Mathew Maher: Testimony Framed by DWI Fatality Now Includes ‘Entirely Different Redemptive Dimension’
By Alex Murashko
“It doesn't erase the memory of that day. But I believe it as a kiss from heaven. You think about what the cross exclaims when you come to Christ on the cross, a death day, his death becomes your birthday.” — Mathew Maher
It happened nearly 14 years ago, but former professional soccer player Matthew Maher said he can still feel the weight of what occurred the night he drove while intoxicated and hit Hort Kap who was killed.
Maher can especially feel the heaviness each year, on the anniversary of the tragedy.
“The night that is often framed, that changed my life is March 7, 2009,” Maher told Think Eternity. “During that time, as a professional soccer player, I was living for the world, not for the Lord. That was a divided stance I had as someone who said I was a Christian. That night I went out drinking and driving, and tragically, recklessly, was responsible for an at-fault drunk driving fatality. There's a victim and a family attached to my testimony.”
PHOTO: Mathew Maher / Facebook
Maher was sentenced to five and a half years in prison in January 2010.
While serving 4 years and 7 months, he returned back to the foundation of faith that he grew up in with his family, he told Think Eternity for a previous article.
After leaving prison, he created TruthoverTrend.com. Maher is also a teaching pastor at Coastal Christian Church in Ocean City, New Jersey, and is a highly sought-after speaker.
Maher’s testimony includes not only forgiveness from God but also from Kap’s son while both were in court for the hearing. The son gave him a hug while the court was still in session.
“My words will never be sufficient… a son, giving me what I did not deserve, entering into a legal process and seemingly interrupting it to extend grace and mercy,” he said. “That has always been to me a picture of the gospel. All of us deserve judgment. And the Son of God enters in and grants us what we do not deserve.”
Almost two years ago, something happened in Maher’s life that supernaturally extended his testimony, again showing God’s grace and forgiveness.
“For sin shall not have dominion over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” – Romans 6:14
“On March 7, for me every year, becomes this anniversary, that I just feel the weight of what I did, and I know I’m forgiven by God. I know I’m forgiven by my victim's family, but there's still this spiritual and emotional weight that comes with knowing that I caused somebody else's death,” Maher said. Then, at the start of 2021, he and his wife, Sarah, who was pregnant, began the year with a time of fasting and praying. Sarah was due at the end of February.
“We geared up for delivery. It would be our second child,” he said. “Everybody, especially moms out there, told us that she's going to have the baby precisely on her due date. And she, of course, expected to do so as well. As the story goes, the due date came in late. February quickly turned to March. And now March 1 is turning into March 3, and then March 3 to March 5, and then March 5 to March 6, and that's when her water breaks.
“And I remember going to the hospital early that morning, watching the clock on the wall slowly progress hour by hour, to which eventually, the afternoon hours turned into late evening hours, and eventually 11:59 pm turned to 12 midnight. I remember looking at my Apple Watch and watching the digital number six turn to the digital number seven.
“Out of all the dates on the calendar, March 7, was the day that we welcomed our second child, a son, into the world. That would be the very day, 12 years prior, that my hands were responsible for taking a life.
“And God would ordain that same day where my hands would receive life.”
Maher said that he believes with all of his heart that God was showing him that “a death day can become a birthday.”
“It doesn't erase the memory of that day. But I believe it as a kiss from heaven,” he said. “You think about what the cross exclaims when you come to Christ on the cross, a death day, his death becomes your birthday.”
He adds, “It was like God saying, ‘Hey, I’m not done writing your story. I'm going to add an entirely different redemptive dimension to your testimony [by way of] your son's birthday.”
“Here’s the cherry of the cake,” Maher said. “We named him Ezekiel. One, because we liked the name, two, because it means ‘God is my strength.’ When I put my whole story together, I realized that on March 7, 2009, when I was living for myself, God was not my strength. I had my own strength, which always leads to failure. Now 12 years later, my son is an example that God is my strength. I can see that and that becomes the catalyst to the rest of my ministry in which I'm not trying to do anything in my own power, or anything in my own strength or with my own ability.”
He said that trying anything in his own strength got him caught up in the way of the world which was “the snare that led me to great pain and great shame.”
Maher concludes, “I now recognize that the Lord is my strength. That is kind of like the paradigm of my ministry and my writings and all the things the Lord has been doing right now. It's really humbling, just to be able to tell an entirely different testimony using goodness, the pain and the tragedy that God allowed into my life for triumph and glory.”
"But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and He gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison." – Genesis 39:21
Alex Murashko leads the Thinke Writing Team and blogs at Media on Mission. Find him on various social media sites (@alexmurashko). GETTR username @MediaOnMission.