Dr. Brian Scott Lewis grew up in Southern California as the only child of secular (non-religious) Jewish parents. His father was a Hollywood soap opera and motion picture actor and his mother was a nurse who suffered from manic depression after Brian was born. She was institutionalized, which eventually caused his parents to divorce when he was only 4½.

After his parents divorce, Brian was raised by his paternal grandparents in a warm and loving Yiddish-speaking reform Jewish home where God was seldom mentioned.

At age 10 Brian’s life was thrown into a tailspin when he was shipped off to the isolation of boarding school. It was a traumatic and painful time. At age 11 on a weekend visit, his mother told him that he was “a mistake and supposed to be an abortion.” At age 12, he left boarding school to live with his father, where he made Brian take off his shirt and look in the mirror and confess over himself, “You will never be anything.” Over the next six years Brian suffered tremendous verbal and physical abuse from his father.

Because of this, Brian continually struggled with rejection, rebellion, bitterness, and codependency. He always felt like he had to prove himself and earn people's love. He tried to fill the void inside his heart, spending most of his early adult years searching for love in the wrong places and acceptance from the wrong people. Brian was lost. Hiding behind a mask of false confidence, there was a part of him that no one could see. There was a misery deep inside his heart, a constant struggling of who he was and who he wanted to be. With no sense of direction, he spent a decade going to psychologists and psychiatrists, trying to find himself and get to the root of his emotional issues. But nothing seemed to heal his wounded spirit. He was diagnosed with clinical depression and prescribed Prozac, but he still longed to be loved.

At age 27, after years of living in anger, fear and utter hopelessness, he was a broken man with nothing to hold on to. Life was meaningless. He knew that he was empty inside and dying emotionally. He was searching for something to make his life worth living, but nothing could satisfy him. So, he did the only thing he knew to do - he prayed a bedtime prayer that was passed down from his great grandmother and added, “Dear God. If you’re real, I want to know you. I am seeking after you. Please reveal yourself to me.”

Then the next day he met Tara (now his wife of thirteen years), a strong Romans 12:1 woman, who shared the Gospel and the love and grace of God with him. Brian was a complex case to say the least, but she saw purpose in him. She tried to minister to him, yet the more she brought him the Gospel, the more he rejected it. Until one day while washing dishes, she heard the Lord say, “Brian is going to be your husband and together you will preach the Gospel around the world.” Tara was patient. She knew that some of the hardest people to love were the ones who needed it the most. As a result of this encounter, she never stopped praying and believing for his salvation.

Two months later, Brian was still not sure. He couldn’t figure out this God thing with his natural logic and secular wisdom. And then it happened. One night while reading the Gospel of John, searching for answers alone in his bedroom his eyes were opened. God's Word miraculously came alive to him and the warmth and peace of His love supernaturally overshadowed him. Suddenly, these people in the New Testament were his Jewish people, this Jesus, his Messiah. He immediately wanted to surrender his life to Jesus Christ. In his heart Brian believed. Humbled by His mercy, staggered by His grace, with tears of repentance he telephoned Tara and said, “What must I do to be saved.” She led him in The Sinner’s Prayer over the phone and he confessed Jesus as his Lord and Savior while he knelt over his bed.

The darkness tried to crush Brian’s will to live, but that night changed his life forever. He became a friend of God. No longer did he have to live life defeated by his past and his painful memories or afraid of his future. He had been redeemed. He was safe. He was free. For the first time, he understood that he was bought with a purpose. He was purchased by Love. He could hold his head up high and walk tall, because he was loved by God. That night he offered up his life to Jesus and began an eternal relationship with his Heavenly Father. That night he became a Christian. He became a Survivor. He found the love, and the acceptance, and the wholeness he needed to heal his heart, build his spirit, and purify his soul.