November 2022

RESCUED

“My father described it to me this way,” Mathew Feeley explains, “’The box was full, and one day I came back, and the box was empty. There was nothing left.’ Our family lost everything, and we ended up in Toronto metro housing, where I was born, the youngest of six in Kingston-Galloway, Scarborough, Ontario. It was a low-income area with a reputation as a rough neighbourhood.”

Mathew recalls his parents’ marriage and how it affected his young heart: “It was very toxic; my father had a lot of rage and my mother’s mental health suffered.” Mathew dived into the rave scene to drown out the despondency: parties, drugs, crystal meth, getting kicked out of school, and not sleeping or eating for 3 days. “I think I was self-medicating to escape my sadness, but things only got worse.”

Since Mathew was the youngest, his older siblings tried to rescue him. “What they were doing was a good thing, but I couldn’t see it. I put up a wall. I wasn’t going to stop my lifestyle. To pay for my habits, I was scamming and hustling: stealing bikes, buying and selling drugs, though I was not a drug dealer, just a desperate addict. I even scammed money from each of my parents.”

To get him off the cycle of partying day after day, Mathew’s brother got him a job at Music World when he was sixteen. “He said I needed to be responsible because he was putting his reputation on the line for me. He had taught me how to play hockey, and I was once in a league, but I stopped. Everything stopped because I ended up in this life of drugs. School stopped, sports stopped, and everything I was interested in stopped. It was all about my addiction. My whole life revolved around my addiction, supporting myself. But when I started working at Music World, I stopped going to raves because I couldn’t do three-day binges and go to work. Also, a lot of times, I worked weekends, so that kept me out of trouble.”

At that young age, Mathew met the girl who later became his wife. “Kristy was a positive influence, and I started to slow down when it came to alcohol, drugs, and raves. But, after we were dating for a while, behind her back, secretly, I returned to my dependence on drugs. I actually had a ticket to go to a rave, and I didn’t tell her. I remember tying my shoes when my mom called me to the phone. The call was about how one of my close friends was tragically killed by a drunk driver in a car accident. James was the one who didn’t do all the drugs. He knew me when I was a little kid, and he would pull me aside and ask me: ‘What are you doing with your life? You need to get away from those guys.’ I would joke with him, but he would say, ‘It’s not funny. This is serious!’ I was a pallbearer at his funeral, and when they closed the casket, his mother started screaming and wailing and sobbing. It was too much. That was my wake-up call.”

To hear Pastor Mathew Feeley share his entire gripping story, watch It Is Written Canada this month on CTV, 3ABN, Hope Channel, Yes-TV, Miracle Channel, or any of the dozens of other networks where It Is Written Canada is aired. Or simply go to iiw.ca or It Is Written Canada’s YouTube videos and click on the programs entitled: “Rescued – Parts 1 & 2.”

Thanks to your generous contributions, It Is Written Canada’s film crew was able to film Mathew on location in Oshawa, Ontario and capture his story.

~ Mike Lemon