The Bryant Story 2008 (healed, Delivered, and on Fire)
by Terrence Clark
Interview with Rev. Paul Bryant
Years ago, when I was a teenager, he cut my hair at his father‘s barber shop. His father pastored a church in the building next door. The evening of the interview, he was trimming a young child‘s hair. It was six thirty, and there were still three or more customers waiting. The shop closed at six. Unlike the fidgeting kid in the raised chair, while the barber, my father, and the other older guys exchanges stories, adventures diagnosing current events with scripture, I listened as Paul Bryant told me his testimony.
Interview with Rev. Paul Bryant
Years ago, when I was a teenager, he cut my hair at his father‘s barber shop. His father pastored a church in the building next door. The evening of the interview, he was trimming a young child‘s hair. It was six thirty, and there were still three or more customers waiting. The shop closed at six. Unlike the fidgeting kid in the raised chair, while the barber, my father, and the other older guys exchanges stories, adventures diagnosing current events with scripture, I listened as Paul Bryant told me his testimony.
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“I was brought up in church.” He
repeated it again in order to emphasize the point. “I was brought up in church,
but I didn‘t really know Jesus Christ as my personal savior. I struggled through
things, and I really didn‘t have a made up mind. I was doing my thing behind
closed doors. I was using drugs and alcohol and running women. It came to a
point where I became addicted to cocaine. Cocaine had destroyed my life. I was
an IV user. I used pills, and I smoked weed to the point where it took charge of
my life.”
Paul was like a lot of kids raised in the church. He was like the prodigal son. He wanted to taste what Satan had to offer out in the street. He did. He began to like it and then he backslid.
“I kept on dipping and dabbing to a point where it took control of my life. Not only did it take control of my life, but it destroyed a lot of lives around me. What it did at the age of twenty-eight years old, I got stabbed in Camden, NJ on Cooper Street. Four guys with chains and bats jumped me. I hollered the name of Jesus. I believed when I hollered the name of Jesus that the young man who stabbed me stopped.
Looking for help, I knocked on a nearby door. The man who answered became irate and he pulled out a knife and began to come after me. I ran and jumped over the fence. I hid in the back of a stairway that goes down into a basement in the projects.
Bleeding profusely, I started to cramp. I knew I was bleeding internally, and my one lung filled up and the other one was beginning to fill up. I told myself that I had to walk, or if not I‘m going to die.
At that moment, I saw two angels. They were two teenage girls. I told them that I just got stabbed, and they called the police and ambulance. They put me in the ambulance and took me to Cooper Hospital. I was taken to surgery, and a tube was hooked up to my lungs to drain out the blood.
Still, I was rebellious. I continued to use drugs like never before. I was to the point where I was no longer Paul jr. a man that was raised up in church beating the drums. I had become a servant of Satan. I continue to shoot drugs in my arms both speed and cocaine. I began using crack cocaine. I was also running women.
One Sunday morning 11:00, after a two-and-a-half day rampage of drugs and not drinking any water, I overdosed. I told my son that I was going to die. Incidentally, during the time of my addiction I was thirty-eight years old. I had been married for twenty-seven years, with four kids. I would go to work, and when I would come home, I would be active in drinking and abusing drugs.
The other barbers and the customers in the barbershop didn‘t know it, because it was hidden. I hid it well until it started to take control of my life. Then, it started to blossom and that‘s when the community found out that this strong-hold of cocaine had gripped me. And then, that‘s when I started to go deeper and deeper into Satan‘s web.
I was in Burlington City when I had that overdose. I fell down the stairs because I didn‘t want to die in front of my family. I was living on the third floor. I proceeded to walk out of the kitchen to go down the stairs. I fell down ten steps, and I saw my body over the top of my head. I was conscience before I went out of consciousness. As I lay there, I began calling on the name of Jesus asking him to forgive me for my sins. I asked him to save me from this overdose because I knew I was going to die. He did.
I began to grow spiritually and started to really believe in Christ. Before these things, my children had been taken from me. I stayed in places that you wouldn‘t even imagine.
I was in deep addiction. I couldn‘t keep any money. In my mind‘s insanity, I would have never thought that I could stop and that Jesus could deliver me from this disease. I was on cocaine for over twenty years. Over twenty year of my life I was on this stuff and now for years I am clean.‖
It is wonderful when the manifestation of deliverance happens immediately. It was not so with Paul. He explained, “After eighteen years I went into a rehab center. I was there several years before I came out. Then I did several more after my fall.
I started to serve the Lord and then I continued to go back into my addiction. I wasn‘t totally delivered yet. I continued going to church, and I continued seeking the face of God, but I was still in my addiction. I was still drinking, but I kept on trusting God that he was going to deliver me one day, and he did. I‘m going on almost five years clean. I give God all the glory and all the praise for bringing me out of that stab wound in 1987. I give God all the glory and all the praise for bringing me out of my addiction five years ago.
Physically, everything started to happen to me. My blood pressure started to escalate. I contracted the disease of Hepatitis C. I have a liver disorder, and I have poor circulation in my left leg. All this stuff happened to me because of my addiction. They wanted to amputate my legs about two and a half years ago. My leg turned black and I couldn‘t stand on it for more than five minutes. They said my veins were shot. This is why I wear my stockings. The doctor said the only way for me to keep my leg was for me to stay off of it for eighteen hours. The only time they moved me was when I had to go to the bathroom.
That Thursday the surgeon told me that if my leg didn‘t get any better then he would have to amputate it. That Sunday when I went to church, I was already saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost, and delivered from the disease of cocaine, I ran to the alter and asked the Lord to heal my leg. To today, my leg is healed. I give God the glory and praise for what he has done for me. He healed my leg. I give him the praise for that.“
My wife was my get high partner. She was also hooked on cocaine, and she was a severe alcoholic. Theresa had gotten the disease of Pancreatitis, which inflated to the point where it put a hole through her pancreas. The poison went down to her stomach. They wanted to take half of Theresa‘s stomach out. She was in the hospital for several weeks. They wouldn‘t give her any food. She couldn‘t hold it because her pancreas wouldn‘t work. So she would just to throw it up. She couldn‘t drink more than a little bit of water, or she would throw it up.
The doctors said, Mr. Bryant, we can‘t hold your wife here too long. They said if she doesn‘t get better in three days we going to have to operate. I asked, what are Theresa chances? (All of this was because we abused our bodies.) They said we‘re going to take her x-ray again and some more lab work. They said if she doesn‘t get better, we‘re going to have to operate. They told me Theresa chances were fifty-fifty. I started to really trust God. I had started to see my wife wither away.
I called my grand mom Elizabeth Bush from Camden New Jersey. I told her make it get well. It was a Thursday evening around ten. She told me to lay my hands on Theresa‘s leg while she started to claim the blood of Jesus. Grand mom called on the Lord for Theresa’s healing. I started to agree with what she was saying.
When they took that test in three days, they told me, they didn‘t know what happened. The general surgeons and all the other surgeons didn‘t want to operate on her. They told me that they wouldn‘t have to operate on Theresa. She‘s been delivered from Pancreatitis for almost two and a half years. She‘s saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost.
We‘re running on for Jesus. She has a singing ministry and I‘m out here in the streets of Clayton telling people about the Good News of Jesus. I have a great compassion towards addicts and alcoholics because that‘s me. That‘s who I hung out with. That‘s my people. I was one of those people who are hooked on that stuff. God has given me a mission. And, my mission is to tell other addicts and to tell another alcoholic that you can make it through Jesus Christ. They can make it because He‘s a healer and a Deliverer, and He has set me free. He has given me back my respect. Now, my kids give me respect. My name is Mr. Bryant now. The Lord has also blessed me financially. He has been doing great things for me. Today, I am a walking deacon in the church. He gave me back my talent of playing the drums. God is so good.
My granddaughter is three years old, when she was born she was given a fifty-fifty chance for her to live. She had an asthma attack. She had an asthma problem and she was on the machine and when she turned a year and a half old. My daughter decided for her to have surgery. They had to put a piece of plastic in her esophagus to enlarge it, so she can begin to breathe like a normal person. Then after that the esophagus would expand, they would have to take that piece of plastic out. During the process, complications occurred. She was beginning to get mucus in her lungs and they didn‘t expect for her to live. We began to pray and right here today I tell you that my granddaughter Ceoana Walker is healed from asthma. She doesn‘t have to take any medications.
God has done great things for me and my family. I just want God to continue doing good things, miracles, and blessings in my family and in Clayton.
Just to think, I was to the point of doing robbery and all kinds of dumb things just to be able to get another hit. But, God delivered me from that and then brought me back from Burlington to Clayton, so the people can see that I‘m a new person in Christ.‖
I like to thank Pastor Hilman and Margaret Moses who were a very great help to my wife and me in my time of need during the addiction. They were there for us. I want to thank my mother Barbara Barry, Tom Barry and Reverend Bryant for not giving up on their son. I want to thank Brother Horace Pritchet, which is my pastor now. I just continue to give God the glory and the praise.
The Bryant’s mission is to encourage young people (or anyone) to not to make the same mistakes they made in life. This ministering couple is available to speak in churches, rehabs centers, youth events, schools, and anywhere people need help and a delivering word from the Lord.
To contact the Bryant’s for speaking engagement, their upcoming book, or their products, you may do so at (856) 553-3348
Read their continuing interview at The Bryant Story 2014
Terrence Clark is the founder and Chief Editor of the Voice of One Online (voiceofoneonline.com) and the Voice of One Magazine. If you have a testimony and would like an interview, please contact us at (856) 728-0777. If you have a story that would best be told in book form also contact the publishers The Glory Cloud publications at the same number or online at www.theGloryCloudpublications.com
Paul was like a lot of kids raised in the church. He was like the prodigal son. He wanted to taste what Satan had to offer out in the street. He did. He began to like it and then he backslid.
“I kept on dipping and dabbing to a point where it took control of my life. Not only did it take control of my life, but it destroyed a lot of lives around me. What it did at the age of twenty-eight years old, I got stabbed in Camden, NJ on Cooper Street. Four guys with chains and bats jumped me. I hollered the name of Jesus. I believed when I hollered the name of Jesus that the young man who stabbed me stopped.
Looking for help, I knocked on a nearby door. The man who answered became irate and he pulled out a knife and began to come after me. I ran and jumped over the fence. I hid in the back of a stairway that goes down into a basement in the projects.
Bleeding profusely, I started to cramp. I knew I was bleeding internally, and my one lung filled up and the other one was beginning to fill up. I told myself that I had to walk, or if not I‘m going to die.
At that moment, I saw two angels. They were two teenage girls. I told them that I just got stabbed, and they called the police and ambulance. They put me in the ambulance and took me to Cooper Hospital. I was taken to surgery, and a tube was hooked up to my lungs to drain out the blood.
Still, I was rebellious. I continued to use drugs like never before. I was to the point where I was no longer Paul jr. a man that was raised up in church beating the drums. I had become a servant of Satan. I continue to shoot drugs in my arms both speed and cocaine. I began using crack cocaine. I was also running women.
One Sunday morning 11:00, after a two-and-a-half day rampage of drugs and not drinking any water, I overdosed. I told my son that I was going to die. Incidentally, during the time of my addiction I was thirty-eight years old. I had been married for twenty-seven years, with four kids. I would go to work, and when I would come home, I would be active in drinking and abusing drugs.
The other barbers and the customers in the barbershop didn‘t know it, because it was hidden. I hid it well until it started to take control of my life. Then, it started to blossom and that‘s when the community found out that this strong-hold of cocaine had gripped me. And then, that‘s when I started to go deeper and deeper into Satan‘s web.
I was in Burlington City when I had that overdose. I fell down the stairs because I didn‘t want to die in front of my family. I was living on the third floor. I proceeded to walk out of the kitchen to go down the stairs. I fell down ten steps, and I saw my body over the top of my head. I was conscience before I went out of consciousness. As I lay there, I began calling on the name of Jesus asking him to forgive me for my sins. I asked him to save me from this overdose because I knew I was going to die. He did.
I began to grow spiritually and started to really believe in Christ. Before these things, my children had been taken from me. I stayed in places that you wouldn‘t even imagine.
I was in deep addiction. I couldn‘t keep any money. In my mind‘s insanity, I would have never thought that I could stop and that Jesus could deliver me from this disease. I was on cocaine for over twenty years. Over twenty year of my life I was on this stuff and now for years I am clean.‖
It is wonderful when the manifestation of deliverance happens immediately. It was not so with Paul. He explained, “After eighteen years I went into a rehab center. I was there several years before I came out. Then I did several more after my fall.
I started to serve the Lord and then I continued to go back into my addiction. I wasn‘t totally delivered yet. I continued going to church, and I continued seeking the face of God, but I was still in my addiction. I was still drinking, but I kept on trusting God that he was going to deliver me one day, and he did. I‘m going on almost five years clean. I give God all the glory and all the praise for bringing me out of that stab wound in 1987. I give God all the glory and all the praise for bringing me out of my addiction five years ago.
Physically, everything started to happen to me. My blood pressure started to escalate. I contracted the disease of Hepatitis C. I have a liver disorder, and I have poor circulation in my left leg. All this stuff happened to me because of my addiction. They wanted to amputate my legs about two and a half years ago. My leg turned black and I couldn‘t stand on it for more than five minutes. They said my veins were shot. This is why I wear my stockings. The doctor said the only way for me to keep my leg was for me to stay off of it for eighteen hours. The only time they moved me was when I had to go to the bathroom.
That Thursday the surgeon told me that if my leg didn‘t get any better then he would have to amputate it. That Sunday when I went to church, I was already saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost, and delivered from the disease of cocaine, I ran to the alter and asked the Lord to heal my leg. To today, my leg is healed. I give God the glory and praise for what he has done for me. He healed my leg. I give him the praise for that.“
My wife was my get high partner. She was also hooked on cocaine, and she was a severe alcoholic. Theresa had gotten the disease of Pancreatitis, which inflated to the point where it put a hole through her pancreas. The poison went down to her stomach. They wanted to take half of Theresa‘s stomach out. She was in the hospital for several weeks. They wouldn‘t give her any food. She couldn‘t hold it because her pancreas wouldn‘t work. So she would just to throw it up. She couldn‘t drink more than a little bit of water, or she would throw it up.
The doctors said, Mr. Bryant, we can‘t hold your wife here too long. They said if she doesn‘t get better in three days we going to have to operate. I asked, what are Theresa chances? (All of this was because we abused our bodies.) They said we‘re going to take her x-ray again and some more lab work. They said if she doesn‘t get better, we‘re going to have to operate. They told me Theresa chances were fifty-fifty. I started to really trust God. I had started to see my wife wither away.
I called my grand mom Elizabeth Bush from Camden New Jersey. I told her make it get well. It was a Thursday evening around ten. She told me to lay my hands on Theresa‘s leg while she started to claim the blood of Jesus. Grand mom called on the Lord for Theresa’s healing. I started to agree with what she was saying.
When they took that test in three days, they told me, they didn‘t know what happened. The general surgeons and all the other surgeons didn‘t want to operate on her. They told me that they wouldn‘t have to operate on Theresa. She‘s been delivered from Pancreatitis for almost two and a half years. She‘s saved, sanctified and filled with the Holy Ghost.
We‘re running on for Jesus. She has a singing ministry and I‘m out here in the streets of Clayton telling people about the Good News of Jesus. I have a great compassion towards addicts and alcoholics because that‘s me. That‘s who I hung out with. That‘s my people. I was one of those people who are hooked on that stuff. God has given me a mission. And, my mission is to tell other addicts and to tell another alcoholic that you can make it through Jesus Christ. They can make it because He‘s a healer and a Deliverer, and He has set me free. He has given me back my respect. Now, my kids give me respect. My name is Mr. Bryant now. The Lord has also blessed me financially. He has been doing great things for me. Today, I am a walking deacon in the church. He gave me back my talent of playing the drums. God is so good.
My granddaughter is three years old, when she was born she was given a fifty-fifty chance for her to live. She had an asthma attack. She had an asthma problem and she was on the machine and when she turned a year and a half old. My daughter decided for her to have surgery. They had to put a piece of plastic in her esophagus to enlarge it, so she can begin to breathe like a normal person. Then after that the esophagus would expand, they would have to take that piece of plastic out. During the process, complications occurred. She was beginning to get mucus in her lungs and they didn‘t expect for her to live. We began to pray and right here today I tell you that my granddaughter Ceoana Walker is healed from asthma. She doesn‘t have to take any medications.
God has done great things for me and my family. I just want God to continue doing good things, miracles, and blessings in my family and in Clayton.
Just to think, I was to the point of doing robbery and all kinds of dumb things just to be able to get another hit. But, God delivered me from that and then brought me back from Burlington to Clayton, so the people can see that I‘m a new person in Christ.‖
I like to thank Pastor Hilman and Margaret Moses who were a very great help to my wife and me in my time of need during the addiction. They were there for us. I want to thank my mother Barbara Barry, Tom Barry and Reverend Bryant for not giving up on their son. I want to thank Brother Horace Pritchet, which is my pastor now. I just continue to give God the glory and the praise.
The Bryant’s mission is to encourage young people (or anyone) to not to make the same mistakes they made in life. This ministering couple is available to speak in churches, rehabs centers, youth events, schools, and anywhere people need help and a delivering word from the Lord.
To contact the Bryant’s for speaking engagement, their upcoming book, or their products, you may do so at (856) 553-3348
Read their continuing interview at The Bryant Story 2014
Terrence Clark is the founder and Chief Editor of the Voice of One Online (voiceofoneonline.com) and the Voice of One Magazine. If you have a testimony and would like an interview, please contact us at (856) 728-0777. If you have a story that would best be told in book form also contact the publishers The Glory Cloud publications at the same number or online at www.theGloryCloudpublications.com