God took tragedy and turned it into a triumph, testifies Google exec Kirk Perry

Google executive Kirk Perry testifies how God turned his tragedy into a triumph.

Brand solutions president of online giant Google recently spoke about God's calling for his life during the 2015 Silicon Valley Prayer Breakfast, and testified how God took a tragedy in his life and turned it into a triumph.

Perry grewing up in a poverty-stricken home in Detroit, Michigan, and worked very hard to land a good job after college. So when he got accepted at Procter & Gamble, he devoted his whole time to the company.

"I was a self-made man," Perry explained, and he admitted that he was actually "more dedicated to my work than I was to my family."

"I remember I would leave for work before my girls would wake up, and I would get home after they were in bed, but I didn't see that at all," he said.

But in 1999, Perry received the worst news possible - his six-year-old daughter Carly had been diagnosed with cancer.

"I remember frantically getting to the airport, and I finally got ahold of my sister-in-law on one of the payphones to find out what was going on. And I wasn't just weeping, I was sobbing because she was explaining to me what was going on," he recalled.

One month passed and when it finally seemed like Carly's health was improving, it took a sudden turn and doctors informed Perry that they would need to do more surgery and his daughter would probably need a colostomy bag for the rest of her life.

"I understood God was chasing me - He was there, and He wanted a relationship with me," Perry said. But it was only after his daughter's full recovery that Perry became a Christian through the help of his wife.

After that, Perry was surprised that things in his life got better. His relationship with his family deepened and his career even improved, and years later he was offered a job at Google.

Before switching jobs, Perry thought: "Okay, if God really wants me to take this job, then being a faithful follower of Him means that I'm not going to put my faith under a box. I'm going to be who I am all the time."

And being a Christian worked in Perry's favour. He even managed to help a co-worker whose daughter was also battling cancer. But just three weeks before he spoke for the Prayer Breakfast, Perry's life got shaken again when he was diagnosed with cancer.

"I told God 'I've been through this before. You ripped us out of a place where we were comfortable and I'd rather be at a place where I was so comfortable and feel like people could rally around me," he said.

Even though doctors said that his cancer was treatable, Perry got angry with God. But he soon realised that God was using his ordeal as an instrument of comfort and hope to other people.

"God took another tragedy and turned it into a triumph and it completely flipped my state of mind," Perry said. "I believe in a redeeming God, and that's gonna will use this to glorify him. I believe that through this story, it's going add another chapter to my life so that I can be a further witness for God. And I can tell you with 100% certainty that God loves us incredibly."