He was raised in a fractured home in Yorkshire, England, where his mother left him and his neglectful father remarried a woman who abused Mez sadistically and mercilessly. His upbringing reflected poverty and always loneliness. He was friendless, loveless. When his step-mother wasn't looking, he would escape into a story world, craving solace from his nightmare of a life.
His dad finally kicked his step-mom out when Mez was thirteen. From there, though, his life didn't get much better. He dropped out of school, went from job to job, and finally immersed himself in a life of crime and drugs. Here at last he found some semblance of community.
Then he was sent to one of England's worst prisons. Christians visited him in jail, but it wasn't until after Mez was released and he moved in with some Christians that God transformed his heart. All of his life, Mez struggled with wondering what was the purpose of it all. He would ask his fellow thieves and drug addicts, but they had no answer for him. "Who cares?" they would say. "Just enjoy life now."
But Mez's nagging questions finally led him to discover the truth. After attending Bible college, he spent time as a missionary in Brazil with his wife and daughters and now pastors Niddrie Community Church in Niddrie, Scotland, as well as overseeing the ministry 20schemes.
This memoir is hard to put down. Mez is a gifted writer and his quirky sense of humor often seeps through. A lot is written in stream-of-consciousness, making you feel so much more invested in his story, feeling the pain and the loneliness and the ache of it all. And then you feel the liberating, transforming power of Jesus.
What I especially liked about this memoir was the way that Mez dealt honestly with the growing stage of a new Christian. Is Anybody Out There? didn't end when he got saved; it covered his learning, his struggling, his initial evangelism. It accurately showed the sometimes slow process of peace that comes to new Christians. He didn't just wake up feeling all hunky-dory one day. As he learned more about the Bible and came to understand the depths of his own sinfulness and the magnitude of God's grace and forgiveness, he was given overwhelming peace and assurance.
Is Anybody Out There? is a fast-paced, hard-to-put-down, heartbreaking, grace-saturated, powerful read. Mez has an incredible testimony to share - not of his greatness, though, but of God's glory. Be sure to pick up a copy and experience it for yourself.
Buy Is Anybody Out There? here.
Photo courtesy of challies.com.