I was angry—at the system, at the world, and at God. Especially God.
Because if He was real, where was He when my mom was screaming? Where was He when I had to steal groceries for my family just to survive? Where was He when I had to fend for myself as a young boy? Where was He when I cried out and heard nothing back?
So, I numbed the ache. With drugs. With rage. With a false sense of power. By the time I was in my twenties, I had built a whole identity on toughness and intimidation. In high school I trained as a wrestler—not just to win, but to hurt. To release everything that had built up inside me. The mat became my therapy. Violence became my validation. I was good at it. Too good. And the better I got, the more hollow I became.
Relationships became stepping stones as I used people for my own advancement in life. Why should I care about how it impacted someone else? No one cared how I was impacted by others’ actions. I became the best at whatever was important to me and whatever would help me achieve the next rung on the ladder. People became commodities. Relationships became building blocks to promotion. I learned how to effectively wear whatever mask was needed. At church, in business, and with friends. As far as anyone was concerned, I had the world by the tail and no one would stop me from achieving my dreams!
Behind closed doors, I was drowning. I couldn’t sleep. Night terrors tormented me. I was hypervigilant, traumatized, and addicted to adrenaline.
Every relationship I touched turned to ash. I didn’t trust anyone—not even myself. And eventually, the shame and emptiness caught up with me.
A few months later, I was stabbed. Not in a fight I started. Not in revenge. I was ambushed—caught off guard, attacked viciously by someone filled with darkness. The blade tore into my chest puncturing my heart and lung. I hit the ground, bleeding out and suffocating. But that wasn’t the most terrifying part. What happened next would change my life forever.
As I lay there in the ambulance, I left my body.
I can’t explain it in natural terms. One moment I was in excruciating pain; the next, I was hovering above myself. I saw my body on the gurney being rushed into the hospital, doctors and nurses scurrying around me. I saw them prepping the paddles and my father rushing in chasing after my lifeless body. I came back to my body for a brief moment, and I told my father goodbye.
He wouldn’t hear of it though. His faith in the God He served was far greater than the fate I thought was mine. “You will live and not die, son!” were the last words I remember hearing my father say before I was back up at the ceiling tiles and watching my body being whisked into surgery.
As soon as it all went black, there was a Light, a Presence above me. I was not scared. I was not fearful. I just felt an incredible peace surrounding me. And then I was moving—lifted, accelerated, pulled out of the natural into something supernatural. What I encountered in that moment wasn’t hell. It wasn’t Heaven. There was a Presence—unmistakable, overwhelming, shocking, and beautiful all at once.
Then I saw darkness. Then a bottomless chasm with an intense lake of fire burning at its end. Then the slideshow began. The one I kept turning my head away from. The one filled with sin and depravity. I saw it all—the people, the places, the success, the drugs, the sexual sin—I saw it all in living color and felt such shame at having to relive it all again. I saw all the things I thought were hidden and kept secret. It was all flashed before me like the worst horror movie I’d ever watched. I wanted to scream out, “That wasn’t me!” yet the stain of the sin cried out accusatorily, not allowing me to escape its grip.
Then I heard Him.
Jesus didn’t speak in thunder. He spoke like a Father, a true Friend. Like Someone who had waited patiently for me to stop running. His voice was love and authority. Fierce yet tender. And He said to me words I will never forget:
“Son, you’ve been living like hell, and you will spend eternity in the lake of hell—or you can run to Me harder than you’ve ever run from Me.”
It wasn’t a rebuke. It was an invitation. A commission. A calling from the mouth of the One I had spent years avoiding.
“Run to Me. With all your might. With the same passion you used to chase sin, now chase Me. With the same rage you used to fight, now war for righteousness. With the same fire that fueled your destruction, now carry My glory.”
It was the most glorious invitation I’d ever received. Never once did I feel condemned, just loved. Never once did I feel as if it was the end, just the beginning. A fresh chance to make things right. A fresh chance to do things right.
I didn’t want to return. Not because I feared judgment—but because for the first time in my life, I was whole. I didn’t want to leave His presence. There was peace in His presence I’d never known before. There was love I’d so longed for and finally found. There was grace more amazing than I could truly comprehend. It was an encounter that changed me forever! An encounter that is difficult to fully explain, but one I can never deny.
Peace, Joy, Freedom
I felt peace like a river, joy I’d never known, clarity I couldn’t explain. I was free. The pain, the trauma, the torment—was gone. But God had other plans. My assignment wasn’t finished. My testimony would be a weapon in His hands. Surviving the stabbing wasn’t the end of my story—it was the beginning of my commissioning. But it would take a while for me to realize this fact. What the enemy meant to kill would now become the foundation of a movement.
And then, just like that, I was back. Eyes opening 10 days later in a hospital bed surrounded by family members who had been crying out to God, interceding on my behalf, speaking life over me when I couldn’t think or speak myself. I had come back into a body that felt destroyed. I was hooked up to multiple tubes and monitors. And everything hurt. The people surrounding my bed had been praying and interceding for life, for another chance, for a miracle.
My two grandmothers never gave up on me; they warred for my soul in daily prayer. And those faithful prayers were not just heard, they were answered by the Faithful One. And in those following moments and days, their faith was my lifeline. It was their faith that brought about change. It was their faith that made a difference.
After waking up from 10 days in a coma, they needed to get me up walking. Somehow between near death and new life I had forgotten the most important promises I’d made to Jesus in the ceiling tiles. Part of me thought my experience must have been the drugs. It must have been the adrenaline. It must have been the lingering high from the night I was stabbed. And if it were true that I was floating above my near-death body, who would believe me? There’s no way I could tell any of them of my encounter. They would think I was crazier than they already dubbed me.
So I defaulted to the man, the persona, I had become so comfortable with. The one with the tough guy exterior. That one that sought revenge. And just like that, the near-death, out-of-body experience was pushed to the back of my memories and forgotten almost as quickly as it had happened.
When I was released from the hospital, I didn’t just walk out with staples and bandages. And I wish I could say I walked out with a mandate. Yes, I had heard the voice of God. I had felt the pull of eternity. I had experienced the mercy that reaches deeper than any pit and rescues even the most broken soul. But the fear of being misunderstood, mislabeled, and misjudged kept me quiet. And the need for revenge fueled the rage within like never before. My only thought was: They messed up! They should have killed me when they had the chance.
It wasn’t until my two-week follow-up at the hospital and my encounter with the man who had been there in the waiting room witnessing all I perceived from my out-of-body experience, that things really changed.
Once they did, I couldn’t keep quiet anymore.
That stabbing hadn’t just been an attack—it had been an awakening.
The man who got up off that hospital bed was not the same man who had laid down on that gurney. Something had died in that hospital emergency room, and something new had risen in its place. The fighter was still there, but the fight was changing. The anger was still there, but it was being rerouted into purpose. The pain was still there, but now it was anointed.
Because when you meet the mercy of God in your most shattered place, you can never go back to business as usual.
The transition from survivor to preacher wasn’t glamorous. I didn’t immediately step into ministry with credentials or a clean record. I had a past that followed me like a shadow. People still saw the fighter, the addict, the failure, the man whose life was almost snuffed out. People can often be brutal, never allowing you to live down your past mistakes. This is much like satan, the accuser of believers. Always reminding us where we’ve fallen short.
I remember the moment I first tried to walk away from everything in my past. I walked into my family’s church, still high, still reeking of my old life. I sat in the back, arms crossed, heart guarded, ready to bolt if someone got too close. But as the pastor began to preach, something broke in me. It was like every word was aimed at my soul. Not the cleaned-up version of me—the real me. The wounded child. The raging fighter. The one who still couldn’t look himself in the mirror without shame.
That day, I didn’t respond to the altar call because I didn’t know how. But something stuck. A seed. A spark. A whisper that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t too far gone.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new (2 Corinthians 5:17 NKJV).
Break Free from Bondage and Step into Lasting Deliverance
Have you ever wondered why, even after salvation, cycles of sin, fear, or addiction keep showing up in your life? Do you struggle with shame that won’t let go, or feel powerless against spiritual battles you can’t explain?
Rod Parker nearly lost his life when he was stabbed through the heart. Hovering between life and death, he encountered the crushing weight of darkness and the reality of eternity. That near-death moment revealed survival wasn’t enough—he needed deliverance. Out of that encounter, God raised him up and called him to expose the schemes of the enemy and lead others into freedom.
Through years of ministry and radical transformation, Rod reveals the missing link for countless believers: salvation opens the door, but deliverance sets you free. In From Death to Deliverance, he uncovers the truth about strongholds, demonic oppression, and the authority of Christ within you. With raw testimony and biblical clarity, this breakthrough resource shows you that you don’t have to tolerate bondage—you can walk fully delivered.
As you engage these pages, you’ll discover how to:
Discern deception in culture, media, and even the Church.
Break free from fear and walk in supernatural clarity.
Identify and resist the subtle lies of the Babylon system.
Stand with courage when persecution and pressure intensify.
Strengthen your spiritual defenses with prayer, truth, and obedience.
The enemy’s power over your life is already defeated. Freedom isn’t just possible—it’s promised. Now is the time to step out of the shadows, break every chain, and live the life God intended for you.
