Ian MacDowell
I went from A LIVING HELL
To a place of peace
lan McDowell was rescued from what he describes as a life of ’living hell’ by a remarkable intervention of God in his life.
“I was a bodybuilder as a young man,” he says. Unfortunately, I got involved in taking anabolic steroids. I was probably what you would call a ‘God-hater’. 1 was training in the gym seven days a week and competing up and down the country in competitions.
When I was 18 I became a night club doorman and I worked 15 years, six nights a week as a bouncers. I also got involved in illegal debt collecting and kept getting myself arrested.
“I’ve said that l nearly tasted hell, because I was going to work with a gun because there was a contract on my life. Life was just a living hell. One night while I was out on bail, I was covered in blood as I drove home after a fight in North London. I remember looking at the blood on my shirt and deciding that I’d better think about what I was doing with my life.
“I thought if there was a God, what did he think about someone like me? I had probably stopped believing in God when I stopped believing in Father Christmas, but that night I said, ‘Jesus, if you’re real, can you help me?’ I don’t know why I said ‘Jesus’ because I’d never been to church in my life, but as soon as I’d prayed that simple prayer I felt an overwhelming sense of love in my heart. I started crying my eyes out and sat there for an hour just being loved by the Father I’d never had.
“I’d never really had the Gospel presented to me but I woke up the next morning thinking, ‘There is a God!’ Over the next weeks and months my life turned round. I joined a church and started to pray regularly and all the anger and hatred and evil just seemed to disappear. All the vile things that used to come out of my lips, and the desire for the bad things I used to be involved in, left my life.
“It’s the fact of knowing how much evil I had been into and just how much grace and love God had given me that drives me to do what I do today. I’m not trying to pay God back – none of us could ever do that- but it’s just when you’ve been touched by so much love you want to give it out.
“And I thank God that my life has gone from a living hell into a place of peace and happiness, all because Jesus died on the cross and rose again for me. I used to have a terrible fear of dying – I had nightmares about it because I’ve been shot at and had knives pulled out of me. But all that fear has been taken from me.
Ian doesn’t compete in building competitions anymore, but keeping his muscles in trim is still useful in the job he now has – security work – and in his youth outreaches. He tells kids and young people about Jesus, while lifting weights with a team of other Christian strongmen called ‘Tough Talk’.
He says, “I never had a normal nine-to-five job in my life, but about twelve years ago I set up a security business. I draw an average salary from it, but the beauty is that it gives me the opportunity to go out and do as many Tough Talk meetings as I can. Tough Talk is my main love – I spend more time doing that than I do actually working, but l feel that is God’s blessing on my life!
“In addition, I’m now a married man. And God’s given me a lovely daughter, so it’s just fantastic the difference he’s made in me”.
