VL - Issue 43- April 22

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Although I was on track for success, I was still unhappy. how the MyPillow had helped them. This boosted my confidence exponentially. To me, it wasn’t about making money as much as it was about helping people. For the next six years, I sold at the Home and Gardens Show and at the Minnesota State Fair with great success. Our family could have lived well off the proceeds from these events alone, but I knew MyPillow was destined for greater things. Although I was on track for success, I was still unhappy, and I kept relying on drugs to mask my pain. In 2007, the inevitable happened—my addiction caught up with me and took everything, including my 20-year marriage. I almost lost MyPillow, too, as others tried to take my business. I encountered painful betrayal. And this is when that friend confirmed the hopelessness of my life with his comment, “Mike, if it were me, I’d jump.” My painful circumstances kept intensifying, and so did my drug use. I was using crack cocaine daily by this point, but then came another God intervention. I was staying in a crack house in downtown Minneapolis. I came out of the bedroom, and three drug dealers were standing there. These guys knew of each other but had never met. I asked, “What are you guys doing here?” One said, “Mike, you’ve been up for 14 days. We aren’t selling you any more.” It was Mike’s drug dealer who took his picture and predicted it would one day be the cover of his book. I was like, “What is this, an intervention?” A little later, I hit the streets. Turned out, these guys had given an order that no one was to sell to me. Furious, I went back to the house and let that dealer have a piece of my mind. He replied, “Man, you’ve been telling us for years how MyPillow is a platform from God and that you were going to quit drugs and come back and help all of us out of this addiction world we’re living in.” He rolled his eyes and grabbed my phone. Then he took a picture of me and said, “Here. You’re gonna need this picture for that d--- book you keep telling us you’re gonna write.” The picture is now on the cover of my book, What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO. I wish I could say I walked away from drugs that night, but I didn’t. Instead, my life continued its downward spiral. Thankfully, God still hadn’t given up on me. Seven months later, He intervened again. I was lying on my back on the floor in an empty house in the middle of the woods, looking at the ceiling. As I pondered the hopelessness of my life, there was a knock at the door. I was surprised to see my former friend, Dick. He and I had grown up together, and we had started using drugs together, too, including crack. But Dick had found the Lord. His life had taken a different direction, and I hadn’t seen him since. “What are you doing here?” I asked. He told me the Lord had prompted him to visit and wanted to know what was going on. I knew I could trust Dick, and I started to share the details of my life. I also asked him many questions about his faith. I knew he’d tried all sorts of recovery programs like I had, but this Jesus thing seemed to have made a difference. I wanted to understand how and why. For the next two hours, Dick shared how Christ had changed his life when all else had failed. I was especially interested in knowing whether the Christian life was boring. He assured me it was not. I didn’t accept Jesus into my life that night, but God used Dick to plant another seed of hope that would soon take root. On January 16, 2009, my spirit was filled with urgency. I knew I was about to lose my opportunity to fulfill any call God had on my life, so I asked Him to deliver me from my addiction. It wasn’t the first time I had prayed. I had done so many times in jail, bargaining with God to make my problems go away. But something about this day was different. Desperate for change, I told God I was willing to do whatever He wanted, but I needed Him to set me free of my desire for drugs first. When I awoke the next day, it was an absolute miracle. I had no physical or mental desire whatsoever for drugs, alcohol, or anything, and I haven’t had any since. I was free. I am free! I immediately dove into rebuilding and reclaiming MyPillow. I committed to making it into a large platform that could help other addicts find the freedom I had found. I set off, more passionate than ever. That monkey of addiction was finally off my back. The first thing I needed was to secure $30,000. I was so intimidated as I met with investors and shared my story of being a former crack addict. One of them asked when I had quit. He looked surprised when I responded, “Last Thursday.” Incredibly, they agreed to loan me the $30,000 I needed. They couldn’t even check my license because I didn’t have one. It was another divine intervention. Months later, I realized the importance of discovering the reasons behind my addiction. I went to an outpatient center at my sister’s church. The first night there, I 12 Issue 02 / 2022 VICTORIOUSLIVINGMAGAZINE.COM
PHOTOS COURTESY OF MYPILLOW bragged to the other guys about how many treatment centers I’d been in, how many drugs I’d used, and how I had forgotten more about addiction recovery than most counselors ever knew. Rafe, the counselor, told me he didn’t care about all that. Instead, he wanted to know about my father and my childhood. I thought to myself, what in the world does this have to do with anything? Rafe helped me understand that addictions often stem from childhood traumas, especially fatherlessness. Dealing with past traumas was essential to recovery. I needed to address them, or they would continue to manifest themselves in unhealthy ways. I also learned that those wounds had opened a door for Satan to insert His lies in my life. I learned a lot there, but I wasn’t yet ready to surrender my life to Jesus. Instead, I continued to focus on building the company. I was still struggling to get retailers to accept my product, so I decided to take the pillow to the people through the magic of television. I convinced my friends and family to pool their money and help me create an infomercial. No one ever told me an infomercial isn’t the greatest marketing technique, so I believed it would work. Someone suggested I should hire an actor, but I knew if I wanted the thing to create sales, it would have to be authentic. And no one believed in MyPillow more than I did. We arranged for a studio audience, and I hired a cohost. On the day we shot, I was scared to death. Even after years of sales, I still had a paralyzing fear of talking to people. It didn’t help that the producer said I was the worst guy ever to do an infomercial and that I would never make it on TV. I was living in my sister’s basement when that infomercial aired at 3:00 a.m. on October 7, 2011. It was so surreal to see myself selling MyPillow on television. Over the next 40 days, MyPillow grew from 10 employees to 500. It was a miracle that we were able to produce all the pillows needed to meet the demand. Over the next few years, MyPillow made hundreds of millions of dollars, but I began taking important things for granted, Mike Lindell ignored the naysayers and showcased MyPillow himself through infomercials. Product sales soared after the first airing. and before I knew it, MyPillow was six million dollars in debt. That was 2014, and once again, MyPillow was hanging on by a thread. We were two days from going under when God intervened once again. This time, He used a woman named Kendra. She had seen my struggles and en couraged me to pray. She then asked about my relationship with God. I told her I believed in Him, always had. But she challenged me to develop a personal, intimate relationship with Him. I could see Kendra had an inner peace and confidence that I didn’t. I had seen these qualities in other Christians too. For the next three years, I observed Kendra’s relationship with God. Deep down, I knew it was what I needed. Finally, on February 18, 2017, I got on my knees and fully surrendered my life to Jesus. At that moment, a weight fell off my shoulders. Relief came over me as I received God’s forgiveness and forgave myself. From that day forward, my life and MyPillow have remained in the Lord’s hands. MyPillow and my life are testaments to the power of prayer. There have been so many miracles, I can’t even begin to share them all. A couple of months after surrendering to Jesus, I stood in front of 15,000 people at US Bank Stadium, sharing my story. I was amazed at how God had taken me—a guy so terrified of public speaking he had to rely on drugs even to talk—and put me on stage to be a source of hope to others. Many people shared afterward how my story had helped them. It made me feel good to know that I was finally on the path God had desired for me. Now, I was positioned to help others find that right path too. As you can see, it took me many years to finally surrender my life to God and to step into His purposes. It used to bother me that I had wasted so much time, but God never wastes anything. It’s not about how quickly or through what means we come to surrender—it’s just about us finally getting there. Are you there yet? If not, today can be the day. Go ahead, get on your knees right now and surrender your life to Jesus. Give Him everything—your desire to use, your trauma, that inner pain, those disappointments, and your failures. Give Him your family, business, or prison sentence. Why wait? You’ve probably already tried everything else. Take it from me—Jesus is the answer. You can trust Him with your life. Let me close with some of my favorite Bible verses. Proverbs 3:5–6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take” (NLT). Do it. It makes all the difference. MIKE LINDELL, inventor and CEO of MyPillow, is passionate about helping others find freedom from addiction through Christ. For free recovery resources, visit LindellRecoveryNetwork.org. To purchase Mike’s newly released book, What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO, visit Amazon.com. Softcover prison versions are also available (ISBN code 1734283432). VICTORIOUSLIVINGMAGAZINE.COM Issue 02 / 2022 13
Page 1 and 2: REAL PEOPLE | REAL STORIES | REAL H
Page 3 and 4: ISSUE 2, APRIL 2022 Be of good cour
Page 5 and 6: ISSUE 2, APRIL 2022 CONTENTS 8 24 2
Page 7 and 8: Through the stories of Victorious L
Page 9 and 10: TRANSFORMED LIVES God’s Faithfuln
Page 11: PHOTOS COURTESY OF MYPILLOW I had a
Page 15 and 16: TRANSFORMED LIVES As they should ha
Page 17 and 18: PHOTO BY GERI SIMPKINS PHOTOGRAPHY
Page 19 and 20: invited anyone who wanted to receiv
Page 21 and 22: PHOTO BY ASHCROFT STUDIO PHOTOGRAPH
Page 23 and 24: stuck, Melisha!” His words helped
Page 25 and 26: STEPPING FORWARD DON’T GIVE UP! B
Page 27 and 28: PHOTO BY OPENDOOR CHURCH All I coul
Page 29 and 30: STEPPING FORWARD Trust God, Even Wh
Page 31 and 32: could see that God was at work as m
Page 33 and 34: GOING DEEPER: Be Courageous On page

VL - Issue 43- April 22

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