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NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF CHRISTIANITY

by Christian Belyea
01/02/21
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FROM PRISON TO PULPIT

FOREWORD

     The following content requires that reader discretion be advised. Moreover, all names have been changed for privacy purposes. I know that some readers will be offended by my story, but it is my testimony, tawdry as it will sometimes seem. And it is the tale of how a compassionate God extended His unfathomable grace to a sinner such as I. As the Apostle Paul put it, all of us have been on that list mentioned in the Bible in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 at one time or another. For it is written: “Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the LORD Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Chapter One

     God seems to redeem the most unlikely people.

     Take my story, for example.

     My family lived in a town almost smaller than a strip mall. It was the 1970s, and my family was not religious. They believed in God; however, they were not born again. So every Sunday Mom would send seven-year-old me to Sunday school at the church across the street from our house.  She always gave me a nickel to put in the collection plate—a nickel I pocketed to blow on bubble gum. That is where I first found out about Jesus. I did not know much about God in general. And even though my mom was not religious, she had taught me a prayer to say every night when I was just five. The prayer petrified me. It went: “Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the LORD my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the LORD my soul to take.”

     Talk about perhaps pooping your pajamas! You mean, God might kill me in my sleep! Well now, that did not do anything to draw me into a deep relationship with Him. But little did I know that God already had a relationship with me. I just did not know it. For Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).

     The next thing I remember happened while I was still seven. I was pacing barefooted down a patch of gravel on our main street to fetch a newspaper for my mom at the newsstand box not far from our house. The gravel felt like broken glass as I minced along. I was only a few feet away from the stand when a strange man in a car stopped beside me. He asked me if I needed a lift. I pointed at the nearby newspaper stand and told him, “No thanks.” Yet he insisted I get into his car. But God was there, too, speaking to my spirit not to get into that car. I did not know then that it was God’s voice; I just thought why bother driving me two feet. I did not know God had plans for me, and they did not include me getting abducted by a stranger!

     My papa was not in the picture very much. Sure, Dad and Mom were happily married, but he was never around to bond with me. He worked a lot. He was also in and out of the hospital due to issues over his broken back. But I could not see these things. And because little boys need to bond with their fathers, I took his frequent absences as rejection and recoiled from his every attempt to do things with me when he was around. At the same time, I was being molested by older boys. Later in my childhood, men started doing the molesting, including my older sister’s 24-year-old boyfriend. In my little mind, I decided that to bond with other males and be buddies, sex must be involved. So, unknowingly, I sexualized my unmet emotional needs from my father and sought male companionship with whomever was molesting me. The boy I was then was already broken seemingly beyond repair.

     I remember five-year old me sleeping on the living room floor when we would visit our grandparents.  My cousin, who was the same age, and I would bundle up in sleeping blankets, and we boys would watch the TV late show with Grampa. Those were the days when television played the baby blue movies at midnight. Such movies were soft-core pornography. Grandpa did not care that we were watching them with him.  But then Grampa was a pedophile who had molested his own daughter, my mom, until she was a teen. Years later, my mother confided to me the only reason she had married my father was to escape from her own father. As time passed, Mom suppressed the memory of her molestation, forgetting it completely, and failed to keep vigilant when it came to my grandfather. Because of that emotional error, Grampa molested all three of my sisters, too. And he indirectly molested my cousin and me by permitting us to view porn at such a tender age.

     My grandmother was not so great, either. Although religious, she seemed to resent men. And no wonder, for she had been raped as a teenager, a fact I found out years later. All I recall is how harsh and heavy-handed she was with me. How harsh and heavy-handed she was with all of us boys, including her own husband. I could never seem to do or say anything right. She would say, “I love you,” but she could only show it by buying us gifts. 

     To be fair, though, she always made sure my family, who was working-class poor, had a full fridge, cupboards crammed with canned goods, closets with nice clothes hanging in them, and that there were plenty of presents beneath the Christmas tree. Other than that, she would beat me with a thick stick she called, “Homer” for even a hint of what she thought was misbehaviour. Her motto was “Kids should be seen and not heard.” Which made me feel even more messed up and that I was just a bad seed. Out of all us kids, she treated and punished me the worst. For some reason, she just hated me more.  Maybe I reminded her of her rapist.

     Because my cousin and I saw simulated sex at such a sensitive age, we became…sexually active. Imagine! Two five-year-olds, who are supposed to be enjoying sunshine and sugar drops, had their innocence stolen by a selfish, sex-addled, old man. A man who cared more about pornography than he did about our purity. I found out years later that Gramma was frigid because she had been raped as a teen. That meant my maternal grandparents were not having regular marital relations. But still…that gave Grampa no excuse, for he could have sought solace in the arms of a sex-trade worker, which I was later to become. 

     I feel sorry for him now. He was a church-going man and had still been molesting my younger sister when he bought the big one, dying of a massive heart attack shortly after his retirement. An act of God, I am sure. For the Bible warns us that “…if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me (Jesus) to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea” (Matthew 18: 6).

     Between the ages of six to 10, I was favoured by only two friends, but we were not friends at the same time. And both friendships included sex. Seems I was not the only one who had been sexually molested in my hometown. The one friend was not much of a friend, at all.  He used to call me frog eyes because I had big, blue eyes. Worse, his idea of playing was taking out his pellet gun and shooting at me. I was petrified as he pelted my winter parka one windy, winter day with pellet after pellet. If one of those bullets had hit my eye, I would have been blinded. If one of those bullets had hit my jugular vein, I might not be writing this now. So, God was still protecting me, even when that pellet gun became a shotgun my “friend” once chased me with, trying to shoot me because I had done or said something to set him off!

    I had three sisters, two older and one younger. Talk about battles over the bathroom mirror! And being raised in a house with three girls, a domineering mother and an absentee father messed me up even more. Females were my only role models. And do not think the other boys at school did not notice I was…different. No, I was not tough and tumble as they were; I was soft-spoken and sensitive and sweet. I cannot count how many times I had to run straight home when we got off the school bus, so the bullies could not beat on me. Public school was no party! Nearly every recess some brute or another would bully me. Or tease me. Or exclude me from some game. It stings even worse when you are always stuck being the last kid picked by other kids for soccer, or for some other sporting event. 

     I remember one kid who threatened to kill me, and I believed him. Years later, a television series called Killer Kids came out. I realize now from that show that kid who threatened me may very well have killed me if I had not been such a good actor, even back then. You see, the night before I was supposedly going to get killed by that kid, I arose around 3 a.m., tip-toed into my parents’ bedroom and told my mom my stomach felt sick. She told me to go back to bed and that I did not have to go to school that day. I used that ploy a lot whenever I was threatened by bullies.

     Moreover, my homelife was no prance down the primrose path, either. Because my mom had suppressed her molestation, she was pretty messed up herself. She had more nervous breakdowns than pop icon Madonna has reinvented herself. But the psychiatrists could never pin-point Mom’s problem. And when she did have a meltdown, she would revert to being childlike. I mean, her whole demeanor would change, so that she even talked like a child and looked at us kids with wide-eyed wonder that we even were her kids! And so, she was prescribed Valium, which was the medication of choice in the 70s for women who had…issues. Sadly, my mom was “valium-ized” for 10 years—10 of my formative years! 

     And even when she was deemed okay, she was so agitated that if she got angry with one of us kids, she would refuse to talk to us for days. Sometimes even for a week or more! She was always telling me I would never amount to anything and that I was queer. She would even beat me with an ironing cord when disciplining me. And when I tried to hug her, she would push me away. Deep down, she disliked males, also, thanks to Grampa. But her suppressed memories of molestation were buried too deep to deal with. I never realized just how badly broken she was until after she died.  We were going through her things when we found one of her diaries which she had kept in the 70s. The entire journal was filled from cover to cover with nothing but her signature. I mean, my mom must have spent days just writing out her full name, line after line, page after page! It was like she did not know who she was and was trying to identify herself.

     I started swiping smokes from my mom when I was nine years old. Then when I was 11, dear ole Mom made a deal with me that if I quit for two years, she would, too; after that, she said she would allow me to smoke in the house instead of sneaking around smoking. I kept my end of the bargain. I only cheated once at the school bus stop. But I felt so guilty I only took two puffs. Later, I discovered Mom had been cheating the whole two years. She would just smoke till she choked while we kids were at school, then lay low when we got home.

     Yes, I was a broken boy, and that little lad lapped his first sip of liquor at age 10, decided he liked it, and snuck into his parents’ booze every chance he could get. By the time I was 12, I was drinking and smoking pot regularly. That is when I found a book on witchcraft in a box of books someone had “kindly” bestowed upon my messed-up mom. I read the book and was fascinated. So, I underwent the initiation rites described in the book, cast a few spells that fizzled, then figured I would call it quits. I did not know it at the time, but God would not let Satan have me.  

     I also found two other books in that box. One was titled, Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex but Were Too Afraid to Ask. The other was an autobiography called The Happy Hustler. That book pieced together the life of a male prostitute, and it included nude pictures of the author posing provocatively.  The first book informed me how to meet males for liaisons in public bathrooms and parks, which I started doing whenever my family went to visit friends in the city. The second book only fueled a fire that was already dangerously high, with all those pornographic pictures and promises of going from rags to riches using your body as bait. 

     Like a hungry fish I was hooked instantly and became addicted to pornography until I was in my 30s.  My innocence gone like a lost lamb, sometimes I would shoplift issues of Playgirl from the mall when I was in the city.  To my 12-year-old mind, I decided sex solved everything. It took away bad feelings and replaced them with good feelings: lust, which releases endorphins. I mean, let’s face it: if sin did not feel good, we would not fall for it. So, sex was what I sought from then on in.

     When I was 13, I took my first hit of acid and began acting out in other ways.

     I was a mad young man barrelling down the broad way that leads to destruction, lashing out every chance I could get. I went with the wrong crowd and started stealing cars, breaking into houses, shoplifting, and having sex with strangers. All of this landed me in a group home for troubled teens. But I scammed my way out of that place by writing the judge a letter which told him how thankful I was he had sent me away, and how much of a lesson I had learned. All lies. But it worked. The next thing I knew I was back in court and the kindly old judge cut me loose.

      By the time I was 15, I had failed grade eight, had repeated it, and had just started grade nine.  I decided school was not for me. So, I quit going, spirited myself away to the big city, and hit the streets, supporting myself by turning tricks. The tables had turned. No longer was I the scrawny, skittish, bullied boy. Now I was a good-looking guy that other men would pay to spend time with. No longer was I being beat on; now, I was being hit on. I loved myself, but I loathed myself at the same time, without realizing why. 

     Now I know why I disliked myself back then. The reason is that at soul level God was speaking to me again that what I was doing was wrong. I was also dating a dude who was 24 and we smoked more pot than P.E.I. has potatoes. Then at 16, I came out of the closet to my parents. They did not reject me.  Mom just said, “If you are happy, then we are happy.” After that, I shacked up with an exotic male dancer much older than I, and our lives consisted of acid trips and him dancing all night while I crept through the club like a creature of the night. Nine months the relationship lasted. Then we split up because he was threatening suicide if I left him, and I told him to go ahead. Well, he went ahead, all right. He broke a bottle and used the jagged top to slit his wrist. He did not die, but desperately needed stitches. Now I was homeless. So, I swallowed a whole bottle of Valium and dropped dead in my tracks before an addiction treatment centre. Long story short, I was in a coma for a few days and woke up in the psychiatric ward of the city hospital, where I stayed for two weeks before they cut me loose. They could not see how damaged I was. Almost beyond repair! For you can well imagine how much nine months of acid messes up a malleable 16-year-old mind.

     And my mind was about to become even more messed up!

Chapter Two

     Still 16, I returned home. But now I was an angry, young man. Angry over my childhood. Angry with my dad. Angry with my mom. And angry with the way life was turning out.  I felt I was a nobody and a nothing. All I did was pull puffs of pot from my peace pipe whenever I could get it. And although the drugs dulled the despair, I still felt something was missing. There was a hole in my soul, and nothing I stuffed into it could fill it. I did not realize that again God’s Spirit was speaking to me, calling for me to come to Him for fulfillment. 

     So, I started committing crimes. Big crimes--like credit card fraud, along with car theft. For that, I landed up in the district jail, which inmates call the bucket. When I first arrived, the guards made me strip off all my clothing. And as if that were not enough, I was then ordered to turn around, bend over, and spread my buttocks so they could be sure I was not smuggling in contraband. I felt my face flush with humiliation. Next, I was ordered to take a shower to delouse myself with a special body wash.  After that, I was given a denim prison suit, two sheets, an itchy blanket, and a tiny tube of toothpaste with half a toothbrush. The toothbrush had been altered, rendering it unfit for inmates to sharpen the handle and make a weapon out of it. Then I was locked in an eight-by-four-foot cell with a metal bed and a two-inch mattress.  The pillow was so worn and flat I had to fold it in half. I felt devastated. 

     Thankfully, I was only there for two months before a lenient judge sentenced my partner and me to two years of probation. But the leniency I received was no deterrent. I began to make criminality a career. I headed up to cottage country, where I crashed into people’s cottages, eating their food and drinking their booze. Something about being surrounded by the breathtaking beauty of the country seemed to make me feel serene. God was again speaking to me, this time through nature. I felt His presence but did not realize it was He. Yes, I eventually got caught by the cops, so back to the bucket I went. While there, I pretended to hang myself. At 17, I wanted to spend time in a sweet psychiatric hospital instead of a cold, concrete jail cell. So, one night after lock-up I tried a dry run as dress rehearsal for the performance of my life. 

     I slung a twisted sheet over the bars and looped the makeshift noose around my neck, in preparation for act one, scene one. Only problem was I accidentally did hang myself! I lost consciousness and woke up on the floor, having peed my pants. Nope, God was not going to let me die, even though I nearly did.  The next night I waited for the man to do his rounds. Just as he hit our cell block it was showtime, and I won an Oscar! They bought my act quicker than a kid can cram his claws into a cookie jar. I got to go to the hospital, all right, where I convinced the psychiatrists there that I was crazier than a cougar on caffeine. They put me on a maximum-security ward. But selfish me still was not satisfied. I did not like it there, either, so, I prayed to Satan to help me escape. And he did. In fact, he helped me to hightail it out of there twice, which stymied security! All I did was put street clothes on beneath my pajamas, wait by the locked elevator, then bolt in when the staff got off.

     The second time I escaped, I came back home where my kin convinced me to turn myself in. I did, but not before swallowing a bottle of my dad’s anti-depressant pills. Pills which had no antidote! I was rushed to the hospital, where again I lay in a coma for a few days. The physician told my parents they did not know if I was going to pull through or not. But I did pull through, for God was not going to let me die. He had plans for me. I just did not know it. I did not even know God had been all over me since He wove me together in my mother’s womb. I also did not know that he had his lasso around me and was soon going to reel me in. 

     The hospital had had enough. They sent me back to the country jail, which in turn transferred me to the city detention centre. That is when God got through to me. You see, I was bored one day, and a pastor was visiting inmates, so I thought I would check him out. I needed a break from the boredom. I also wanted to know if God was or was not some cosmic cop waiting to clobber me with that Book of His. Turns out I liked what I heard. And so, I said the sinner’s prayer and sincerely felt good about having asked Jesus to be my Saviour. Now, at least, I thought I have a passport into paradise when I died. But that was it. I tucked my ticket into heaven into my back pocket, went back to the cell block, Bible in hand, and back to the same old sins in which the other inmates were indulging. 

     Nothing had changed. Or so I had thought. Notwithstanding, I was saved, but I did not feel saved. And I never repented of anything. No one had told me I had to. Not even the preacher. I guess he thought since I was saved, I would just change.  But the flesh is a foe that does not give up easily. All I knew was that Christ had taken the rap for me. And instead of me being on death row with eternity being the electric chair, Christ had commuted my sentence to eternal life and bliss one day. I kept my Bible. I never read it, mind you. But it somehow comforted me just sitting there on the shelf, gathering dust. My stay was short at that detention centre. I was sentenced to a nine-month stint and was transferred forthwith to a provincial reformatory. There I used my youth, long, wavy locks, big blue eyes, and trim figure to be what jailbirds call a “drag queen.” Which is a male dressing and acting like a female. I called myself Viki. Yes, people such as I were popular in prison, since people like me were the closest thing to a woman these depraved dudes could get next to.  I had no problem pulling it off, either. To begin with, I was more pretty than I was handsome, and I was already effeminate because all my role models had been females. 

     Time there passed by fast. And why would it not? I was beau or belle of the ball there, whichever one you chose. And I could have my pick of many of the guys there who were gay for the stay. Once, two foes even fought over me! After about five months, I got paroled into the custody of a 70-year-old pre-op transsexual who took pity on me. She/he thought the only reason I was in jail was that I was frustrated and acting out because I needed a sex-change surgery and did not know how to go about getting one. I lived with her/him for about two months. Then I ran off to live with some prostitutes and we plied our trade together on the sin-saturated city streets. But after a month, I turned myself in just to get the remainder of my sentence over with. I did the remainder of my sentence, which was about one month, in a small-town detention centre because the reformatory felt scammed and refused to take me back.

     Yes, sociological factors, a dysfunctional upbringing, and drug abuse all conspired to turn this kid into a one-man crime wave. And my crime spree had only just begun!

Chapter Three

     For the next few years, I broke almost every law imaginable: prostitution, break and enter, shoplifting credit card fraud, and armed robbery, just to name a few.

     When I was 19, I ended up back in jail for car theft and break and enter. I was a drag queen at that detention centre also and had changed my name to Niki. That is where I hooked up with a murderer named Frank. He was just putting in time awaiting his trial, having been accused of butchering a lady lawyer. He told me he was innocent, and I believed him. We shared a cell together, and because he suffered from insomnia, he used to sit up nights watching me sleep. I felt touched. We even exchanged mock marriage vows in the common bathroom. The wedding was officiated by another inmate.

     I was not at that detention centre long before the judge sentenced me to two years in the federal penitentiary, which is a far cry from provincial reformatories. That is when I heard that Frank had been found guilty and had landed a life sentence. I was not even phased. But it freaks me out now. Just think!  I had been making out with a monster! Worse, I was married to one! And now come to think of it…what thoughts were humming in his head all those sleepless nights he sat there staring at me sleeping?! Why, he could have easily just snapped again and suffocated me in my sleep. I would have been just another convict killed in custody. Again, God had been there, protecting me.

     And so, I had now been planted face first in the penitentiary—the Big House—and the Big House was a whole new ballgame. There I was a big fish in an even bigger pond. From the moment I moved in, word spread through the place that a pretty queen was there quicker than a conman can contrive his next crime. And me, I felt drunk with power. I mean, I had more dope and dudes in that place than I had ever had on the streets. And some of those men were mean. Real mean. Many were outright murderers, in fact, who protected me and provided for me. I was so sick I even had sex with a serial killer once. 

     But you must remember that deep, down inside I was still that bullied, beaten and broken boy I had been throughout my childhood. All I wanted was attention and affection. But like that old country song, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. To be sure, I was living dangerously by playing all those men; for I had heard that a drag queen at a maximum-security institution had been murdered because too many men were fighting over him/her. So, to restore peace to the place, the inmates had eliminated the problem—permanently! I still did not realize it, but God was right there, continuing to protect me.

       All in all, my incarceration in the federal penitentiary was a soft stay. In fact, we inmates called the place Club Fed.  It had a dining room, a gym, a pool hall, a racquet ball court, a library, a convenience store, a hobby craft centre, and movies were played in the gym once a week. But many of the cons did not attend the movies for fear their enemies might stab them under cloak of darkness. In our cells, if we could afford it, we had a TV, a stereo, and even a fan. And dinners there were delightful. You had two choices of everything: meat, sides, and dessert. You could even have seconds if you wanted. Once, they served us steak for supper! It was a medium-security institution, where inmates were free to come and go as they pleased outside of working hours. 

     I chose not to work because I was so well-provided for by other inmates. Why, I even had one of my boyfriends bringing me back meals from the cafeteria because I did not want to walk there and have the wind mess up my hair. I felt that royal and entitled! No, the correctional system was not rehabilitating me or even punishing me. I was having the time of my life being that popular a prize to the prisoners. I did not even bother applying for parole, for that matter; that is how good a time I was having.

     But like all good things, the good times got tired. I became overwhelmed by all the dudes and the dope. It was too much to keep up with. Worse, I had to shave my whole body nearly every three days, so my skin was more feminine. All that shaving was a task that was tedious and tiresome. And shaving my face everyday with cheap razors was a drag for this drag queen also. But always having to look my best and smile, Smile, SMILE, when deep down inside I felt so very, very sorrowful, I finally snapped. I just wanted to be a young man again! I became depressed, despondent, and dismayed. I did not know it, but God was convicting me that everything I had been doing was wrong. So, I sent a note, which cons call a kite, to the man.  I wrote that my life was in danger and that I sought segregation. Cons call segregation the hole or the digger. It is a place of isolation they send inmates to punish them. I called it respite! But because I was in the digger for safety reasons and not for disciplinary ones, they put me in a cell with another inmate. Within hours of our introduction, I discovered he was gay for the stay also. But I could manage one man more easily than a dozen. And he accepted me as a male. Finally, no more work just to have a mate.

     I was not in the hole long before I was transferred to another medium-security federal institution.  And because word had gotten around that I was a queen, I was obligated to do the drag thing there, too.  At this new joint I had competition. There were more drag queens at that place than there are foxes in the forest. We even had our own cell block. But I was the prettiest and the object of jealousy by the other more mannish looking she males. Sadly, my only friends were boyfriends. And as at the first pen, we queens were free to prowl for prey after working hours. Plenty of dope there, too. It was easy to smuggle in because visits were open visits. You see, a girlfriend or wife would bundle the dope in a baggie and bring it to the visit. Then the convict and his cohort would lean into each other for a kiss and the dope would be exchanged. Next the inmate would smuggle it back to the range. I, in turn, dated whoever was holding the bag of dope.

     At one point, I even hooked up with the head honcho, Billy. He was the president of the inmate committee and practically ran the place. I felt drunk with power now. That meant I was “First Lady” and had some influence.  And even though I was still on the reception block and he was warehoused in general population, he used to send me pieces of hash to get high. He used my cellmate, who was just a kid like me, as his runner. But the portions seemed puny. So, I asked Billy about it. And it turned out the kid had been dipping into my dope. Billy went berserk. My cellmate was now a marked man. Which meant one of Billy’s buddies was going to crack open my cellmate’s cranium with a metal pipe. But I felt sorry for the kid. So, I allowed him to convince me to be his would-be hostage, so he could be transferred to another institution. 

     After lock-up that night, as I laid on my bed, he tied my hands to the bunkbed bars. When the man made his rounds, it was showtime…or rather shiv time. A shiv is a homemade knife made of scrap metal from the workshop or a razor blade melted onto a toothbrush handle. The kid pressed that shiv against my throat harder than my heart was hammering as he demanded a transfer and a shot of heroin. If not, he claimed he was going to kill me. He was pressing so hard with the shiv I felt he was drawing blood!  Now, I was freaking! I realized this kid was serious! Soon, an entire garrison of guards was outside our cell door, trying to talk the teen down. They finally succeeded, and the teen got his transfer, all right—to a maximum-security institution. I do not think he got his hit of heroin, though. This time, I did thank God for protecting me—yet again!

     One night, a queen named Kelly was locked in her cell seeking some solitude. Kelly had been in and out of nearly every prison in the province. She may have been one of the girls, but she was a tough, old broad who did not take disrespect from anybody. I had just had a shower, had my hair wrapped in a towel, and was wearing a bathrobe. I was bored. So, I slipped into her boyfriend’s cell to watch some TV with him. Well, Kelly had held a mirror out her peephole and had seen me go into her old man’s crib.  When the guard let her out, she confronted me in the shower room. She told me if I ever messed with her man, she would slit my throat. Her fists were furled as she readied to beat me.  But then she looked into my eyes and her whole demeanor was disarmed. She asked me why I had been in her old man’s cell, and I told her. She believed me and her fists relaxed. “Well, don’t do stuff like that in this place, or you could get yourself killed,” she said. I realize now that when she had looked into my eyes, she did not see a home wrecker, but the light of God in me. My eyes told her the truth. That is because I had the Holy Spirit in me once I had accepted Jesus as my Saviour, even though I did not know it at that time.  And as such, she had gazed at truth through my eyes. She had beheld God through my eyes. God to the rescue—again!   

     One night, during a jail stint while I slept, the devil dropped by in a dream. I could not see him, but he spoke to me, and his voice sounded silky and soothing, like leaves whispering in the wind. He identified himself and told me that if I renounced my Christianity, he would make me a best-selling author. Now, I wanted to be a writer with all my heart, but I told him no. I do not know why I told him no; I just did. I was very shaken up by that encounter. I felt I had just dodged a dreadful bullet! I shuddered as day dawned and I wakened from that dire dream!    

     By the time I was 26, I had been in and out of jail more times than Bonnie and Clyde had made bank withdrawals—ten years of my life! The inmates call it doing a life sentence on the installment plan. But then one day I had an epiphany. I realized that I wanted to change professions; I obviously was not a particularly good criminal, or I would not have kept being caught. And although prison was not punishing the likes of me, I did not want to grow old in that place. Moreover, I just wanted to be a man again, as God had made me. So, in 1989, the day of my release, I was scared. Then God spoke to my spirit again. His still, small voice told me to open my dusty Bible, and my eye landed on Joshua 1:9, which read, “Do not be afraid or dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” I just knew God was saying that verse to me! 

     So, God had not given up on me for continuing to sin in my salvation! And thinking about it now, I realize God was there with me throughout my whole career as a criminal. I mean prison is a scary place where convicts get killed sometimes. But God had protected me all those years. Yes, God had stuck by me, even though I was still sinning sexually and still boozing and using throughout my jail stays. He stuck by me because He is faithful, just as His Word says, “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot deny Himself” (2 Timothy 2:13).

     I realized I did not want to be bad anymore. But I did want to be just bad enough to be interesting.  And I wanted to stop being an entry in the devil’s diary reading, “Had a great day!”

     But the devil was not done with me yet…

Chapter Four

    I returned to the city, where Welfare gave me a start-up allowance. It was just enough to acquire a room in a boarding house. That is when I reconnected with my older sister, who had been born again also. She lovingly laid on me the first Bible I ever took seriously. And I started reading it a little. Next, I snagged a job with the Ministry of Culture and Communications and Citizenship. I started as a clerk typist and wound up becoming administrative assistant within a year. I moved into my own apartment, where I promptly stole a friend’s beau. The result was disastrous. 

     He was a crack user who convinced me to puff the pipe with him. Each puff delivered a three-minute feeling of ecstasy. The high felt better than being the wealthiest man in the world. To be sure, it felt like more! More! MORE! But God intervened. You see, people who smoke crack all say the same thing: they were hooked from the very first puff. But God never let that happen to me. I immediately realized I did not want to be hooked on it, for I had heard of people selling everything they had, including their own kids, to keep high on crack. Well, long story short, I got my paycheck and he and I got into a big battle over where the money was going to be spent. I wanted to pay the rent. He wanted to pay the man—for more crack! 

     And so, we wrestled in my apartment, knocking over furniture, crashing lamps, and bouncing off the walls. I even hit him on the head with an empty magnum wine bottle…you know, one of those huge, heavy ones? And he just got right back up and continued his attack like a killer in a slasher film. Somehow, I managed to get out of there and call the cops. He was caught and arrested. But there had been murder in that maniac’s eyes, he was that hooked on the high. If the fight had gone on any longer, I am certain he could have hurt me badly—or even killed me to get my cash. But paybacks are an ornery bee when you wrestled with this wasp in those days. Being the conman that I still was, I told my landlady that he had taken all my money, so my landlady let my rent slide by that month.  And my assailant got charged with armed robbery. Shortly after that, I foolishly quit my job to pursue a life of partying and playing around with as many sexual partners as I could. Nothing had changed. I was still messed-up me.

     A year later, in 1990, I was hit hard with a diagnosis of HIV. I felt like flinging myself on the subway track when the train was coming and just ending it all, but God spoke to my spirit again. Somehow, I just knew I was not going to die from AIDS. And…well, here I am 30 years later, healthy as a human can be.  So healthy, I may as well use my OHIP card to scratch lottery tickets. I am not even on medication for it!  To be sure, my doctors are baffled because although the virus is in me, it is being prevented somehow from destroying my healthy cells. It is so dormant it may as well be dead. Only expensive tests show I even have it; it is that undetectable in my blood tests! In fact, my specialist said I am an incredibly special case. Indeed, I am one of the mere five per cent of the entire planet this virus cannot kill! 

     God again, folks! God again…

     So, what does that say so far about God? To me, it says when you invite Jesus to make His home in your heart, he stays—even if you are being a carnal Christian! Ah, but that would soon come to an end.

     Shortly after that, I moved in with a gal pal named Rhonda. She was a prostitute and proved to be a precious friend. She and I did everything together: sing, swing and shoplifting. That is when I discovered pain pills. She and I used to go to what we junkies refer to as a quack. A quack is a doctor who prescribes pain pills with out even knowing you. Instantly I was hooked. Pain pills were not like pot. Pot made me mellow. Pain pills made me want to paint the apartment, go shopping, dance the night away. Although a depressant, they had the opposite effect on me. They made me feel happy, not sad. And they gave me lots of energy. I loved them so much that I researched migraine headache symptoms at the library, so I could start scoring them from my regular doctor. 

     Actor that I was, I would call the clinic out of the blue more often than Sydney Crosby plays with his puck. I would ask the receptionist if I could be seen immediately. I would tell her the headache was so excruciating I needed more medication. And when I got to the clinic, I would ask the receptionist if I could lie down in a dark spare office because the waiting room lights were making my migraine worse.  Light sensitivity was one of the symptoms of migraine sufferers. And once in that room, I would gag the back of my throat with my finger and puke into a pan. Vomiting is another migraine symptom. When I finally saw the doctor, and he saw the symptoms, he gave me a pain pill prescription faster than a ride on a rollercoaster.

     This went on for two years. And in all that time Rhonda hid from me the fact that she was hitting herself up with heroin, to boot. When she finally told me, she said the reason she had withheld that fact from me was so that I would not get hooked with her. And they say there is no honour among criminals!  Well now, she proved that point is unprecise. She was also a believer, so I am sure it was God who impressed it upon her heart not to turn me onto that stuff. But honestly, I could not take it anymore. I would get the pain pills, fly for a few days, then go through two or three days of withdrawals, until I could score more pain pills. 

     And opioid withdrawals are terrible. When you are in them, you can almost hear someone hammering nails into your coffin; they are that bad. You get a headache that lasts for days, a headache that even Tylenol can not alleviate. You get a sour stomach, profuse periods of sweating, muscle aches, insomnia, and a feeling that your flesh is crawling. I had had enough! I quit the pills, got myself clean, and decided the geographical cure was what I needed. I did not even tell Rhonda, my best and only friend, that I was moving to start over—drug-free. To beat this thing, I knew I had to change my playground, playmates, and playthings. But on moving day, I slipped and sprained my ankle so severely they had to put a cast on it. It hurt for three months. And the pain was worse than a break! So, back on the painkillers I went. Seems God was telling me that the geographical cure would not work. Only He could help me to quit using drugs.

     After that, I moved in with my parents, clean once more. The situation was swell, too; swell, that is, until one day I accidentally knocked over a pot of simmering potpourri oil, spilling it on the back of my hand. The skin rolled off the back of my hand like melting wax. And the pain drove me to my knees as I howled in horror.  To be sure, when the doctor hit me up with a shot of morphine, I felt so relieved I tried to hug him.  He was a kindly, old country doctor, who sent me home with 10 morphine pills. But the pain outlasted that paltry sum of pain pills. So, for the next three months I was back and forth to the doctor to legitimately get prescriptions to ease the pain. 

     The doctor told me I had a second-degree burn, and that second-degree burns are the worst. A first-degree burn is sort of like burning yourself lightly with a cigarette.  A third-degree burn not only fries your flesh but also your nerve endings. Mind you, the burn is painful and can kill you, but it is not anywhere near as excruciating as a second-degree burn. In that case, the flesh has been fried but the nerves have not been and are therefore exposed, constantly complaining with chronic pain. It took months to heal. Months of misery. Months of meltdowns. Months of medication.    

     The doctor did not bandage it as it needed air to heal. That meant that even someone walking by me would cause my nerve endings to sing opera because the air currents of motion were stimulating them. Years later, I asked God why he had allowed me to suffer so. I mean, there I was, truly trying to get my act together, to get clean, and God had let that happen to me. And speaking to my spirit God said, “I wanted you to realize the eternal fate of agony in the lake of fire that I, the LORD your God, rescued you from.  Plus, I wanted to instill in you a desire to allow me to use you to rescue others from that same fate!”  Well, I sure took my salvation seriously after that!

     After my hand healed, I hooked up with an old gal pal with whom I grew up. She and I started messing with morphine regularly. But by then I was getting sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. I genuinely wanted a lasting change. Something in me was yearning desperately to be pure and right with my Redeemer, who had stood by me so faithfully all these years, despite my wicked and wayward ways.

     Little did I know there was hope on the horizon!

Chapter Five

     Months of morphine had truly taken a toll on me to the point that if I could not score any, I would become so dope sick that death seemed preferable. So, I cried out to God. I asked him to help me get clean. And he did.  No pain. No withdrawals. No insomnia. He even delivered me from a life-long habit of smoking. I simply asked Him to help, and He took the desires completely away. I threw the ashtrays and tobacco into the trash can and never looked back. I was even around smokers that very evening, and I had not the slightest urge to spark up with them. Mind you, I did go through nicotine withdrawals. The first three days my brain got pure oxygen, and I became manic. So manic I must have cleaned my tiny apartment till it shone clearer than a mirror.

     God even hooked me up with a woman named Lilac, who had been sober for five years. She took me to my first AA meeting. I learned a lot from that program and managed to stay clean for two years. On the anniversary of my first year of being sober, they gave me a medallion to commemorate it. I asked that the inscription on it read: Christ is my Cornerstone. I made a lot of friends in AA, people who were just like me. People who listened to me and who cared about how I was feeling. And although it is not recommended, due to the possibility of becoming romantically involved, Lilac became my sponsor, for obvious reasons. I just felt comfortable having a female lead me through the 12 steps to sobriety.  I did not want a man telling me anything. Since so many men had rejected me or used me in my lifetime, now I was rejecting them. When I first arrived, I learned that users stop emotionally maturing the first time they drink or take drugs. So, I was about 13 years old emotionally when I joined AA. But within a year, I matured into a twenty-something.

     Yes, everything was great. I was head over heels in love with a God who was equally in love with me.  In fact, I could not get enough of Him and His Word. I was not on a pink cloud; rather, I was on a rainbow cloud. I could think clearer. I could see clearer. And I could hear God clearer. His Word came alive as He opened my eyes to all His wonderful Bible promises. I even willingly obeyed Him to stop having sex with other men when He led me to Leviticus 18:22, which reads: “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” It was not difficult to abstain; though you would think it would have been, considering I had been a sex addict my whole life. God had simply impressed upon me that sex outside of a traditional, heterosexual marriage was sin. So I stopped. Looking back now, I can see that a lot of what I considered lust had been envy. For instance, sometimes, when I looked at a man and burned with desire, it was really the little boy in me who just wanted to be one of the guys; to be accepted as one of the guys; to look and act virile like one of the guys. After all that childhood rejection, the little boy in me had sexualized unmet needs, just as I had sexualized my earlier need for bonding with my father and had turned to other men. I also realized that what gay men do in the bedroom is anything but making love. Despicable and depraved things go down when you are on the down low. That is why a holy God detests that kind of behaviour. It is sin. And the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). The results prove it: HIV, Syphilis, Herpes—you name it—are the fruits of that kind of deathstyle, not lifestyle.

     Not only that, but God seemed to be answering my every prayer. My cup was truly overflowing with a bounty of blessings. Then the LORD led me to the Salvation Army church, where I became a certified soldier, complete with a crisp, clean-cut uniform. Yup, I went from prison to pulpit, from wearing prison blues to becoming a man of the cloth in just one year. Wow! But the thing I cherish the most from those days is that I was there the day my mother and father responded to the altar call, knelt before it and gave their lives to Christ. The church even commissioned me to conduct Junior Soldier classes to the kids, which is a form of Sunday school. But the kids and I played more than we prayed.  What a turnabout! The LORD even gave me a ministry at a nursing home, conducting services and sing-a-longs. He also kept leading me to house painting jobs to supplement my government pension because I was HIV+.  

     Moreover, God revealed to me I was an artist, and He taught me to paint. In fact, God paid me to learn how to paint. You see, someone liked my second painting so much she commissioned me to do her a painting. But best of all, God helped me land a job at a community youth centre, supervising youth programs in the community. Which was great, for I love kids.  I guess that is because I am a kid at heart myself. Part of my job there was writing press releases for the local newspaper. I would weave together a piece about what the youth centre was up to. And not once did the editor edit a single word or punctuation mark in any of those releases. In fact, because there were no errors, the paper printed my pieces verbatim. Which made me realize God had even given me the gift of writing, as well.

     Next, God helped me get a Christian counsellor who specialized in sexual molestation, anger, and addiction issues. Our sessions went on for several years. She half-helped me to heal and forgive everyone who had ever harmed me, emotionally, physically, and sexually. At the same time, Mom’s memories of her molestation resurfaced. She sought counselling, too. After that, she became the most improved player on the team. My parents, whom I had dishonoured all those years of doing dastardly deeds, became enormously proud of me. Finally, we were a family. Oh, the mercies of God! During this time, God also led me to a Christian book entitled, The Bondage Breaker. That book dealt with the demonic oppression people like me were experiencing due to having dabbled in the occult and now had satanic strongholds. I read the book, renounced my sins, and years of burdensome baggage were just gone like lost luggage at an airport!

     Life was terrific for two whole years; that is, until I confided in my Captain of the Salvation Army that I had struggled with homosexual feelings my whole life, but that I had been abstaining. Then the next Sunday he preached a sermon inserting the evils of homosexuality into it. That really put me off. I felt betrayed. I felt like a sinner. I felt less than human. And so, I lost my zeal for that particular denomination. Besides, the over-priced $500 uniform was itchy! So, no loss. I started skipping church regularly.

     Around that time, my friend Fanny and I were shopping at a discount store when we bumped into my mother and grandmother. My mother was big on hugs, and so we embraced. But when I did not hug my grandmother, Mom put it to me pointedly, “What about your Gramma?” And resentment reared its ugly head, stinging like a serpent. I gave Gramma a quick hug. Then I fled from that store faster than a dope deal going down. Once inside Fanny’s car, I snapped at her, “Gimme one of your smokes!” She just looked at me and sighed. “But Norm,” she whispered. “Do you really want to after all this time?” Oh, I wanted to, all right. Later that day I bought a whole pack and became a full-time smoker again. And just like that, two years of being smoke-free went up in a puff of smoke. I had allowed a root of bitterness to grow in me. What I should have done was deal with the resentment. I should have told the LORD I forgive Gramma. Then I should have asked Him to make that forgiveness be true forgiveness in my heart. And then I should have followed that up by asking God to forgive me of my resentment and heal the hurt underlying all of it.  I have realized that unresolved resentment always leads to sin. Little did I know it was the beginning of the end—yet again!

     I left the Army and started attending a house church a girlfriend was attending. I begged the leader to help me switch my sexual orientation, but he could not relate. And he seemed to be ministering to everybody but me. So, I tried to pray the gay away myself. But it did not go. So I became bitter, and others at the church were affected by my attitude. I was becoming more wrathful than a riled rattle snake! So much so that I was asked to take a break from coming to their gatherings. That made me feel even more resentful. And I relapsed. Yup, I traded two years of treading the narrow trail with Jesus for a joint of marijuana, and then back dipping into even harder drugs. 

     That is when the feathers hit the fan!

Chapter Six

     I started taking speed, and I became Superman. That is how high I was flying! I opened a store. I began selling my art to tourists who came to town. I painted peoples’ houses. I painted murals in people’s houses. I did aerobics exercise every day. I drove people around. Man, I was brimming with boundless energy. I did it all, including caring for three cats. But it was not long before taking that kind of drug took its toll. I had decided to quit cold turkey because I missed my close relationship with God.  Well, the withdrawals made me so psychotic I ended up in the psychiatric ward three times. There, they diagnosed me as just being attention-seeking. They got sued for that, because I was so messed up mentally by this time that I thought God had taken all believers to heaven and that I had been left behind! Worse, I believed everyone left was evil and out to eat me up! So, I shouldered a shotgun and nearly killed two people.

      I was arrested by the Emergency Task Force team with a raft of rifles ready and rivetted on me. One wrong move and they could have killed me! Slowly, I released my rifle. They cuffed me and carted me off to jail. There, the doctor prescribed me anti-psychotic medication, and within a week sanity suffused my soul like a long-lost lover. Yes, those pills sent packing the psychosis the speed withdrawals had sparked. I was left baffled as to what had just happened. I spent the next year and a half in jail while the court quarrelled over whether I had gone from criminal to killer, or if I indeed had gone crazy. To be sure, I was in denial over what I had just done. Shock had blocked it from my mind, and it continued to do so until it surfaced a few years later at which time I felt extremely remorseful over what I had put those two, innocent people through. I thanked God they had lived and asked Him for His forgiveness.  Forgiveness for shooting them.  And forgiveness for taking the strange drugs that messed me up.

     After that, the guilt was gone. For it is written “If we confess Him our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Meanwhile, in the early days of my jail stint, some of the other inmates and I started a small prayer group. Most of the inmates hated God to the point of throwing apples or toilet paper rolls at us whenever we joined in a circle to pray. One of those apples hit me in the face once. And at one point, one of the inmates was sent into my cell by the other inmates to rough me up and tell me to ask for a range change. But once we were in the cell, God softened that inmate’s heart, and he never laid a hand on me. Because I was older now and not doing the drag thing, I was just another inmate, so my time at that detention centre was not terrific but traumatic. 

     In the end, I was found Not Criminally Responsible, which is the Canadian equivalent to the U.S.’s Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity. So, off to a maximum-security psychiatric hospital I went. There, I was diagnosed with schizoid-affective/Bipolar disorder. Which is ironic. You see, all my life I kept praying that God would not allow me to become mentally ill when I already was mentally ill from my teens on and just did not know it.

     I was in that place for about a year. During my stay, I received no counselling. The doctor just kept prescribing me anti-psychotic medication to treat the psychosis. When I first arrived, one of the orderlies, who worked mostly nights, took to me. And after lock-up, he used to give me pot to puff on.  Well, that year flew by faster than a glutton gulping down grub. God was blessing me every time I turned around. Not only was I receiving $200 a month from the Ontario Disability Support Program, which is a form of Welfare, but God got me a paid job at the hospital being my own boss. I was hired to run the greenhouse. In the greenhouse I grew flowers that were sold to the public. Which is ironic because nowadays my home is where plants come to die! Not only that, but being the greenhouse manager, I could roam anywhere in the maximum-security hospital I pleased, just so long as I was watering plants. 

     And the LORD even made me find favour with all the staff. To be sure, whenever we crossed paths in there, smiles and quips were exchanged. The staff liked me so much that one of the nurses once said to me, “Give me the money, and I’ll buy you your favourite cookies in town because they are on sale.” And another staff member paid me to paint a picture on her mailbox. Even better, the lady who ran the canteen used to smuggle me in tobacco when the joint went smoke-free. Moreover, my family was permitted to bring me a TV, DVD/VHS player, a fan, and an alarm clock, as well as my old Bible.

     But even in there I was still doing drugs—doctor-prescribed, albeit, but drugs just the same. It was pain medication for non-existent pain. You see, while I had been incarcerated that year and a half in the country jail, I began to experience prostate pain just before I was to be transferred to the hospital. A prostate is part of a male’s sexual reproduction system. And man, it hurt so badly it made me cry. So, the jailhouse doctor put me on Percocet, which is like a little hit of heroin. In my case, it was two little hits of heroin, twice a day! This dope did not mess with my mind the way the speed had; it only gave me a happy feeling.  In fact, the whole time I was at the hospital I was happier than a kid with an ice cream cone.  But then the pain went away. Regardless, I was hooked on heroin and was not about to tell them to take me off it.  No sir.  No one was going to ruin my good time. So, I malingered throughout my stay. 

     I even started studying my Bible faithfully again. And I talked with God a lot. He was speaking with me, too, even though I was still using drugs. He let me know He loved me and that He understood why I was still doing drugs—even though I did not. God kept telling my heart that everything was going to be okay one day. And many, many times I would bring to His attention something about which I needed His input, flip open His Word, and there would be His answer—right there! He has done that with me a lot over the years. I do not know how He does it. But then God is the Maker of miracles. I have also noticed He uses His Bible that way a lot in the beginning with baby believers because they are used to walking by sight, not faith.

     During this time, my friend, Lilac, my sister and my family would make the eight-hour drive to drop by and see me. And they always brought treats! Peanuts, potato chips, chocolate bars, MacDonald’s. To be sure, I really packed on the pounds in that place—75, as a matter of fact. But I did not care. I was having fun. And food was just more fun. I was also going up for seconds at mealtimes. Not only that, but the anti-psychotic medication they were giving me decreased my metabolism and increased my appetite as a side effect.  So, I could not win. I eventually shed the pounds, but it took great effort.

     I was also snorting my Perks while I was incarcerated. And that was even more fun. Swallowing them makes one feel pleasant; but crushing them up and snorting them makes one feel as though he or she is on a rocket ride. Yet, it is only by the grace of God that I did not get caught. If that had happened, I might have never gotten out of that place. I had the process perfectly down pat. You see, unlike the old days, when the nurse handed you your medication, he or she did not ask you to open your mouth and lift up your tongue to make sure you had swallowed it. So, I always tongued mine. Then I would go to my cell, close the privacy curtain, crush the two perks with a cup, then hoover them up my nose. No one was the wiser. Snorting them was exhilarating because the dope went directly through my sinuses to my skull, as opposed to being watered down in my stomach and passing through my liver. In effect, it became a double dose. So, two Perks became four, whereas taking them the proper way made two perks only one dose.

     Because the psychiatric hospital was a maximum-security mental facility, it housed quite a few psychopaths. These men were hold-outs from the 70s, when psychopaths were sent to psychiatric hospitals. Nowadays, they go to prison since psychopathy cannot be cured. Like the game of Monopoly, they do not pass go, and they do not collect $200. They go directly to jail—for life. One of those psychopaths lived in the cell across from me. They even did a true-crime documentary on him on TV.  His method of operation was scaling apartment buildings, balcony by balcony, until he reached his intended victim. Then he would rape and murder her. Afterwards, he would clean up the scene. In fact, he was the sweetest serial killer you could ever meet! He gave me a high-quality bathrobe because I did not have one. Sweet. He always greeted me with a boyish grin. Sweet. He always had something nice to say. Sweet. He even cried while I cradled him in my arms when his wife died. That is when I knew I was not like those guys. For there I was—giving solace to a psychopath!

     But I was so relieved that a lot had changed at that place since the 70s. Back then, patients were only allowed to speak when spoken to by staff. They had to sit on floor mats and hold their cigarette in the air when they needed a light. And the patients were even being treated with LSD! No wonder there were so many messed up maniacs in that place. But being me, always making the most of things, my year there was one of the happiest years of my own messed-up life.

     By year’s end, I appeared before a review board composed of a psychiatrist, a doctor, a lawyer, and a crown attorney, who assessed my progress. I also had a lawyer representing me. During the procedure, my doctor and lawyer expressed my progress, while the crown attorney argued why I should remain in maximum-security another year. In the end, the panel decided I was well enough to be transferred to a medium-security mental hospital. Which was great! For that joint had not gone smoke-free yet as this one had. 

     When I first arrived at the new hospital, I was feeling really rattled. You see, I was used to consuming cup after cup of coffee. And now, here I was on a locked ward dying for one. Talk about caffeine withdrawal! I had a headache the size of a water buffalo. I clenched me eyes and told God, “LORD, I’m a hurting unit. I need some caffeine—bad!” Then suddenly, a girl named Mavis walked up to me, introduced herself, and asked me if I would like a coffee. I felt flabbergasted. God had answered me in mere minutes.  She not only made me a coffee, but she also gave me a whole jar of instant coffee. A jar of the good stuff, too—Folgers! She and I became fast friends from the start, sharing our meals together at the same table, talking in the common area, and smoking together outside. She was a Christian too. Because she was in for arson, she was not permitted to smoke, since cigarettes are considered an incendiary device. So, she and I would huddle together on the bench in the courtyard, and she would lean in, sneak a few puffs off my cigarette, then blow it out while waving the air so the smoke would dissipate. We also used to order takeout together, and we shared many a laugh. It seemed God was giving me a friend at every institution in which I was incarcerated. 

     Because my sister Belinda lived in the next town now, she would bring me cigarettes and goodies once a week. All week long I would look forward to her visits. I was especially fond of her in that when I was incarcerated at the maximum-security hospital and it went smoke-free, she smuggled me in some tobacco, papers and matches. And she was quite the clever criminal herself, despite having never broken the law in her life. You see, when visitors came, what treats they brought to the patients were ran through an X-Ray machine. So, Belinda bought a MacDonald’s goodie bag one visit which included the stash. And clever as she was, she had bought a turnover, which came in a box the same size as a bail of tobacco. She ate the turnover, buried the bail inside the box, then resealed the box with glue. All the X-Ray showed was what looked like a turnover in its box. I thought that was so cool of my sis’.  God had given me a sister who had mercy on me, especially her being a smoker herself. Again, God’s grace was working. For if my sister had been caught smuggling that tobacco in, she would have been charged.  And she would have then had a criminal record.  Worse, she would have been banned from visiting me anymore!

   After a year on that locked ward, I was moved to minimum-security. Sadly, I had to say so long to Mavis. On this new ward we were given privileges to go out into the community unescorted. The meals there were not so great, but I had lots of loot for treats at the canteen café. While I was there, my older sister Betsy smuggled me in about 60 Perks. She was an addict herself. I hid the Perks in a powder container so when staff did ward searches, they never thought to crack the container open and peek inside. The staff on that ward liked me, as well.  So much so, that one of the male staff members told me how to unlock my security closet, which needed a key from staff, so I could stash stuff in there. During ward searches, staff never checked that closet because they figured we had no key. I ate those Perks like M&Ms within days. And it is a wonder I did not die of an overdose.  God again! 

     Once, a nurse blinked at my bloodshot eyes, and asked me why my eyes were so red. I simply told her I had allergies. And she left it at that. Then one day, the doctor just cut me off the pain medication. He said I did not need them anymore. Well, after three years of eating opiates everyday and then suddenly ceasing them, my make-believe world crumbled like crushed autumn leaves in my hands. The withdrawals were so bad, they made a stint at Auschwitz concentration camp seem like a Florida vacation. 

     Little did I know God was behind it all. You see, I was to appear before a review board in a few months, to see where I would graduate to next. And one of the contentions during the two previous board meetings was that drugs were a factor when I committed my crime, and I was still slugging back substances. No, that would not have boded well with the review board at all. But God wanted me out of there. I realize that now. And so, like Pharaoh’s heart, when Moses said, “Let my people go!”, God hardened that doctor’s heart, also. And it worked. I was clean for my next board review hearing. The panel was so pleased they sent me to a group home, where I went from maximum-supervision, to medium-supervision, to minimal-supervision, to having my own apartment in about one year. Once that happened, the board discharged me, and I was again a free man.  

     However, I was not too happy when I went to that first group home, where they treated me like high-functioning mental patient. I mean, I had lived on my own since I had been 15 years old. I was sane, I was articulate, and I was intelligent. Now, here they were trying to teach me how to put together a pizza—and praising me during the process as though I were painting the Sistine Chapel. Boy, I was so angry at God that I would not speak to Him for two weeks! Now I can see that if He hadn’t had me sent to a group home, I never would have ended up with a two-bedroom subsidized apartment for $450 a month, hydro included, all because our loving LORD is so gracious and generous! Even better, I had been clean for over a year and was really walking tight with God.

     One day I asked God if I should go back to school and get my high school diploma. And I felt God say, “You never know if you don’t try.” So, I returned to school, where I sucked at every subject but English.  So, I applied to college as a mature student for the Journalism program. Tuition was no problem. The Adult Learning Centre gave me a $500 bursary, and the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) lent me the rest. Returning to college in my 40s felt fantastic but fatiguing. But somehow, I managed to bear the burden of my backpack of books around campus for three years. And those three years paid off when I graduated with Honours. However, during those three years, there were many evenings after school I would kneel to sing worship songs to my Saviour, but I always ended up sobbing instead.  Something was wrong. What, I did not know. I mean, I had it all: I was free; I was clean; I had a relationship with God; I was accomplishing a goal; I had a three-year-old rescue cat who adored me; I lived in a palace in the sky; I had nice clothes; I had lots of food; and my family relationship had been restored. 

     So, I just chalked up my depression to my grade-point average. It seems I was always worrying about my marks, fretting that I was failing. You must realize that when it came to math, I was mystified. So, a three point-something grade-point average seemed like a small enough number to fail me! I did not even realize I had graduated with Honours until the evening of the ceremony. A teenaged girl, who never really liked me, sauntered up to me and called me a browner. I asked her what she meant.  She pointed to a pamphlet, and right there under the Honour’s Roll was my name. Well, I was happier than Hank when he hit a homerun! God had not only encouraged me to get a college diploma, but he also had given me the gift of being what my professors called a good writer. I remember one of my professors telling me that when he and the other professors got together to discuss their students’ progress, my name often came up as being a strong writer. Wow, I thought: God had given me so many gifts that I could not have loved him anymore than I did!    

     Then tragedy tripped me like a bully sticking out his leg as you are walking by!  

Chapter Seven

     One day, while leaning over to untie my shoelaces, I injured my back so badly I had to start taking pain pills—again! Instant blood lust. I loved the way they made me feel; I just did not love being high all the time. I did not feel as close to God anymore. Oh sure, I would talk to Him throughout the day. And yes, I could still hear Him in my heart. I still read my Bible faithfully. And God was still graciously granting my prayer requests. But my heart was heavy. Heavier than a 400 hundred-pound heifer. So, I kept taking drugs to dull the discomfort. That began a ten-year-long opioid battle with periodic drinking binges. I thought, I am an addict, and will always be an addict, or at least that is what Narcotics Anonymous told me I was. At their meetings, they told me once an addict, always an addict. And I believed them, for I was so baffled by this battle I could not seem to boot.

      Yes, ten troubled and terrible years I struggled with opioid addiction. My doctor became my dope dealer, so to say. He would prescribe 180 Tylenol Threes every three weeks. I went through them in about two weeks. Then I would go back to him early, and he would prescribe me some more—no questions asked. All that acetaminophen in the T3s, plus all the drinking, wrecked my liver. It began to take 10 to 11 hours to digest my food, when it takes only four hours for the average person to digest his food. When my doctor retired, I found a new doctor who was willing to prescribe me any pain medication I chose. Yes, it seems the devil never let me run out of drugs so I would be an ineffective witness in God’s kingdom. Ineffective, I say, because I was too full of self-condemnation to share the Good News with anyone. I would use pain pills for a time, realize what I was doing was not what a son of God should be doing, and I would try to quit. I even went to detox three times. That never helped. I went to Narcotics Anonymous for about two years, and that never helped either. I would either go the meetings high or get high when I got home. And God was faithful. He never let me suffer bad withdrawals with each attempt; He is that understanding and kind.  But each time I failed my face hit the floor. They say that drug addiction is cunning, baffling, and powerful. I say it is patient, too.  For every time I tried to quit, I would be okay for a time, but then something would trigger me, and I would start using all over again. 

     All I wanted to be was happy, not high. So, I sought solace from substances—be it pills or booze. I never used to get stoned or drunk; I just took enough to feel a sense of well-being. I wanted to recapture the joy of the LORD I had experienced years earlier. But after a while, the dosages would not work anymore. So, I would have to increase the dose until, sometimes, I was taking 30 pain pills a day!  To be sure, I was overdosing, and it was only the grace of God that kept me from dying in my sleep—for I was drinking alcohol on top of all those narcotics! And taking a sleeping pill! Many people have died from far less drinking and drugging binges. In fact, my best friend, Arnold, confided in me that he used to go to bed at night worried I would not wake up in the morning.

     But what is most unusual is that in all that time, I never walked away from God. And He never walked away from me.  Which is good, because deep down I was worried I was doing exactly that. A Bible verse kept swirling in my spirit—the saddest verse in the Scriptures.  It read: “From this time, many of His (Jesus’) disciples turned back and no longer followed Him” (John 6:66). In fact, feeling as happy as the pills made me feel, I would talk to God all the time. And He would answer. Why, He answered so many prayers I have almost two journals of blessings I recorded. I realize now that God had been so good to me—even though I was repaying His goodness with evil—because He saw my future potential. That, and because God is simply good period. For it is written: “…the kindness of God leads you to repentance” (Romans 2:4). 

     During what I had come to believe were “the lost years,” God helped me to win three writing contests on the internet about His love. In fact, I entered only three contests and won each contest: first place, second place, and third place. Which is great because I also have Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and I like order! I recall flipping open my Bible after I won my first contest and landing on Isaiah 50:4, where Isaiah says, “The Sovereign LORD has given me the lips of the learned.”  And I knew God was talking to me, just as much as He had been speaking to Isaiah. Moreover, although years of drinking and drugging had messed up my memory, God helped me to memorize His Word. He never let me forget those Scriptures, either.

     No, God never left me. He never forsook me, just as He promises in that blessed Book of His: “I will never leave you, nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).  It did not matter that I was a pill-popping junkie and a drunkard. He knew I was messed up and needed His compassion, grace and patience. God was always letting me know that He loved me. And he showed it in so many ways.  Sometimes those blessings went by unnoticed. I would just think I had a good day, not realizing that it was always God working behind the scenes to make it a good day. The Book of proverbs proves it when it pronounces, “A man’s steps are directed by the LORD” (Proverbs 20:24). Which means God engineers the circumstances of His children’s lives. That is the only reason I am alive today: God’s grace and His unfathomable goodness, working mostly behind the scenes. 

     My friends and I would even get together to sing hymns, read the Word and passages from devotionals, and pray. I loved God because He was constantly showing me He loved me, even though I had backslidden. He also kept using me to bless others with my gift of painting and writing.  He even used me to witness to others—and some of them got saved!

     God even blessed me with a three-year-old rescue cat, named Graydon. Graydon loved to cuddle and kiss. He would even come when I called him. Which is unusual for a cat. Dogs come when they are called. Cats take a message and get back to you later. Not this boy. I called him my puppy cat. He was always wagging his tail and purring constantly. God knew I felt lonely, so He gave me someone to love and someone who would love me as God loved me—unconditionally. And God spoke to Graydon whenever I was up to no good. For instance, when I would get my pain pills and start to crush them so I could snort them, laid-back Graydon would suddenly start pacing back and forth, making soulful guttural sounds. He was trying to tell me not to do it. But I never listened. 

     Anyway, I had dear Graydon for twelve of the best years of my life. Then his 15-year-old organs began to fail, and he had to be put down. I was so devastated the day he went home to heaven. But as I was leaving the vet’s clinic, the receptionist told me not to worry, that I would see him again one day. That night, as the tears coursed down my cheeks, I opened my Bible for comfort and the very first verse I landed on read, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). I did not know what God was saying until the next day when my sister brought me an adorable kitten, I named Breezy. Truly joy had come in the morning, just as God had told me through His Word the night before!

     Oh! One other thing. Although I now had another kitty to comfort me, my heart was still heavy over my tragic loss. And three days after Graydon died, I doubled over with grief, sobbing so loudly I am sure the entire apartment floor could hear me. I begged God to send me an angel, a vision, a sign, anything to comfort me! The torrent of salty tears stung my eyes as I clenched them shut. When I did that, the most amazing thing happened. God gave me a vision. In it, I saw a group of people whose features were too foggy to make out. But right in the middle of that group I saw my deceased mom, clear as an image in a reflection pool, and she was young and beautiful again, as she was in my only photo of her when she was in her early 20s. And cradled in her arms was my beloved Graydon. He was sitting like a tiger in a treetop as he liked to be held. Mom was smiling. They were both looking right at me. And then the vision was gone. The whole thing lasted mere moments, but I will remember it for life. Surely, our God is compassionate!    

     Over the course of those twelve years, God had also gotten me a volunteer job at the AIDS Committee of Durham Region doing one shift a week as a receptionist. I wore my cross necklace with confidence during those shifts. And at first, my cross turned many of the clients off. And why not?  People with homosexual orientations think God made them that way, but that He hates them at the same time. And hardcore Christian zealots protesting with placards that read: “God Hates Fags!” does not help the situation either. Why, I got the cold shoulder there so much I could have used those people to cool my beverages. So, I asked God if I could quit. He said, “No.” And so, I stayed put, and I tried to be as kind and caring to the clients and staff as I possibly could be. And in time they warmed up to me. 

     They realized I was not a fanatic trying to cram Christ down their craters. I was not judgmental. I was not exclusive. I was not a zealot. I was a nice guy, sincerely trying to show those precious people that I have a homosexual orientation, too, and that God loves and accepts me, so, why not them, also? I mean, how are they any worse than I am? Come to think of it, I know many people with homosexual orientations who would be valuable assets in the kingdom of God. Many of them are sweet, sensitive, and soulful people. Many of them I feel honoured to know. So many of them are the harlots and publicans Christ chilled with in His walk through this world!

     But 12 years of on-again, off-again doping had dragged me to the brink of an emotional breakdown. I cried out once more to God, and He heard me from His holy hill. A house church movement at the building in which I reside had left fliers on everybody’s doors inviting them to house church or just to phone them for prayer. I crumpled mine up and tossed it in the trash can. But then God spoke to my spirit once more. He said, “Uncrumple that flier and put it on your office in-tray.” And so, I put it there, where it remained until I reached the depths of despair over my drug and drinking problem.

     Little did I know God had his lasso around me again and was about to rope me back in!

Chapter Eight

     When the day came to try to get clean—for the zillionth time—I was suffering emotionally as much as a dead man walking to the electric chair. I needed help. Bad! So, I decided to call the number on that crumpled piece of paper I had found outside my door months earlier.  I thought maybe the prayers of some people of faith might help. Boy, was I in for a surprise! 

     A soft-spoken Sally answered the phone, prayed for me, then turned me on to Rod, the head leader of the house church at our apartment building complex. He and I met, went to the park, sat down, and he listened quietly while I told him my story, tears trailing down my cheeks. Then God used him to tell me what my problem truly was: it was my perceived identity…the lies about myself sent from Satan that I had been believing all these years. Rod told me the truth in love. He said I should start seeing myself not as an addict or gay, but as a man of God in Christ. And the implication was would Jesus drink like a dolphin? Or do drugs like a dullard? Or define himself by His sexual preference or mental health status? No! No!! NO!!! And I did not have to anymore, either, he said, for Christ was in me.

     You see, for years I had believed that I was an addict from birth. I also believed that I was gay—not a man of God who happened to have a homosexual orientation. All lies from the enemy! But I only heard Rod’s words with my head. Afterwards, God homed Rod’s words into my heart. It was the Sabbath, and I was clean, and I was honouring my LORD that day, as is my custom. I picked up my Bible and asked God to lead me to a passage that would help me with my obsessive thoughts about using and boozing, since I had sabotaged so many of my Sabbaths getting high and hammered on dope and booze. I flipped open my Bible and landed on John 17:20-23. Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane for all the believers who would ever come. And Christ spoke to me through that Scriptural passage about my identity being in Him, and that He loved me. 

     Then God reminded me of Paul’s passage that says: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me (Galatians 2:20). Now, that hit home. I realized I did not have to live this way. I could live like Christ, for Christ was in me. And I had the resurrection power surging through my spirit to do it, to resist the longings of my flesh. As it is written: “…the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2). I wanted God to tell me more. So, I flipped open my Bible again, buried my face between those precious parted pages where it read: “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put those childish ways behind me” (1 Corinthians 13:11). God hammered my heart with this truth. 

     All these years I had kept praying for God to make me a man of God, when I already was one! I just did not know it. I was just an immature one, who had bought Satan’s lies and my own misbeliefs about myself. God said to my spirit that drinking and drugging were childish ways of finding fake fun. Fake joy.  Fake peace. You see, we cannot be happy all the time. Happiness happens here and there. And it is a fleeting feeling. But the joy of the LORD…well, now that feels way better than happiness. And it is a feeling that sticks with you constantly.  

     God impressed upon me that using and boozing were childish ways of seeking happiness, when the joy of the LORD was what I truly needed. And to home it in, God reminded me of how the Apostle Paul put it: “If any man (or woman) be in Christ, he (or she) is a new creation. The old has passed away.  Behold, all things have become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17)!

     Wow!  What a relief that was to me. That meant that I was not a sinner saved by grace. I was a saint, and I was holy to God. To be sure, Adam and Eve never had a sin nature, yet they chose to stumble and sin by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree. Drugs were my tree of the knowledge between good and evil set in the garden of my life. For without choice to obey God, as Rod said, there can be no love. Yes, I am a saint who occasionally sins by making wrong choices. But now my whole life is not characterised by sin. Now I refuse to live by any label other than man of God. I am not an addict. I am not gay. I am not schizophrenic. I am not Bipolar. I am not an ex-con. I am a man of God! Period! A man of God who happens to have a predisposition to use drugs; a man of God who happens to have a homosexual orientation; a man of God who happens to have a mental illness for which I need to keep taking medication; a man of God who happens to have a criminal record; a man of God who happens to have been a harlot; a man of God who happens to have been a Satanist. And as a man of God, in Christ, I represent Jesus now; for Christians are called to be ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20).

     Yes, I felt relieved by the revelation that I no longer had to be a slave to my sinful desires. I was completely clean for a whole week. Then Satan struck. He fired more flaming arrows at me to tempt me to drink and do drugs than there are customers at a Walmart store on the weekend! Talk about temptation overkill! Yes, I crashed and burned. I listened to the enemy, and the longings of my flesh, and got drunk and high. I polluted my regained purity. I was devastated the next day. But then Rod and some other believers held a deliverance session for me. They prayed over me, laying their hands on me, and cast the spirit of addiction out of me by the power of Christ. And it worked! The stronghold Satan had over me was severed.

     I felt free; as free as seagull sailing the skies. And for the first time, in a long time, I felt joy. Real joy.  Overwhelming joy. The joy of the LORD! Now, Rod had told me beforehand that God might not deliver me, that he might mean for me to struggle to become stronger in the faith. But God had other plans. He knew that I had fought this foe so long I had battle fatigue. I just could not do it anymore. And so, our gracious God not only took the desire to use away, but He made the whole idea of using seem about as appealing as a case of road rash! In fact, the desire to drink and do drugs seems repugnant to me now.  And I am going to protect that purity with my life! And the one thing to inspire me to do this is one of my favourite verses in the Bible from Jesus’ sermon on the mount, where He said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). And that is what I want with all my heart: to see God. Oh, I still get tempted here and there, and I have slipped a few times and given in, but with the help of Rod’s and my church family’s prayers, and my determination, I have been able to mostly keep on track. And when a setback has happened, I have quickly repented and turned my focus back onto God and have been restored. For as I said before, it is written: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Yes, my life story finally has a happy ending. And I intend to let nothing hinder my happily-ever-after!

     Now, here is when my story gets smoking hot…

Chapter Nine

     They say where there is smoke there is fire. But in my case, the smoke is finally going to get snuffed out like a three-alarm blaze!  As I stated earlier, the thing that contributed to spinning my life sideways after having been delivered from smoking years earlier, was when I picked up that first cigarette. I had thought I would just smoke one to take the edge off having had to kiss my hateful grandmother. But it is never one when it comes to cigarettes. Not for me, anyway. For that very evening I kicked it to the corner store and snagged some more smokes.  And in a few days, I ended up where I had left off—smoking a full pack a day! This habit has held me in its vice-like grip for 17 years. I could never get enough. In fact, in no time, I began smoking way more than I ever had before. And I would smoke them right down to the filter, too.  But after I decided to get clean of all substances, I realized I wanted to stop smoking also. After all, my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and I am defiling it with devilish toxins. I flippantly thought God would just painlessly deliver me of this horrendous habit as He had done before. But that is not God’s plan this time. It seems, in His reasoning, the easier, softer method had not worked that first time; for I had thrown away my purity by not dealing with a resentment. In other words, I had hugged one hurtful habit—resentment—and then had bear-hugged another—smoking.

     No, the only way I am going to have these fetters unfastened is the hard way. God means for it to be a struggle this time. Sort of like a chrysalis trying to crack open its cocoon. These past three months of trying to halt this horrendous habit have been harder than Heroin to kick. In fact, research indicates that smoking cessation is harder to quit than crack. And I believe it. I tried cutting down to wean myself off, but to no avail. For that left me only wanting more. I went almost two days without a smoke and the physical withdrawals were almost as bad as opioid withdrawals. I mean, my flesh felt as though there were bubbles in my veins! My head hurt as my body and my brain shrieked for the nicotine it had become so dependent on and was now being deprived of. Finally, I succumbed and started smoking more than I had been smoking before. No, God is not going to let me off so easily this time. If He did, I might pick up again, as I did before, without appreciating what He had done for me. The battle is intense. It feels as though I am wrestling a wolf with fangs sinking deeply into my smoke-saturated skin.

     I begged God for deliverance. But He told me no. He told me He would not deliver me so painlessly this time. This time I had to learn my lesson, just as a wise, older Christian man had told me years earlier when I had told him, between puffs of smoke, how God had delivered me once and would do so again if I asked Him to. But God is a loving Father who disciplines His children. And if His children do not learn their lesson the first time, then tough love is the tall order taken. And talk about tough! God is being tougher on me than trying to chew beef jerky with no teeth. I reached a point where I thought God had given me over to this dreadful habit and that maybe I had walked away from my salvation for lousy cigarettes and did not even know it. I shook it rough over that thought. I thought maybe God seemed to be blessing me so much and answering my prayers because this life was the only heaven I was ever going to know. But Rod set me straight on that one, too. He told me that just the fact I was worried about my salvation proved I loved God and had not walked away from Him. Rod told me he had known men who had walked away from God. They spoke nothing but insults about Him and held a hatred for all that is holy. That helped. And it made sense, too. I mean, after all, I was still reading my Bible faithfully every morning. I was still saying intercessory prayers for an hour each day. And I was still reading a lot of Christian growth books.

     So, the enemy had failed at that feat of fear he tried to foist on me.

     A few times, in desperation, though, I asked God if I was ever going to be free of this addiction. And in my heart, I heard Him say, lovingly and emphatically, “Yes,” but in His time, not in mine. I then asked Him if when the time came, would He let me suffer intense cravings or desires for cigarettes, and He told me, “No.” He then added that all He wants me to do is to take the thought for a cigarette captive in obedience to Christ as much as I can for now. In the meantime, God has gotten me enrolled in a program run by Canadian Mental Health Services. They give me smoking cessation aids, like nicotine replacement patches and inhalers to help me taper down to the point where I can quit. Yes, God could have miraculously, painlessly, and instantaneously delivered me of my dilemma, as He had done so years before, but He wants my freedom to stick this time. And stick it will. I will soon have danced my last tango with tobacco!

     God also revealed to me why He allowed my battle with drug and alcohol addiction to go on as long as it had. The reason was that being immersed in the crucible of suffering and struggling my character has been refined, producing perseverance. Now, I am not saying God is all for drug or alcohol addiction to build us up. I am just saying that in my case, that was all He had to work with to carve my character. And crafting a man or woman’s character is God’s main goal. You see, He wants to conform our character to that of Christ’s (Romans 8:29). No, He does not want us to be clones of Christ. He still preserves our personalities, our penchants, our preferences, and our peculiarities. In short, He wants us to still be ourselves. But with character! That is, integrity, righteousness, charity, and unconditional love for all men and women. To be sure, a Christian’s life is constantly under character construction! And sometimes that means God must blast a nuclear bomb beneath our butts to get us to stop being complacent and build a few more bricks into that character of ours! God loves character, and He wants us to all be birds of a feather flocking together for eternity.

     Yet despite the desperate duel to the death with substances all these years, having God in my life has brought me a lot of victories, too.

Chapter Ten

     To be sure, my Creator has conquered a lot of the crud and lies in my life and has granted me victory in many areas.

     For starters, God has impressed upon my heart the reason He has not healed me of HIV. If He did that, then the medical community would just think my HIV test proved to be a false positive. No, God has left the virus in me. He has also commanded it to remain dormant, unable to do its job—overwhelm my immune system and kill me. He has done this without the aid of any medications, which every person infected with this virus must take to keep alive. Yes, for 30 years I have had this virus, without the aid of medications, to make the professionals and HIV positive people realize that something miraculous is truly going on in this Christian’s life. They must be thinking, “Maybe there is a God…”

     God has even revealed to me that the man I so longed to be I already am. For the measure of a man is not in how manly he is. The measure of man is in how godly he is. Oh, I still sometimes tussle with temptation to leer a little too long at attractive men, and not all of it is envy, but when it happens, I fix my focus on Christ; for God has allowed the temptation to draw me nearer to Him. When I am tempted to envy, I simply say, “Praise You, LORD, for I, too, am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). And when I am tempted to lust, or drink or use drugs, I say, “I take that thought captive in obedience to You, LORD Jesus,” (2 Corinthians 10:5). And when I say these things, the tempter takes off—instantly—toting his temptations with him! And that is how the good LORD is healing me of my homosexual orientation and addiction issues.

     Also, God has shown me that the reason He has not healed me of my homosexual orientation all at once is that it takes one to reach one—for now. I mean, I work with a lot of people with homosexual dispositions. So, when they see me, they see a kindred spirit, somebody who is kind of like them, but not engaging in the lifestyle anymore. Somebody God adores. For they think God hates homosexuals. So do some Christians. Believers of that persuasion pridefully forget that the same passage condemning homosexual behaviour in 1 Corinthians 6:9 lists a lot of other sins many Christians are guilty of having committed. And maybe…just maybe, because of my struggle, some of those fine folks with homosexual orientations, dispositions they never even asked for, will let Jesus rescue them, too, as He did me.  For Jesus loves us all—gay, straight, bisexual, trans-gender, whatever one identifies as. And He meets us where we're at. You don't change to come to Jesus. You come to Jesus, and He changes you. That's my experience, anyway. One need only to take a gander at the four Gospels in the New Testament to realize this. Most of the people who gravitated to our gracious God, when He walked through this world, were hookers, and addicts, and drunks, and thieves, not to mention a menagerie of other “undesirables.”

      And as if that were not enough, God inspired my psychiatrist to write a letter to OSAP explaining my mental health issues. In it, he told OSAP that I was unable to work due to mental health issues. At that, OSAP promptly cancelled my $12,000 college education debt. Which is super since I only make approximately $13,000 a year on my pension. And to supplement my meagre income, God has led me to people who have purchased many of my paintings. Yes, the sky is no limit to what this God will do for those who receive Him.       

     Not only that, but by God’s grace, He has been hammering away at my heart all these years I had thought were lost to the locust. You see, when I was a young man, I was very much a sociopath. Why, I could not even spell the word love. In fact, one of my psychiatrists told me I was a burned-out sociopath.  And that stung. His words wounded me because they were true. But God has now turned my heart, which had always been a boulder beating behind my breast, into a heart of flesh that pounds with passion for others now; a heart that can emphasize with others now; a heart that can care about others now. Praise God!

     Additionally, God used Rod to tell me to stop living in the past. Rod quoted to me the Apostle Paul’s assertion in Philippians 3:13,14, which reads: “…but one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” At first, I did not know what Rod was talking about. I felt sure I had already dealt with the past. But when I flipped open my Bible the next morning and opened on that exact passage, I realized that God was telling me my lust/envy/addiction temptations were me living in the past. I realized, too, that the child in me would always complain about how unfair that was. Then out would come the streamers and balloons for another pity party. I would wonder why I should be tempted so when I am trying so hard to be such a decent guy nowadays.

     But now I understand what God was telling me through Rod and through the Word. When I would whine, which is only anger coming out of a small opening, the child in me was living out of past feelings of rejection and abuse. Rod told me that instead of complaining to God and anyone else who will listen to the woes of poor me, I should not even give those temptations a voice. For when the devil is squeezing me, he is expecting me to complain. He is expecting me to squirt out bitter lemon juice. And he is getting what he wants—me living in the past. Now I press forward. Instead of complaining to God, I praise and thank Him for His goodness to me. The devil gets not lemon juice, but lemonade. And he hates that, hightails it out of there, and hastily moves on to the next hapless victim.

     God has also helped me break a lifetime addiction to pornography. Truth be told, there was a time of intense obsession and compulsion to that sexual sin that I was almost sucked into that black hole forever. I thought I am only human, that God must understand that. Crushed, I believed my only chance of being free from such fetters would be in eternity. But God’s gentle Spirit kept nudging me that I did have a choice now, and again reminded me that “…the law of the Sprit of life in Christ has set me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:2).  So, one day I just laid it all on the line and turned it over to God. And the good LORD gave me grace yet again, as kind and faithful as He is. Yes, He delivered me from all desire to view dirtiness of any kind. In fact, I seldom surf the internet anymore, nor even watch much TV, for that matter. Most of what is seen on there is smut, anyway. However, when I do watch TV, and it goes someplace I do not want to go, I clench my eyes, or change the station, or shut the whole thing down. I am that serious about my sexual purity now. It is as if God has turned me into a born-again virgin. And I like it. I really like it! Oh, I still get tempted by the devil once in a while, but I am able to resist these attacks because “…the One who is in (me) is greater than the one who is in the world” (1 John 4:4).    

     In fact, the good LORD has smiled upon me in a way that makes Satan scowl. Surprisingly, I am now a leader in the house church I attend. And that is a big deal for a former dope dealer like me. You see, all my life, I have felt that I have not had anything to offer anyone that was of any real value. To be sure, I felt that I had dishonoured God by my unwillingness to stop snorting substances and belting back the booze. I had shamed my family with my criminal activities. And I had defiled my own body by a lifestyle of lasciviousness. Who, I wondered, could I possibly ever help? But not so. Our head house church leader, Rod, has informed me there are many folks out there who are in the exact boat I was in and could use my testimony to assure them that they, too, are still loved by God.

     I had always thought of myself as a loser, but it turns out I am a winner; for I have been through a lifetime of torture by the black-hearted one and have lived to tell my tale!  And that is the last thing the evil one wants to get out there—my tale. Somehow, God, as He often does, has taken a broken man and put him back together, piece by painful piece. And now He wants to use me. But like Moses, I do not feel qualified for the job of leading. However, Rod insists. He says my experiences have empowered me to relate to anyone caught in any kind of sin, because I cannot be shocked. Moreover, because of my own past, I can reach certain people average Christians cannot, for they cannot relate to some of those searching souls--sinners who are caught in more sinister sins, like homosexuality, drug addiction, Wicca, and Satanism. Yes, our Saviour has singled me out for leadership, and I feel so honoured He would stoop to a sinner such as I and make something of him, something holy.

     Rod has told me that my knowledge of the Scriptures can really count for the kingdom, too, in contributing to the salvation of lost souls. To begin with, I have read the Bible from cover to cover four times. Now, I am halfway through reading it a fifth time. As for the New Testament, I have read that a zillion times. To be sure, I read the Good Book so often that Rod bought me a new one; for my old one was so tattered, torn, and tearstained that the only thing holding it together was duct tape and elastic bands! Hence, I can share God’s Word with the walking wounded. Yes, even though all these years of using have messed up my memory, God has miraculously helped me to retain all the Scripture I have memorised. Why, I have even memorised a lot of God’s Word without even trying. And that is all because I read it so much. Which comes in handy for me, also, for spiritual warfare purposes. Believe me, the enemy attacks me a lot. But each time He does, I wield the Word of God against Him, and he cowers like the coward he is before fleeing. No evil can withstand God’s Word (James 4:7).

     All of this is a major kick in the keister to Satan’s kingdom. So much so that one day the enemy flagrantly attacked—with flames fanned from fiery Hell itself! You see, I wanted to buy some essential lavender oil to simmer in my potpourri pot, but the health food store had run out and would not be getting any in for a few days. So impatient me decided to duck into the New Age store to buy some. You know, one of those stores that sells incense, candles, ornate jewelry and occult literature? I figured I would just exorcise the oil when I brought it home. Boy, was I in for a shock! I set the oil to simmer over a tea candle on my bedroom dresser, went into the living room, and I waited for the scent to waft throughout my apartment. But after awhile I began feeling edgy. It was God again. He told me to go back to my bedroom, that something was not right. And sure enough, when I entered the room, I discovered the oil had caught on fire, and the flames were beginning to feed on the dresser! Thankfully, I was able to snuff them out. But there was a scorch mark on the dresser to remind me not to play with occult fire and to start being more patient!  

     Moreover, the LORD has taught me through His Word how to fight the enemy by keeping myself garbed in the full armour of God. So, the following is a breakdown of Ephesians 6:14-18 as God has taught me to apply it. First, the Word says to stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around our waists. This means always being honest with God, ourselves and others. Next, we are instructed to don the breastplate of righteousness. This further means practising what we preach, publicly and privately. After this, we are informed that we must keep our feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. All this means is knowing the gospel and being eager to share it with everyone.                
     Additionally, we are told to take up the shield of faith, with which we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. This commandment enlightens us to realize that the battle for our souls has already been won at Calvary when Christ died for our sins. Skirmishes with Satan are just his petty paybacks. After this, we are directed to rely on the helmet of salvation. Which simply means resisting Satan-sent doubts about our salvation. Finally, our mandate is to take the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God and use it constantly. This final rule means wielding God’s Word against the enemy when he attacks. And he will attack. He will attack with a sinful desire, a doubt about God’s Word or character, a feeling of depression that comes right out of the blue, or with an attempt to destroy either our relationship with God or our testimony. By keeping this armour on, I have been able to successfully resist many temptations I never could have before, such as the urge to be greedy, or to backbite someone, or to tell a lie.

     Man, you just must love this gracious God, who can be firm like a father, yet loves us like a mother. If God loves someone like me as much as He has shown me that He does by His faithfulness, patience and blessings, then God loves everyone, no matter what sins they have sunken into. For “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  I am now clean and serene because of God’s grace. I have been celibate for 20 years because of God’s grace.  I am forgiven for being a witch, a Satanist, an adulterer, a harlot, a liar, a thief, an addict, a drunkard, and a criminal.  And it is all because of God’s grace, my friends. God’s amazing grace!

     I guess the point I am trying to make in all this is that this God we sometimes take for granted has a heart huger than the heavens. Although I lived as a carnal Christian for so much of my journey with Jesus, God remained so faithful to me. He was always, ALWAYS with me, through thickness and thin, through sickness and sin. In fact, this merciful and gracious God has woven the tapestry of my life through time, troubles and tears, into a work worthy of glorious display…an eternal display that reveals God’s glory, a glory which has produced a wholeness in me, a glory that has permeated every part of my person with His peace and presence.  And yes, as contrary as I am, I have repented of all my sins. Who couldn’t repent to a God who is so kind, compassionate, and patient?

     If you have not accepted Christ’s atonement for the crimes you have committed, know this: God is calling you (yes, you!) with open arms. He is ready to give you His undying love and forgiveness. Surely, God will show you grace, kindness, blessings, and give you eternal life, no matter what you have done. All you must do is say yes to His offer of grace. Admit to Him you are a sinner and that you accept His Son as your Saviour from your sins. As it is written: “…for whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Romans 10:13). Do that, my fretful friend, and it is a done deal for all of eternity. And in eternity, all the redeemed shall glorify God and enjoy His Presence forever. For the Scriptures go on to say: “In the presence of God is the fullness of joy. And at His right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11).

     No more listening to lies for this 56-year-old guy. And in the end, the long arm of the Lawgiver always gets His man…of God!