8/7/2023

Billboard Music Award-winning country artist Walker Hayes shared with journalist Jesse T. Jackson how God transformed him from being an “alcoholic atheist” to a sober believer in Jesus.

Hayes said that he starting drinking alcohol at the age of 13.  After he’d become an adult, he said he “woke up one Saturday, and I just felt like I was going to die.”

A neighbor invited Hayes’ wife, Laney, to church.  Hayes went with her, but admitted he went to church that day drunk.

Hayes shared of a time when he lost his record deal and fell on hard times financially—so much so that the family’s minivan was repossessed, leaving them without a vehicle that could transport their family of eight.  The neighbor loaned Hayes his own minivan to use, showed him the gospel, and led him to faith in Jesus.

In 2018, the Hayes’ seventh child, Oakleigh Klover Hayes, was born, but died shortly after birth due to a uterine rupture, which almost claimed Laney’s life as well. 

After burying his daughter, Hayes recalled that he almost relapsed, but he relied on his friendship with his neighbor, “who really, really allowed the Lord, through him, to love on me through some nasty, nasty stuff.  I had never experienced unconditional love of Christ through another human until I met him.”

For those of us who are a part of the Journey Church community of faith, are we being that kind of neighbor?

-Michael