AMAZING STORY
Jimmy Broyden: Courageous Living
By Michelle Wilson
The 700 Club
CBN.com - Jimmy Broyden has been dazzling audiences for over 20 years as Hollywood’s most daring stunt man. He’s “stunt doubled” for some of Hollywood’s toughest actors and he’s been the stunt guy performing precision driving, bullet hits, and full body fire burns in movies like, I-Robot, Firewall, Battlestar Gallatica, and TV shows like the X-Files. And he just finished some daring stunts in the Kendrick brother’s latest movie, “Courageous” which will be released in theaters September 30th!
“I love the action of getting in there, the heart rate up and in motion,” Jimmy tells The 700 Club.
Broyden: “It’s time for you to do some stunts.”
Michelle Wilson: “I’m gonna do some stunts. Are you gonna keep me safe?”
Broyden: “Ooh absolutely.”
Jimmy and Michelle are on top of roof. Jimmy prepares to fall backward into a pile of boxes.
Broyden: “Are you ready?”
Michelle Wilson: Counting – “One. Two. Three.”
Scene of Broyden falling off the roof into boxes.
Michelle Wilson: “Oooh my goodness. Are you alright?” Broyden: “I’m ok!”
Michelle Wilson: “What is your favorite stunt of all time to do?”
Broyden: “I just like falling through the air. I love that feeling of flying like a bird. You can’t beat it.”
Jimmy grew up in Toronto Ontario with his grandparents. He suffered abuse at their hands. To escape, Jimmy would dream about becoming a stunt man.
“There was just something about watching these guys jump and crash cars. I would jump off my grandfather’s front porch. It was about seven feet high. It was spectacular!”
Jimmy started living with his mother when she found out about the abuse. By this time, he became very rebellious. At age 11, he started using drugs with the neighborhood kids. At age 15, he became a drug dealer. When his mother found out - she kicked him out of the house.
Broyden reflects, “Basically she’s saying to me, she says, ‘I don’t love you. Get out.’ That hurt big time.”
Jimmy started living with friends until he was able to afford his own apartment. He continued using and selling drugs.
He says, “I did drugs as if I was on a suicide mission. But not external where you slice your wrists or shoot yourself. No, inside. I wanted my heart to blow up (make noise)…and man you’d be like (inhales) you couldn’t get your breath, you could just feel it. You felt your heart was gonna explode.”
At age 24, Jimmy moved to Vancouver and within three years, he started earning a living as a professional stuntman. Jimmy remembers the first stunt where he had to take a bullet hit to the body.
“It was such a powerful pow,” Broyden recalls. “It hit, and then the squib exploded. It came right out and stuff went flying, and I just launched myself in midair.”
But after the stunts were over Jimmy returned to his drug use. Although Jimmy was living his dreams of being a stunt man, he knew something was missing.
Broyden reflects, “I’m getting more experience. We’re doing it. It looks like I’m going to be doing it for awhile. But deep inside there’s an emptiness.”
Jimmy started to question what life was all about including who God really was. Until a guy named Bill told him that Jesus was real and challenged him to read the book of John.
“He says, ‘This is the new testament.’ He says, “You’re looking for God. I know Him, and here’s your answer right here.’ The lord used my pride. And so I said, ‘Okay, Mr. Ferguson,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you my word that I will read that.’ And he put it in my hand.”
Jimmy kept his promise and he began to read the book of John. For the first time in his life he realized the unconditional love of God.
“And then I read that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, that He died for me and that He was buried. I knew that Jesus Christ was God. It blew my mind. I was scared. I closed (snaps hands together) the book. I said, ‘this is crazy. How can a book have this kind of power? ‘”
The next step for jimmy was breaking free from his drug addiction.
Broyden recalls, “I said, ‘You know I’ve been a drug addict 17 years.’ I need to know that you’re real, real for me, Jimmy Broyden, me, I need you to get me off drugs.”
God answered Jimmy’s prayers as he was riding his motorcycle one day.
“I’d been a drug addict 17 years,” says Broyden. “But somehow I hadn’t done drugs in two weeks. That was scary. I immediately pulled over to the side and I wept like a baby, because I knew that the Lord (emotional) was real. So I said, ‘Lord, I’ll follow you.’ Right there, I bowed my knee right beside my bike and I gave my heart to the Lord that day. I experienced (emotional) that love that surpasses all understanding. I can’t explain that to you, but there it is. (choked up). You know, I still get choked up today (emotional) 16 years later, you know, the Lord touched my heart and I’ve never been the same.”
Today, Jimmy is married with seven children. He has his own film production company called “Go Fire Films” where he continues spreading the transforming message of the gospel of Jesus Christ!
“Give your life to Christ. No matter what you’ve been through in life, how far gone you think you’ve gone, how many bad things that you’ve done in your life, there is redemption. “
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