Emotionally Wounded Man Trades Bottle for Bible
“I was very bitter and I got lost. I was very angry at God. How could God take such a saint, sainted woman? I was very angry at God, yes,” Jeff Coulter says.
Jeff prayed to accept Christ as a young boy. but when his mother passed away of cancer when Jeff was 22, his heart changed. “I started getting involved with my work, first of all, as a young police officer. I subsequently started drinking to try and fill the void,” Jeff says.
Over the years, the bitterness and alcohol fed on each other. “I remember one time, almost as vividly hearing the voice as you and I talking now, ‘You can't serve two masters.’ And I remember my answer, ‘Then I will not serve God.”
Jeff met and married Suzie. For many years, he also battled depression. “The alcohol contributed immensely so to my chronic depression. I was a binge drinker,” Jeff says. “I used to keep a bottle of tequila in the fridge when I was drinking on my weekends. I would put it in the freezer so I wouldn't have to waste time with a shot glass. One time I drank so much that I blacked out in the back at my house in my utility room and when I woke up I didn't know where I was in my own home.”
Suzie says, “I was always fearful for Jeff's safety when he was drinking especially. I didn't want him to be in an accident and I didn't want him to be somewhere where he was just passed out and not able to take care of himself. I never stopped praying for Jeff. I knew that he could be better than the alcoholism and the man that he was becoming--I knew he was better than that.”
On April 22, 2014, everything changed. That day, Jeff was on his way to his favorite fishing hole. when he approached a blind hill.“I recall just a blink of an eye, him coming into my lane. The only thing I really had time to do was blink. He came across that line and it sounded like a bomb going off, the airbags going off, the impact. It honestly sounded like an explosion. I blacked out. I vaguely remember hearing the car skidding.”
A car had hit Jeff head-on. he was life-flighted to a hospital in Cincinnati, while in I.C.U he had several surgeries. after one operation, Jeff coded. H=He says he will never forget what he saw after that.
“I passed out in my wife's arms. I began to see images of demons and I started hearing growling and laughter. What I was told afterwards, my heart had stopped, half my heart stopped and my respiration was off the charts and I was basically dying. I felt my soul leave my body. And I remember seeing darkness and also fog on the floor and on the ceilings. I went to a place where there was a black void. And I remember crying out to Jesus, ‘Jesus, help me!’”
Jeff then saw a vision of his mother. “She got up right in my face. It was a younger version of my mother and I remember her looking me right in the eye. And for whatever reason, she was washing her arm. Now that could have been from them washing and moving my arm in the hospital--I don’t know. But from a believer’s standpoint, I believe it symbolized washing. And for me to cleanup my act. But she gave me that motherly stare and after that I remember zooming back. And I basically came back in the room.”
The next thing Jeff remembers is waking up in recovery. “One of the first things I remember doing was find—grabbing the TV remote and finding a preacher on TV. I wanted to hear somebody--I wanted to hear the Bible--an immediate desire to repent of my sins.’
In the days and weeks that followed, Jeff re-dedicated his life to Christ. “I immediately quick drinking, and I quit cold turkey ever since. I started reading my Bible again and I started praying again,” Jeff says. “I no longer blame God for my mother's death. I blame the cancer that took her life. I resolved my relationship and my bitterness by counseling and attending church. If it had not been for the elders, and brothers and sisters at my church helping me through this, I would not have made it.”
“God can definitely redeem. God can definitely save,” Suzie adds. “And Jeff is actually proof of that. I'm just so proud of Jeff and the change that he’s made, because I knew that that was the guy I wanted to be married to forever. And now he is that man again.”
Now retired from the police force, Jeff and his wife have developed JNS ministries and plan to open Galilean fishing lodge, a facility that will minister to young people.
Jeff adds, “He is just a prayer away. Never think that you are worthless. Never think that you are not good enough. If God can save a wretch like me, He can save anybody. As eternal beings, we're going to have to live forever somewhere, I would encourage you to live forever in heaven.”
