Nathan Sheridan was born to parents dealing with a heavy drug addiction. “The odds were against me,” he shares.
“My mom, um, she just, she was in a bad way a lot, you know, she really only wanted me and my sister when it was convenient for her and my dad, he was more or less the same way. He was more of a functioning addict but they were kind of a pair. Both of them were just really on that path of destruction, so to speak.” He reflects and continues, “We were in Pensacola, Florida and my mom she had really just sold everything in her home. I remember being about 4 years old, I walk into the trailer and I look inside and just everything’s gone… I found out later that she had actually sold all that stuff for drug money to support her habit… She called my grandparents (in Pearl River, Louisiana) in the middle of the night and said, ‘Hey, come get these kids right now. I can’t raise them anymore and if you don’t come get them tonight, I’m just gonna, you know, call the police and they’ll have to be put into the system.’ My grandparents drove all the way through the night to come get me and my sister, Sarah.”
Shortly after moving, Sheridan tragically lost his older sister to brain cancer.
“It’s like, raise a child up in the way they should go, and they’ll never depart. And I’m pretty much living proof of that because, you know, that generational curse starts and that path of destruction is set, it’s hard to get a child away from that, it’s hard to stop that cycle. So my grandparents really came in and broke that cycle for me.” Sheridan reflects.
He continued, “looking back, I really owe a lot to them for that because if I wouldn’t have been in church, if I wouldn’t have been, you know, taught the right way, uh, and disciplined in that way, then who knows where I’d be.”
At age 14, he found hope in God and gave his life to Jesus at a church-sponsored play where he heard the Gospel. After high school, Sheridan enlisted in the National Guard where he served six years. He began to lead worship for fellow soldiers while deployed in Kuwait, setting the stage for his ministry today.
“I believe God let my story play out the way it did so that it could be a tool to reach others who are hurting from their past. He pulled me out of those dark places and showed me a love and grace truly beyond understanding,” Sheridan told TheChristianBeat.
His faith journey led him to wilderness lands while serving and shaped perspective for the vastness and connectivity of God’s kingdom. “I look at creation, I identify with it. I know that I’m, part of it .. what we’re seeing right now, I’m part of that, and He created me .. it’s just wonderful to sit back, look and see. Man, this is God, like, all around us, this is what He did for us. We’re part of that and this is how we know He’s real, this is how we know He exists, this is how we know He lives inside us right now, is because, I mean, like the birds chirping, man, He provides for the birds in the sky, they don’t want for anything, I mean, how did that just happen? It’s all a system, it’s all something He created and it’s so perfect if you really look at it closely, and I know that in my heart.”
Nathan Sheridan on the set of Our Story Our Song. Image: Jessica Patterson
The grit chiseled in his story comes through in the raw moments of his performances. There is no hesitation, nothing withheld. The very rawness that makes healing possible.
“It took me so long dealing with that trauma and that insecurity and that abandonment even after I was saved, right? Because just because you’re saved doesn’t mean you’re not experiencing those struggles. Man, finally getting to that point where my whole story is brand new. My whole life is brand new. My whole everything about me has been changed because of who Christ is and what He’s done in my life and what He did on the cross. And all I have to do is go out there and show that to people every day. You know, that’s all I have to do. It’s not, it’s not rocket science. You have to go meet people where they’re at.”
On Our Story Our Song Sheridan takes us on a walk in the Great Outdoors and invites us to consider the vastness and infinite power of God. He performs live in an afternoon of worship surrounded by Creation seemingly untouched by anything other than our Creator. Subscribe, like, and comment for more behind the scenes exclusives.