THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506230172
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY NANCY LEWIS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Michael Sewell was only 28 when he decided to take his own life.
He says he had stashed all the prescription drugs he could beg and steal from friends and had vowed to end it all.
For six years, the young man had sought truth in drugs, the occult and material things, but he had not even come close to finding it.
``I had a huge bag of pills. And it wasn't going to be a case of trying to get attention. I had it all worked out so that no one would even be looking for me all weekend.''
It was a desperate time for the disillusioned Sewell, and he issues deep sighs as he dredges up the memories.
``I cried out to Jesus, said, `This is the time. If you're real, you'll help me - and if not, I'll take my chances with whatever is next after this world.'
``Immediately, I was filled with hope and freed from the desire to use drugs.''
Sewell is now 36, and he is an evangelist.
He brings his one-man musical ministry, Heart in a Box, to Ocean Lakes High School at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
Sewell's dramatic presentation has been seen and heard by thousands throughout the United States and Europe. The Virginia Beach performance is hosted by Calvary Chapel of Hampton Roads.
Now an ordained minister, Sewell has devoted his life to sharing with others the hope he found in Jesus.
At 15, Sewell had washed his hands of Christianity, having concluded that it was ``total hypocrisy.'' The ``bad taste'' he says he'd come to feel for organized religion resulted from what he calls the ``heretics'' he encountered as a boy in his Ohio hometown - ``like the traveling evangelist who came through town and wowed everybody, but on the side was asking for money'' and doing other things not in keeping with Christian tenets.
Then, Sewell says, two Christian colleges exacerbated his disillusionment, one an ``ultra-liberal'' institution with ``watered-down mainstays of faith,'' the other a ``conservative one with dos and don'ts - laws that resulted in bondage.''
``I dismissed Christianity totally at 22,'' Sewell says. ``I needed to be looking to Jesus'' for help, but instead, ``I turned to drugs, monetary success and the occult.''
Though Sewell says he never became involved in hard drugs, the marijuana and alcohol he used ``took on a different nature mixed with the occult.''
He says he went to New York City and worked as an actor and musician and even landed a small part in a television soap opera - and, for a while, it seemed like things ``were going in the right direction,'' Sewell says.
``Success was all that mattered, and it didn't matter what I had to do to get there.''
But despite his rejection of Christianity, it seemed that at every turn, ``the Lord came up. I got the only born-again Christian agent in New York, and she talked to me.''
Then there was the disappointment at his 10th class reunion when old friends were unimpressed with his ``New York City sophistication'' and told him he didn't look like he was ``doing real well.''
``They reminded me that they had expected me to go into the ministry.
``The seeds were there, and Jesus never left me completely to my own devices.''
Still, Sewell persisted for six years in what he calls his futile pursuit of truth.
Finally, desperate, prepared to take his life, Sewell found Jesus.
``I was aware that I couldn't survive if I didn't change.''
Within months, he says, he was transformed into a healthy man whose mind had ``come back to reality,'' and he knew the ministry was his true calling.
The musical drama is based on Sewell's experiences, he says. It attempts to show that ``Jesus is much deeper and richer. I wish I could show the depth of the words.
``God thinks of each one of us thousands of times in one second.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo courtesy of MICHAEL SEWELL ministry
Michael Sewell brings his musical ministry, Heart in a Box, to Ocean
Lakes High at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
by CNB