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CBN.com – The Bahamas, the number one tourist spot in the world, has beautiful beaches and breathtaking sunsets. But living here holds a hidden danger. They call it "island fever." It's the lure of sex, drugs, and non-stop good times. Island fever trapped Troy Aitken at an early age.
"At the age of 5, I was introduced to pornography through Playboy magazine. Then I started smoking marijuana at age 9," says Troy.
Troy's struggle with drugs took him in and out of prison, but one trip to jail changed his life. He served time at Teen Challenge, a faith-based drug program, and that's where he became a Christian. A changed man, Troy enrolled at Christ for the Nations Institute in Dallas, Texas. While working as a waiter, he met Colleen.
Says Troy, "She would always go off during her lunchtime and write songs poetically to the Lord, and she would share them with me after we got to know each other. I liked that."
"I was praying for a lot of those lunch breaks that the Lord would give him a godly wife," Colleen explains. "It never occurred to me that I would be the answer to that prayer, but that was on my heart to pray that."
Troy and Colleen married and moved to the Bahamas. Eventually Troy achieved success working for his father.
"In the world's eyes, on the outside, I seemed to be quite successful," he says. "We were able to procure this house, establish four companies, and still go to church with a nice car and a nice tie. So on the outward, we fit the bill of the prosperity message, yet my heart was far from Him. When I was at my pinnacle, at my highest fiscal year, I crashed. I began drinking, which led to drugs again, and then my wife and children left."
But even losing his wife and children wasn't enough to make Troy give up the drugs.
"We had money and drugs on the table, and the Holy Spirit came into the room and rested on me," Troy recalls. "I literally, physically, felt a thick presence of grace and truth that gave me the power to say, 'Do you have a Bible in this house?' I took the Bible and held it and hugged it and cried out to God. I said, 'Lord, please forgive me.' That led to me walking to my father's office. I said, 'I want to change. I've had enough.' "
Troy went back to Teen Challenge and opened his heart to the Lord as he'd never done before. And as he drew closer to God, his thoughts turned to his wife and family. Meanwhile, Colleen was on her own journey.
"The
day that I left Nassau with my children I was in a place of devastation,"
Colleen says. "There was a sweet lady who was sitting in front
of me on the plane. She turned around and she asked me why I was
going to Dallas. I began sobbing, and I told her I was leaving
my husband. He didn't want a family anymore. I just couldn't stop
crying."
The woman handed Colleen a book that would change her life.
"The challenge in those pages," says Colleen, "was will you cry out for this work to be done? For the Lord will use you mightily if you will allow Him to break you. I wanted to be healed, but the Lord was saying, 'You must be broken first.' You feel God in the process that somehow it is a beautiful experience."
More than two years later, Colleen got an unexpected phone call from Troy's family.
"They called to tell me that he wanted to ask my forgiveness and would I call him," Colleen remembers. "They told me where he was, and immediately I knew the Holy Spirit was saying, 'Call.' "
So Colleen did.
"I was more excited to tell her about the Lord than worry," says Troy. "I tell you the truth. I knew God was up to something."
Colleen had to face what normally would have been a difficult decision: to remarry Troy. But she says she knew it was the right thing to do.
"The Lord made it vividly clear to me that that was His will, and He asked me to trust Him," she says. "He gave me promises, and He said, 'I am not bringing a liar and a deceiver back to you. I am bringing a godly man back to you. You can't look at him. You must trust Me. You must trust the work that I've done in his life.' "
The
couple remarried on March 19, 2001, almost three years after they divorced.
"As Troy and I embrace this together and walk forward together, we really are just beginning our lives together in this way," says Colleen.
"We have love now that we never had before. It's not about me. It's not about Colleen and me," says Troy. "It's about how much God loves us, that He is doing something in us, and if we are willing to let Him, He is in the restoration business for anyone who's willing."
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