Troubled soul finds salvation

By Alice Crann

At first Joseph Justiss hated the revival. “I remember not being able to breathe. My head was hurting. I was nauseated. I watched [evangelist] Steve Hill preach and I hated it.”

He left vowing never to return. The next night after work the 25-year-old went home and discovered everyone was at the revival.

“The house was empty but so was I. I can’t explain the emptiness I felt. So, I drove to the revival and I sat in the back of the church.”

He was surrounded by hundreds of worshippers, many seeking the salvation offered by Jesus. Justiss was looking to be saved from what he described as a life of depression and degradation.

Steve Hill came up to me and it felt like he looked right through me. I got freezing cold. I went into a fetal position. Every time he touched me, it hurt, it burned. He began to pray for me. I thought I was flipping out.”

Justiss tried to run, but Hill grabbed him.

“I fell on the floor. All I remember was fighting Steve Hill, and us wrestling on the floor he kept praying for me. Something finally broke in me, and I began to sob from the bottom of my stomach.

The next day, Justiss met hill for counselling. They talked for hours about the things in Justiss’ life that were making him unhappy: homosexuality, the occult, drugs, alcohol. That night, July 10, his parents drove him back to the revival.

“I went to the front row. I told God, ‘If you can take all of this away – the homosexuality, the occult – I’ll serve you again.’ I went to stand and I fell hard on my face. It was like God was saying, this is how I want you to serve me.

“I started crying, but this time I did not feel emptiness, I felt peace. This is when I was saved.

His mother Guadalopi Justiss said she knows the power of God, but she still stunned by what she calls “the miracle” that saved her son. “How can I say it? the change is like night and day. There aren’t any words to describe the difference. Before he was suicidal. Now he’s at total peace with himself.”

As a teenager, he had tried to fit in when it came to sports, hanging out with the guys, and dating girls. “But nothing ever worked,” Justiss said. “This is when I decided I was born gay.” At age 19, at a Christmas party, he said he had his first experience with pot, alcohol, and sex.

“That’s when I came out of the closet. I became close to a man, and we moved in together.” After two years, Justiss got restless and depressed, and once again tried to commit suicide with pain medication. That’s what started the flow of psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors and – antidepressants.

His mother began begging for him to go to the revival. “I told her I didn’t want to go – that it was all hype, all emotions like a tribe dancing around a fire until everyone is caught up in the frenzy. But my mom begged and begged.”

When Justiss first went in he was demon-possessed. He looked like a wild man,” said the Rev. John Kilpatrick, pastor of Brownsville Assembly. “But the Lord delivered him. He did an about-face. It’s miraculous! It’s very evident that he loves the Lord. Today, he’s a tranquil person, effervescent and happy. Everyone at the church looks at him like a trophy of this revival because they know what a mess he was.

Justiss said he is no longer a homosexual. “I want to have a wife. I want to have children.”

But what about those who say people are born gay, that it all has to do with genetics? “I can’t speak for anyone else. All I know is that I am no longer attracted to men. I am attracted to women.

He now works at the Christian Television Network as a master control operator and attends Pacesetters Bible School at Pine Forest United Methodist Church.

Justiss attends the revival on his nights off from the work to praise the Lord and gain inner strength from the Holy Spirit. “I don’t take what’s happened to me lightly, and it’s not all blue skies and butterflies. I go through daily battles. It’s a daily decision to serve God but my heart has changed. when I look at my eyes in the mirror I can see something different.”

Alice Crann is a staff writer with the Pensacola News Journal, from which this article is reprinted with permission.