GOOD NEWS Newspaper

Page 2 | GOOD NEWS | February 2026
Reuters
Girl wanted her violent dad dead
but prayer led her to forgive him
SUCCESS! Adam celebrates his silver medal win in
the skeleton race at the World Championships in
Lake Placid, 28 February 2009
SKELETON
RACER’S LIFE
LESSON
Continued from page 1
But this time Adam was in a better
place to cope. He told Christians in
Sport: “Success at the World Championships
had helped me realise something.
I felt amazing to be a World
Championship medallist for maybe
two or three hours, and then it was just
like, life again – normal… Achievement
and success don’t provide lasting
satisfaction.”
Instead, he knew that God’s love
for him never changes – whatever his
failures or achievements: “I was disappointed
for sure with my result at
the Olympics, but I knew the Lord had
a different plan, and his love for me
doesn’t depend on how I perform.”
Looking back, he wished he’d realised
sooner that winning medals
doesn’t compare with the satisfaction
that God provides. Christians in Sport
concluded: “Building your identity on
success will not satisfy. God’s work
through Adam’s career has made that
abundantly clear. Instead, offering
your ability and passion first to God,
using it to serve those around you,
means you can enjoy your sport with a
secure identity.”
You can read the whole story at: christiansinsport.org.uk/resources/what-isit-like-to-be-a-christian-at-the-winterolympics.
By Ian White
LIBBY Thompson almost took matters
into her own hands after praying
for God to kill her alcoholic and
violent dad.
One night, driven by desperation,
the girl stood over him with knife in
hand as he slept “in his drunken state
in his bed”.
She was “thinking of where to stick
the knife” and how to kill herself afterwards.
Thankfully, she resisted the
temptation.
Libby, who encountered God at a
youth event at the tender age of 12, actually
had a strong prayer life which
saw her through the worst of things,
but admits that praying for God to take
her father was the wrong thing to do.
The Libby Thompson you meet today
is a successful beauty therapist
from Warwickshire – friendly and approachable
with a lovely family – but
life hasn’t always been this way. As an
adult, Libby fell into the same alcohol
trap as her dad.
After marrying and having children,
she “struggled when making comparisons
to my life growing up”.
Libby says: “I realised more and
more that my life was messed up. I had
fears I was like my dad, in the sense
that I felt like battering the kids every
time they did something wrong...”
Drink helped her “to sleep and
switch off” as she spent around 15
years as a functioning alcoholic: “The
very thing I didn’t want to become, I
became.”
Physical attack
Of her own childhood, Libby recalls
her dad “beat me, bullied me and disciplined
me in ways that were completely
out of control.”
The final and worst physical attack
came when Libby was left alone with
him.
“Dad, in his extreme anger and frustration
in wanting some money to go to
the pub, attacked me, throwing punches
at me.”
Libby fell to the floor as he “full-on
punched me in the face” and “bent
down, shouting in my face to get out of
the house and never come home, and if
I did, he would kill me”.
She adds: “Little by little, rejection,
anger, hatred and disgust became the
garden of my soul.”
Her dad finally left for good, only for
Libby to suffer an horrific attack on the
streets by the daughter of the woman
her dad was seeing.
With a bruised body and a “messedup”
face, Libby lost her confidence
and quit college before things turned
around. Later she felt called by God to
study the Bible at college, where she
met future husband Phil.
As they prepared for marriage, Libby
had a positive prayer about her dad
answered: “During my prayer time I felt
the Lord tell me to contact Dad and ask
him to give me away.” Libby found the
number of the pub he hung out in, and
BATTLE WITH ALCOHOL: Libby Thompson’s life is a story of survival from
childhood abuse and a spiral into alcoholism, but also her path to freedom
through faith in Jesus
after two ‘hostile’ responses from him,
she was successful with her third call...
“Dad walked me down the aisle
and yes, he was a little drunk and was
shaking more than me, but he did it.”
Then, post-honeymoon, Libby got a
call from her dad for the first time ever.
Libby cried as he told her he was
proud of her and that the wedding day
was special.
“I could see the wisdom of God in
telling me to ask Dad to give me away.
It was to create a platform of a happy
memory and to begin to repair our relationship.”
He died a couple of years later in
2003 from lung and liver cancer, but
not before making his own peace with
the God he’d previously hated with a
passion.
Alcoholism
Libby and Phil eventually had two
‘miracle’ babies after being told they
wouldn’t be able to conceive naturally.
But as the children got older, the “demons
in the closet of my heart” started
“showing their ugly faces”, says Libby.
“My drinking got worse and worse.
I hid the evidence everywhere – in the
airing cupboard, wardrobe, under the
sink, in my underwear drawer, in my
handbag. I even had some at the salon
for when I worked late.”
In the evenings, tempting thoughts
entered her mind: “You have worked
so hard today... a glass of wine will destress
you.”
But the addiction finally broke
in April 2022 when Libby felt overwhelmed
by God’s love at church the
day after getting ‘hammered’ at a birthday
party.
“I was aware the addiction was killing
me and destroying everything and
everyone I loved.” But “clarity and
clear thinking descended on me like a
gentle, all-consuming, loving dove.”
Freedom
Libby had always wanted God to
‘piff, paff, puff’ her addiction away,
but now she realised it was something
she had to do herself, with his help.
She promised God she would never
drink again. She had to learn sobriety
the hard way, but she is staying off the
booze.
Libby, aged 44 from Kenilworth,
now serves God at Kenilworth Baptist
Church and has written a book that
tells more about how God has transformed
her life, called Undone: My-
Journey From Abuse and Addiction to
Freedom. She hopes it will point readers
to God and help those who struggle
with addiction and past hurts.
Undone is available on
Amazon at £12.00