Testimonies

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THE EXPERIENCE
(My Testimony)

I had just started another new job about a year earlier with the Boeing Aircraft Company as a Draftsman and found myself, for the third time in my life, going through another divorce! It is only in hindsight that I now recognize I was an emotional wreck at the time and a bit amazed that I was still sane.
One day while gazing out over the hundreds of people surrounding me in this huge building I worked in, I noticed that everyone was in only two age groups. They were either in their early to mid twenties or early to mid sixties! My generation was missing! At least in this world of Engineers and designers, I couldn’t see a single person in my own age group. Maybe they were out in the factories working in the trades. And then! There they were! They were coming and going in and out of the offices, the supervisors and managers who were running things.
It slowly dawns on me that my generation was either college educated, killed in Vietnam, or surviving in the mountains with mental disorders. Of course there are a few exceptions that held on to their sanity but they sure weren’t in the world that I was working in.
“The 60’s”…..Burst upon the country while I was (protected?) in the Military. Upon being released in 1965 and returned to the good ol’ U S of A, I felt as if I had been dropped on a different planet.
I am what is called a 60’s casualty….one of the few who refused to believe that everything my ma-ma taught me was a lie. That we are totally and absolutely free to do anything and whatever makes us feel good. This is the lie that has brought our country to the moral degradation it is in today.


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During this period of time in my life, not really feeling depressed but terribly lonely, I did a lot of just sitting and thinking about things. Who was I and what was the point or purpose of anything?
Just work, eat, sleep…work, eat, sleep…and then die…and then what? Nothing!? Life was just not making much sense to me. There must be a reason for our being here and I sure don’t believe that we are simply the end result of something that started out as an animal of some sort.
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I had recently read a book entitled “Life after Life” written by a Dr. Moody. This book was a series of interviews with 150 people who had what is known as an NDE (Near Death Experience). I found these stories fascinating. These people were describing an experience of traveling through tunnels of some sort that ended with the meeting of a Being of Light!
I knew at the time that the Bible talks about being “Born Again” and these stories made me wonder if this born again experience will be actually realized at the time we die, because it sounds to me like what a baby would experience at the time of birth (The Being of Light, the Doctor all dressed in white?) The Bible talks about Angels and beings of Light so I purchased myself a small “New Testament” and began searching for an explanation.
Beginning with the book of Matthew I read up to the point where Jesus was telling his disciples that they did not have to concern themselves with what they were going to eat because they were worth more than sparrows and the Lord feeds them! At that point I tossed this little bible aside in disgust thinking, “This is crazy!
A few days later I was out in the street in front of the apartments I was living in, tossing Frisbee with a neighbor. I had been tossing Frisbee with this guy for several months but this time he did something really strange! We were separated by maybe 40 to 50 feet and after catching the Frisbee he begins walking toward me. I stood there waiting for him wondering what was on his mind (We rarely if ever talked, it was not as if we were friends, we just got together and tossed Frisbee every now and then) He walks up and asks me “Heh Man, Do you believe in God?” Just right out of left field… “Do you believe in God!” And it went something like this:
“Say what?”
“Do you believe in God?”
“Well, I don’t know, I believe that there is something out there a whole lot smarter than we are.”
“Well there is no God because there is nothing wrong with money, power and greed.”
“Oh Really?!”
“Really…Think about it..If it wasn’t for money, power and greed, we would all still be living in caves.”
“Yeah? Well maybe we would be better off if we were still in caves! I’m sure not going to stand here and say there is No God. Do you want to toss Frisbee or what?
That was the end of that discussion and I never tossed Frisbee with him again! He was just too weird!

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Two to three days following this little discussion I had just got home from work, popped the tab off a can of Rainer, lit a cigarette and was just, sitting and thinking ‘bout things.
My little studio apartment was on the second story of an old house and I was gazing out a small window facing east. The view was of the mountains, a shade of blue slightly darker than the blue of the sky, covered with a light dusting of snow. It was early March 1981, the sun was shinning and reflecting off the snow and I found myself sort of thinking out loud….
“You know?” I say to myself, “If there is a God out there, you made a beautiful world.”
And at that point I noticed all the telephone poles, wires and vents poking off the tops of all the buildings that was ruining the view.
“But you sure screwed up when you made a man, because look at what we are doing do it!?

AND THAT WAS THE MOMENT THAT MY LIFE CHANGED!

I was sitting on a small sofa with a little table in front of me, a beer in my left hand and a cigarette in the right when suddenly out of nowhere, something pushed my head, the pressure on my forehead, right between my eyes, up against the wall behind me, and I could not move!
Inside my head there was not a sound, but it felt like an explosion? Not a voice, but words being spoken. Words that I could see, but not hear. I am finding it very difficult trying to explain what was happening here.
I don’t know if I was, seeing, hearing or feeling it but I do know that I was being given a command! And it was Loud and Clear…”SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD!”
All this took place in the blink of an eye, I mean it lasted for only a moment, less than a second, Just Wham! …Think about that! And then I was released and sort of found myself sitting slightly forward, and still holding the beer and cigarette, and feeling kind of dazed. I looked back out the window. The sun was still shinning, the mountains were still there, along with all the poles and wires. And I’m thinking….”What was that?!”
I slugged down the rest of the beer, put the cigarette out and just sat there not knowing what to think or do.
Seek the Kingdom of God? Well, I was sort of talking to God so that must have been who it was. I mean this was strange, fascinating, and just a little bit scary, but I sure intended to do what I was told.
“Okay” I say, “How about a little help here, where do I begin, what do you mean? I need a little instruction here!”
Silence…..Okay, I remembered having “gone forward” at Church years ago and being “saved” so what was the problem here?
Oh….I guess I’m supposed to ask forgiveness of my sins…..
Well there was a little problem here because I have always believed that I was a pretty nice guy. I mean I’m not a rapist, murderer, thief or pervert or something, certainly not a sinner.
Okay….I sort of look up and say “Okay” What big bad sin have I committed that I need to be forgiven of?”
And then WHAM….One more time….I can’t explain how it happened because I just don’t know. All I do know is that I suddenly found myself over the top of the little table, on the floor, a quivering, bawling mess of worthless flesh, my head absolutely filled with not only the big bad sin that I had conveniently blocked out of my mind, but crying out “Oh God, I am so sorry for ever believing that I was a “nice” guy.”

And after this I found myself sitting and REALLY thinking!! And I needed to know and understand who this Jesus really was.
My little Bible was still sitting on the table where I had tossed it a couple days ago and I began reading again. But this time I’m not looking for angels, I’m looking for Jesus and once again I reached the point where Jesus was talking to his disciples about not having to concern themselves with what they were going to eat. And there it was! “But first seek the kingdom of God, and then all these things will be added unto you?” I had not read that the first time!

And now I just had to tell somebody!….I went to work the next day and told my boss what had happened to me and that was the first time I was exposed to “The Look”,…..and maybe I was a little nuts….because I quit my job, jumped on the small motorcycle I had and headed off for Tennessee, hooking up with “The Farm” which is another story.
It took me awhile to learn that my “testimony” is my pearl and I shouldn’t be casting it before swine, and getting emotionally trampled.
Just over a year later, still mostly confused but still searching, I headed across the country on a bicycle hoping that maybe Jerry Falwell could supply me with some answers.

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