeps going back to my dear friend and brother in the Lord, Robert.
I met Robert over 35 years ago in Bible college. After graduation, life took us in different directions, but we stayed connected—cheering each other on through life’s peaks and walking together through its valleys. Two months ago, Robert lost his beloved wife, Terry, to cancer. And yet, despite his grief and his own debilitating health struggles, he continues to faithfully minister right where God has placed him. Whether he’s at a coffee shop, a grocery store, talking with firefighters at the local station, or simply crossing paths with someone in need, Robert shares Christ with a tenderness and boldness shaped through years of God’s grace.
I always knew parts of Robert’s story—his struggles with drugs and anger before he trusted Christ. But I didn’t know the whole journey until recently. And that is the story I’ve asked him to share with you. Not because it’s messy or tragic, but because it is a testament to what God can do with the broken pieces of our lives.
Below is Robert’s powerful testimony—raw, redemptive, and filled with hope.
My Journey of Hope
By Robert Moran
The Darkness of the Beginning
My life began far from any sense of safety or love. My first five years were shaped by a constant, crippling fear. My earliest memory is a painful one: at four years old, I walked to my father’s auto parts store—only to be spanked and beaten when he walked me home. That physical and emotional violence became the cruel rhythm of my childhood in Smithtown, Long Island.
As the middle child, I was my father’s punching bag, absorbing his rage up to five times a week—beatings fueled by his alcoholism. That terror at home made me incredibly vulnerable outside it, where I was manipulated and molested by a neighbor for years. I had no protector; no adult ever showed me true safety or care. My world was mean, cutthroat, and defined by fear.
Years of pain grew into rage. I became the kid who fought constantly—in school, in the neighborhood, anywhere the teasing surfaced—for my red hair, my freckles, and later, for the secret trauma others discovered. My lashing out led to failing grades and early rebellion, using marijuana and alcohol to numb the pain. The final rejection came at sixteen when my father coldly told me, “Keep the key. I’m changing the locks.”
I was kicked out and left to sleep on friends’ couches or in my old yellow three-on-the-tree car.
Mistakes in the Middle: A Life on the Run
With no guidance and no place to belong, survival hardened me. Kicked out of school and home, I found acceptance among older people who used my toughness and anger for their own purposes.
At eighteen, seeking an escape—and facing possible jail time after a street fight—I joined the Army. My enlistment became my saving grace in court.
I spent three years stationed in Bavaria, Germany. The landscapes were beautiful, but there was no peace within me. My old patterns followed me: I’d be promoted, then demoted for fighting and drunkenness. I got involved in drug distribution and sales, and when the German police came looking, I fled. I left everything behind—my life, my possessions, my relationships—and landed back at JFK, thinking I could start fresh.
Instead, I built a construction career alongside a large cocaine and marijuana business. From 1985 until I met Terry, I was deeply lost, using over $1,000 of my own product each week. Anger, alcohol, and drugs became my shields—my desperate attempt to bury the terror of my childhood.
Then I met Terry on a blind date. We married in November 1989. For a season, we were a mess together, locked in a destructive cycle neither of us knew how to break.
The Call and the Change
One day Terry, with her clear sight and deep love, gave me the ultimatum that saved my life: get help or leave.
Desperate, I walked across the street to the church and knocked on every door until I found the parsonage. There I met Andy, an NYC Director for the Navigators. Andy didn’t meet my anger with judgment—he met it with Christ.
He spoke of things I had never known: love, compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. As he explained Scripture and the gift of God’s grace, a new and thrilling truth broke through the darkness. I had never known unconditional love. I had never known forgiveness. And I wanted what he offered.
Andy didn’t just give information—he walked with me for an entire year, opening God’s Word and showing me how to love and how to be loved. Terry and I committed ourselves to this new path, and we moved to Florida for Bible college.
There I met wonderful people who helped shape my walk with Christ. One of them was my dear friend Juan, whose friendship has impacted my life to this day. He is still a faithful brother who continues to encourage and help me.
A Life Defined by Grace
By 1996, Terry and I moved to Pennsylvania with our two young sons, where we put our faith into action by creating Timothy House—a residential discipleship ministry for men trapped in the same cycles of addiction, anger, and deception that I had survived. The years in ministry were powerful and redemptive, a beautiful reversal of my painful beginnings.
When the ministry closed, we moved to Georgia and celebrated the birth of our third son in 2001. God had blessed me beyond anything I could have imagined: three boys, a faithful wife, and a Savior who held our family together.
Over these 36 years, God has faithfully worked on my character—teaching me how to love, forgive, and treat people with kindness…the very opposite of how my father treated me. The Lord God is my Father and Creator. His Son, Jesus, is my Friend—my true Friend who loves me. And the Holy Spirit faithfully guides my life.
My story is proof that no darkness is too deep for Christ’s light to reach, and no anger too strong for His love to break.
The Enduring Legacy of Terry
Today, I carry a grief as deep as the hope God has given me. My precious Terry is with the Father and the Son. Her passing—just 32 days after her cancer diagnosis—was abrupt and devastating. I am crushed and lonely. She was a priceless gift to me and to our boys.
I survived a childhood of abuse and a young adulthood of addiction and self-destruction. God transformed that brokenness into strength, purpose, and love—allowing me to build a beautiful life with Terry.
My journey of hope is not just a story of survival but a testament to God’s transforming grace. I may feel alone at times, but I am never without hope. The same love that saved me is the love that sustains me.
And my story is not finished. Up to this point, it has been a powerful journey—from tragedy to transformation to enduring faith. I am hopeful—full of whispers of hope—about what the Lord will show me in the years ahead.
My desire is to bring glory to the Lord Jesus and to honor the Father who rescued me; to honor my precious wife, Terry, the woman God blessed me with for so many years; and to love my three sons with the power and love that work within me.
What a wonderful finish line it will be.
Closing Reflection
As we journey through life, it’s easy to get caught up in the joys, struggles, and losses of each season. Robert’s story reminds us that the greatest gift we have is knowing Christ—the One who is faithful and present in every season of our lives. He walks with us through pain, celebrates with us in joy, and transforms our brokenness into hope.
And the privilege doesn’t stop with our own experience. We are called to share this life-changing gift with others—through words, actions, and the love we show in everyday moments. Just as Robert continues to shine the light of Christ to those around him, we too can point others to the hope, healing, and unshakable peace that only He provides.
This Thanksgiving, may we remember our greatest gift, embrace His presence in every season, and carry His love into the lives of those we encounter.