Before the Lord Jesus Christ became the most important thing in my life, my life could be summed up in it is all about me and what I wanted. I wanted most of all to be accepted by the cool crowd and imitate them and do all the things that the cool crowd did. The funny thing about it is I was never in the cool crowd. I was just doing the things that made me feel like I was one of them. As time moved on the cool stuff, partying excessively, and the many things that defile your soul began to take its toll on me. I was not happy; I sure thought that I should be. I never could seem to get to the place when I new it was right. Everything was great, the friends, girls, parties, everything you could want. I really should have been perfectly happy. I'm away from home doing just exactly what I want to do with whomever I wanted, whenever I wanted. How much better can it be that this. I was in party animal heaven. I could also feel the darkness coming over my soul as I took my soul deep into sin. The sins were more wicked more intense, because you can't deny yourself when all you want to do is please yourself. You also can't see clearly when you hurt someone. I guess at that time you don't see it so you really don't care who you hurt.

All this time of course I already believed in the Lord, I knew He was real and I would still go to church on Sunday with the family and pick back up with my usual routine the rest of the time, but I believed in Him and knew He was there, but I did not humble myself to Him at all with any of my actions. I continued to get deeper in my sins. It was when I was alone that the darkness would become so great that I was afraid to be alone. As this darkness became greater I then wanted to be alone. I began to not want to be in the crowds that used to comfort me and bring me the joy that friends and companions do. Not even the girls helped the darkness anymore. In fact nothing did, not the alcohol, the girls, the partys, none of the great adventures we could dream up to please ourselves helped the darkness. The cloud dominated my world, it even seemed like the horror shows that show the whole world as dark during the entire movie. Nothing pleased me anymore. Finally the time came. I would no longer get up to go into the world. I just sat in my room. I didn't care about any of my obligations for the day. I did not want to go into the world any more. I just sat there thinking , is this it? Is this all the world has to offer? What good is life? If you think about it, which I certainly was at the time, there is not much to it. When you get up and you do everything you want to do and you experience so many things, then what? What else is there? Is that it ? I did not really want to continue with this good for nothing existence. What is this really good for and what am I doing here after all?

Then I thought about my life up untill then. I had good parents who had tried their best to give me as much as they could and as good of a life as they could. Then I thought, but what have I done to demonstrate any gratitude toward them for that effort? I had been an utter disgrace to them. I had in fact, brought shame on the family for the things I had done up to that point. I realized that I had been an utterly self serving and completely selfish person. I thought of all the things I had done, how wrong they were and how I wish now that I had never done any of those wicked things.

I remembered some of the stories in the Bible and how they applied to me. The Dead Sea is dead, because all it does is take ,it has no tributaries so it never lets anything flow out of it. Much like the selfish person that I had been. I remembered Jesus said it is better to give than to receive. I think I understand why now, I knew how happy it made me to give something to someone and see the joy, surprise and gratitude. That was real and was worth getting up for. Then I began again to be afraid for myself. What if now God doesn't want me, what difference will it make now? I have been so wicked - I deserve to go to hell and I should. I don't belong with the good people of God. I prayed to God to please forgive me and let me make up for the wicked things. I would do whatever He wanted me to do. What did Jesus do? He spread God's Word, so I thought maybe I would do that for Him. I would tell everybody about Him. My heart immediately began to feel lighter and happier. My eyes filled up with tears as I thought about what if God forgives me and lets me live to tell people about Him? I said God, "I don't really believe you would even want me or would even listen to my cry for help, but if you will get me out of this one I will be yours forever if you want me." The fountain of tears began. Of course men of my stature don't ever cry even if we've cut our leg off, but nothing was stopping these tears. The more I cried out to Him for help, Bible verses poured into my heart and the light came on and the world outside looked bright and beautiful for the first time. It was as if I had seen everything for the first time. The trees were beautiful the sky was amazing. Everything seemed so alive and wonderful. I could not get over how amazing God really was. He made all this in just moments of time and He himself had no beginning. Most of all I felt His forgiveness deep in my soul. I knew I had just come back from the dead. God was not just a great explanation. He was and is alive and great beyond my understanding.

That moment in my life brought me back from not caring whether I lived or died - to being so excited about the things of God that 27 years later I have more fire in me to get His word out than I did when He first saved me. I went from not wanting to face people to telling everyone I met how I had met God and He was really the cool one. I wanted to help the World understand that it is not about us, it is about Him.

Once that is understood, the light comes on in your world and joy, peace and happiness is with you no matter what goes on in the world. You will have an inner peace that is not affected by the outside. Before this I feared dying, but now I know it will be fine for me if I live or if not, then all is well with me. Immediately and for the first time in my life, I picked up the Bible and actually understood what I was reading and just consumed it . I could not put it down and since that time I have been searching the scriptures and this world over for His true people, the people that love Him -not their church, nor how they worship or their building or their doctrine, but His true people. The ones who love Him and understand it really is all about Him and not about us and what we want.