Encountering the Divine – Part I (The Anvil Drop)

8 years ago to this day my life changed forever. That’s the day I would begin the journey of realizing that I had a purpose in this world. That the insufferable existence of my first 25 years on earth was not in vain. That I truly wasn’t an outcast, an abomination or a mistake, but that I was uniquely and wonderfully made, like everyone else. I always failed to find that calling through the world or through whatever people told me I should do. I shape-shifted in order to conform to the “norms “ of society or to whatever group of people I associated myself with in that moment. No matter how hard I tried, it never worked. Today marks my 34^th birthday, a day which not only commemorates the birth of my life here on earth, but also marks the 8^th year since I begin to see the world with a different set of eyes. A world, that turns out, does have some light in it after all and a hope for my future. I had to look above at something bigger than myself to find that shift on perspective.

This post continues where the “ About ” section of my blog left off . I’d suggest you read that first for some context and so you won’t think I’m completely losing my mind. Heck you may still make think that, but at least it’ll make sense. Normal is a label that always eluded me, and one that I frankly have no interest in pursuing anymore. It’s too boring to be ordinary, it’s best to be oneself to really make a difference on this earth.) So yes , where was I; my dad was dying in a hospital room in Germany and I hit my breaking point in my life. I called out for help to a God that I never knew for sure that existed; begging for my father’s life. He had a relapse with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma after being in remission for four years. He had a growing tumor in his belly but was hospitalized because he  had come down with a pneumonia while traveling in Europe. He was 74 and his body had already been ravaged by previous rounds of chemotherapy. The oncologists in that hospital , ah yes: Dr. Bode and Dr. Maus (spelled something like that). One was like a guardian angel caring for my father and the other , well like his name implies, a filthy rat. Ok, he was just the villain of this particular story. Dr. Bode had my father on antibiotics to treat the pneumonia, but he obviously couldn’t give my dad chemo simultaneously because his body wouldn’t resist all that at once. In the meantime, his tumor grew.

I was approximately a total of 10 days in Aachen, Germany. I was fortunate that the hospital gave me a cot to stay with my father in his room. My financial resources were limited, I mean I had booked my flight from Miami to Dusseldorf all on my credit card on a whim. It hadn’t been long since I was out of college. I had no such thing as savings. My family wasn’t exactly wealthy either. My dad slept a lot but he did have many moments of consciousness. He asked me to get him back home to the US. He didn’t want to die in Germany. Either way,  money and insurance coverage was limited to keep him in a foreign hospital for that long ; plus more importantly, there was  no emotional/moral support system for us. Dr. Bode said if he got stable enough he would authorize him to fly back but he would have to go laying down on an air craft with a respirator. In order to keep my sanity, I would leave the hospital a couple of times a day to go get food, walk around the town, and to find an internet cafe. There were no smart phones around in 2007. I had arranged with an airline to book an entire row of seats allowing for my dad to be stretched out and reserved them ($35,000) with my credit card. I didn’t know where I was going to pay that from nor was that my main concern at the moment. I was lucky I had good credit.

One day he would be feeling better, than the next his condition would worsen ,after a few days the doctors had to switch shifts. The reason why was weird, but basically Dr. Bode ( an awesome doctor) had to give up being my dad’s primary caregiver and hand off the reigns to Dr. Maus (a nefarious rodent). Ok, I just didn’t like him because as soon as he took over he nixed my plans of taking my dad back  home. He said it was impossible for my dad to fly in his condition. I had to cancel the plane tickets. Dr. Maus was just negative overall and completely the opposite of the first doc. I needed someone who was going  to believe my dad had a fighting chance. (Even the nurses agreed with me) So it was back to square one, my dad’s tumor was growing like a ticking time bomb, the pneumonia wasn’t gone yet, and we had no way out of Germany. I spoke to Dr. Bode, who had no control of retaining my dad as a patient for some reason, or to dictate orders while he wasn’t on shift. He was not in agreement with the way Dr. Maus was handling my dad’s care. So the odds were not in my favor, seemingly.

Miraculously, one day Dr. Maus had a change of heart and finally proposed that he would allow my dad to travel if he went on an air ambulance. Which I came to find out there’s a whole industry worldwide for physicians who work on their free time picking up patients from different parts of the world. Basically,  I had to rent a private jet. Approximate cost: $80,000. Umm yea, $35,000 I thought was a stretch while the other number just was something I dreamt of winning on a game show.  I was seemingly out of options.  I did my research , using a lot of phone cards to speak to my mom in Mexico and my dad’s oncologist in Texas. Well to his team anyway, I could never get a hold of the actual doctor! They were trying to coordinate care with the German medical team. I have to say the medical care in that European hospital was outstanding, you rang the nurse bell once at any hour and there was a nurse there within seconds. And all beautiful blond people for the most part of course.ha. (Hey what, don’t judge, I was going through a lot, my eyes wandered from time to time, lol )

 

So here’s the gist, let’s say , there’s a doctor and his medical team that resides in Toronto. There’s a Brit who is sick and is somewhere in North America. This team will pick up the patient and fly them back to Britain. But if there happens to be a North American patient stranded in Europe, then on the way back they’ll go ahead and pick him up wherever he is Europe (if in somewhat close proximity) and fly him back to America. Therefore the costs are somewhat split. Otherwise, the first patient would have to pay for the entire round-trip cost.  These medical teams are contracted by companies that coordinate these kinds of flights on a daily basis; it’s crazy, there’s a whole industry where you can get different competitor quotes. Ok, definitely not as many options as Expedia or as easy to arrange. I think I  found like three options. It was quite nightmarish in fact, a lot of time spent on phone lines and conferring with the Maus team. I didn’t have a social worker to help me. After a few days of researching, I found a company that was already bringing a patient from the US to Frankfurt. Therefore, they had to get back to their home base in Canada and had space to transport someone back. That means I got a discount: the total cost would only be $65,000. Yea, I know ,not exactly a Groupon price but hey, better than 80 grand.

Myself, nor my dad or any immediate family that I knew could afford that. After all that trouble I was like , well where in the heck am I gonna find the money to pay for this? They don’t take credit cards. They need those funds deposited up front. My dad suggested to ask a friend of his. Who interestingly enough, I never had met. I always heard my dad speak of him but in my entire life I had never met the guy. Maybe as a kid, but I didn’t remember. Needless to say,  I wasn’t that close to my dad or his friendships growing up. Besides being friends since high school, my dad also worked for this guy for a long time. At least since I was young.  Whenever he wasn’t at home feuding with my mom, I remember my dad being gone a lot; he was traveling the world because his friend had a private jet and well a lot of money. My dad had his small fortune at some point too but squandered that later in life. His friend belonged to a family that founded a multi-million gas & oil company in Mexico and that expanded to some parts of the United States. I’m obviously not dropping any names, we’ll call him Mr. T (No, he wasn’t black nor wore gold chains, don’t have time to come up with anything better foo). Anyhow, I had never talked to this guy, but had met his assistant, a mutual friend of my dad and Mr. T from way back when. I met Mr. T’s right hand years earlier when he would come visit my dad at the hospital. The whole point of this story is that I  knew my dad trusted this person, even though he was like a myth or stranger to me. (Or a mystery like Mr. Claw in Inspector Gadget) I managed to get a hold of his assistant from Germany one morning and straight out asked if he could intercede on my behalf with Mr. T  to ask for $65,000. Ballsy right? I was out of options. Time zone differences meant I had to coordinate carefully my calls and also limited the amount of time I could conduct business/medical affairs per day with people across the globe. The following day Mr. T’s right hand called me at the hospital room to tell me the answer was no.

The time spent in Germany was truly a roller-coaster ride , one day was full of hope and positivity and the next a wrench would get thrown into my plans.  I was in despair at that point, but I kept praying to God to give me strength through this surreal experience.(Funny how I believed when I needed something.) Another day passes,  I get another call in the hospital room saying that Mr. T changed his mind. He would loan us the money after all.

A few days later my dad was in an ambulance that transported us from Aachen to Frankfurt like at 4am in the morning. It was pretty cool , a whole police squad cleared our path all the way through the pitch darkness straight to an airport. I don’t even remember the name of it, I was half awake. It was obviously a private section just for jets, we didn’t go through traditional customs. The whole time my dad was on a stretcher. There we met with his medical team that would guide us all the way to El Paso, TX.  I had never been so claustrophobic in my life, I had been on a private jet once before, but never cram packed with bags, medical equipment and like two other medical team members, plus the pilot.   I sat in a small seat that was engulfed by luggage on the sides, at the end of what seemed like a 12 foot long plane; my dad was stretched out on the side right in front of me and his doctor sat next to him monitoring his vitals most of the way. As you can imagine, the amount of fuel for that jet  cannot cross the Atlantic without stopping to pump gas in the Bermuda triangle. In other words, not happening. Luckily we opted for the northern hemisphere. OMG that was eternal..

My dad was a trooper and managed to survive the rough air currents. You can feel everything in a small jet like that, I mean, that thing felt like it was going to fall apart any minute. From my recollection we stopped in England, Greenland (yea , definitely no green there, just ice. So confusing because Iceland is supposedly green), Montreal, Wichita(Kansas of all places) and finally El Paso, Texas!! Which borders Mexico where my father’s home was. It was a bloody 20 plus something hour trip! A pain in the arse! And yes  I just developed a British accent while describing that trek, what of it bloke? (maybe I’m partially influenced by just watching the series finale of BBC’s Merlin! I’m so sad, ok focus, back to the topic)

Here’s more pics..

So I was back in my hometown of El Paso, my mom and her family were there so at least it wasn’t just me caring for my dad alone. I had my friends there also to support me. ( a.k.a. drank/smoked weed with me.JK. ok, not kidding.) He went straight from the airport to the local hospital where he went under the care of his regular oncologist.( It’s a bit tricky because our house is in Mexico across the border but he was hospitalized in the U.S.  You have to navigate back and forth across countries whenever you wanted to go back and rest. Plus take out the dogs). I was there for  a couple of weeks as he started chemo, his struggle was just beginning. Chemo kills all of your immune system so he was still critical; far from out of danger. At that point, including the time in Europe, I had been gone from my job back in Miami for a little over 3 weeks. I had to go back. It was a sales position that I had only been in for approximately 3 months and I was struggling; definitely not meeting my goals. I was way more introverted back then, trying to make it  in a cold calling job. There was a woman in that job that I’ll call Miranda,  she had a kindness and gentleness to her spirit that was unique. She was never stressed, unlike most of the AE’s at the end of the month who were scrambling to hit their numbers. She always had time to answer a question or offer work advice. At the end of each month she was the highest seller in our office; there was something about her that struck me as different; a good different. Anyhow, so I had been working at this company for three months and bombing; when my boss Roy was gracious enough to hold my position while I left to be with my father in September 2007. I was gone for almost a month. I came back to work around the beginning of October. The first day back Miranda asked if I could speak with her after work. The first thought that came to mind was  “great, she’s going to tell  me I’m going to get fired”.

That’s not exactly what happened. Most people were gone at that point, it was early evening, and Miranda started telling me personal intimate details about her life. Which took me aback because it was completely opposite from what I would have done. I was so not used to opening up to most people ; rarely my close friends, much less with strangers. Her openness and honesty just shocked me. In a good way, but nonetheless, I think more so nowadays we all are so used to operate with facades that someone transparent is refreshing and unusual. Mind you, before I left to Europe, I just had professional conversations with her for the most part. I only knew that she was married, she was from Nicaragua, late 30s, you know; casual office chit chat. We weren’t friends outside of work. Her inner strength was exhibited as she shared a glimpse of her life story and that she had previously struggled with sexual addictions and alcoholism.  I was like “You???”. You would never have known from interacting with this tranquil, cheerful soul. She told me that she had opened herself up to God and accepted Jesus Christ in her heart and that he slowly started changing things in her life.

At that point, usually my  mental antennas would have gone up just up by the mention of the name God or Jesus. I was programmed to react defensively or cynically to any religious conversation. Rightfully so, given me being burned by the Catholic Church and the overall devastating effect religion had on my self esteem and my upbringing. I still listened to her because she wasn’t being preachy, she was merely sharing her story; she was being raw and real. It was coming from the heart and I unconsciously appreciated that. She knew that I was going through a difficult time with my father’s situation; at a certain point in the conversation she invited me to her church. Miranda sharing her personal struggles with me enabled me to do something I had never done before with a person from work. Or anyone that wasn’t gay for that matter. I opened up about my sexuality.(I ferociously grasped for the longest time to keep a double life, my gay life and friends in Miami and my other life in Mexico that I had run away from. Work was also separate from my personal life. I just didn’t talk about my love life, or lack thereof. But yes, the assumption of people that always met me was that I was straight, so I’d just go with that. I was always afraid of being judged or rejected, especially by males. At that point, my closest friends back home knew, even then it took a drunken night out a couple of years earlier to summon the courage to tell them of my years long torment.)

I responded to Miranda “ Thank you for the invitation, but I can’t go , because I’m gay.” There I had said it. I told my worse fear to a “religious” person and was expecting a cannon to go off and be fired right at me (metaphorically speaking of course). Her response altered the course of my life forever. Her reaction was one of honest puzzlement, it was sort of along the lines of  “ What? What’s wrong with being gay? Why wouldn’t you be welcome at church? Even if you think there’s something wrong with that, who am I to judge you? I just shared with you my personal struggles, I’m not perfect. No one is. God loves you too.”

Her being vulnerable with me allowed me to be real with her and in exchange I received unexpected grace and love that stirred the very fabric of my heart.  I’m sure I was trying to contain the tears at that point. (Geez, my eyes are watery now as I type this.)  I’ll be forever grateful she took the time after work to spend with me just to know how I was doing and to share her personal story with me. She momentarily broke the stereotype in my head that all people that went to church were judgmental hypocrites. (As I mentioned in the “about ” section, the only other person I had met that seemed authentic and goodhearted when speaking about faith was my grandmother.) The ball was in my court after that to make a decision whether I wanted to accept her invitation or not. Which I wasn’t pressured to make in that moment.

Since Germany I had been trying to connect with a higher power to get me through that situation, and somehow he had  provided me with the avenue for financial means and the strength to make it through and be back on this continent now; with my  father in tow and still alive. This conversation was probably like on a Monday or Tuesday, that weekend came and I decided to visit this church. Miranda had told me it was in Hialeah, which is in a rougher part of town and very far from where I lived. She said service was held inside of a conference room in a hotel; it was in Spanish, so mainly Latin people.  I asked my roommate and another close friend to come with me that Sunday. Thankfully they accepted, otherwise I would have never gone.

One of the curiosity factors that drew me to go was something Miranda had mentioned to me. She said there were certain people with the gift of prophesy at that church. I didn’t ask what kind of denomination or church this was, all I knew was that it was Christian. (Later came to find out that it was “Pentecostal” ) I was willing to give it a shot as long as it wasn’t Catholic. Not that I really knew the difference. In a weird way I felt like I was betraying the Catholic church, despite not having been to a mass in over a decade. I remembered reading about prophets in the  Bible when I was in religion class. You know, that God would speak to them and they in turn would communicate the message to people. (I didn’t believe that to be true. )Miranda told me throughout the time she had been in that church, God had given her prophetic messages about her life; and that later many came to pass.

Let me pause right there and read your mind, you’re thinking what; that is insane, sounds like a crazy cult with fortune tellers trying to swindle people out of their money. If you knew me back then, I was the most cynical person you’d have ever met. In fact, my friends and I went under the premise of going to see what the phonies were about. Just to see how ridiculous it was going to be. Miranda told me people had the option of receiving prophesy after service. It’s not something you had to do. I thought to myself “I’m an intelligent guy, whatever is said to me that is bogus, I’ll know.” But I also thought it’d be fun, kind of like going to a psychic. And mind you, I had various spiritual experiences growing up in my lifetime that made me open-minded enough to believe in the possibility of another realm. I’ll be brief, but here’s a quick rundown.

---

 

1. My house was haunted when I was a child up to my early teens. I  never saw anything but always heard noises and felt dark presences. My parents weren’t church going people mind you, my dad was an agnostic. He never spoke of God or religion or spirituality in general. I didn’t know what he believed. Way back when my parents slept in the same bedroom, I must have been a kid; I remember my parents telling me a story of how someone pulled my mom’s leg twice while she was asleep. She would wake up my dad and be upset with him to discover he hadn’t done it. My dad had heard childlike voices several times when he was alone in the house. He also felt something rub up against his shoulder as he was walking downstairs. During one period of separation they went through, my dad once called my mom and I while we were living in an apartment in El Paso and he was living in the house in Mexico. I’ll never forget, he was scared and kept us on the phone for an hour. He was seeing angels in his window and they were telling him not to leave the home. On another occasion (these events happened in a span of a decade at least), I remember my grandfather telling my parents about a time he came to turn on the front porch light of our house. My parents and I were on vacation so he would come at nights and turn the light on so it’d seem like there was someone home. There was no automatic timer light switch back then, (if there was we didn’t know about them.lol) On one occasion my grandfather brought a friend with him. His friend stayed in the car. My grandfather opened the front gate, walked down through the front garden walkway, opened the porch gate, opened the front door, and turned on the light. Then he came back out, locked the doors and got in his car. His friend asked him “ I thought you said no one was in the house”. Grandpa: “Well there isn’t, that’s why we stopped to turn the light on.  Friend replied “well someone just peaked through that curtain on the second floor”.
2. A friend spent the night once; we were like 11, 12 at the time, my dad was downstairs in a bedroom and my friend and I shared a king size upstairs. (My mom wasn’t home at the time for some reason.) He woke me up in the middle of the night terrified because he had seen a ghost. We ran down to stay with my dad. To this day I still don’t buy that one completely, paranoia of hearing my stories from the past probably caused his imagination to run wild. The point is , you see, there’s more of these stories from my childhood and my home; not only from my family but from outsiders too.  I‘ve  always known there’s more than just this physical world we humans inhabit.
3. Lets retrace 3 years before the Germany hospital saga; it was 2004 when my grandmother was murdered, a lot of emotional pain and mental anguish tormented me for a few weeks afterwards. I had already been back from  going home to Mexico for her funeral, and was laying in my bed at my house in Miami( which I rented with two other roommates). I was still in college at the time. Besides the pain of losing a person so close to me in such a horrific way, I was also in turmoil because of the religious beliefs that were interjected into me growing up. Part of me thought her soul was in limbo or purgatory ( I don’t believe in that concept anymore.) But at the time, I thought her spirit was restless and would be wandering the ends of the earth, unable to have peace, or closure. (Due to the way she died) I just didn’t know what to believe. I was pretty agnostic at that time, but the inner part of my being that wanted to believe there was a higher power in this universe was shattered. I thought, “surely there can’t be a God, why would he allow bad things like this happen to good people? And the one person in my life who actually believed in you God, you let this happen to them. “

A few weeks after her death, I had a dream at night. Mind you, most of my life I’ve never remembered my dreams. I wake up and then forget about it. Nightmares stick around longer but they soon fade after some hours. This one I’ll never forget. It’s obviously not super clear as it was 11 years ago but I still remember the basics. I was at Dillard’s accompanying my mom and my grandmother as they were doing some shopping. Well the shopping was for clothes for me; being the spoiled son & grandson that I was at times.(geez even in my dreams hehe). I remember picking up and looking at a pair of khaki shorts. My grandmother approached and told me to try them on. “No grandma, I’m just looking at them.” “ Oh c’mon, if you like them ill buy them for you.”  I shook my head no, playing hard to get, but of course I wanted them. She insisted and I finally said “ok”. She gently grabbed both of my arms by my wrists as she stood in front of me. She always did that when talking to people in real life. She was petite, like 5 feet tall while I stood at 6 feet. Her gaze pierced my eyes and in that moment she embraced me. When she hugged me it literally felt like fire went through my body. I was startled and woke up; gaining awareness of being in my room and yet the presence of her hug was still very real. Words can’t do justice to describe what I felt, it literally felt like fire was running from the tips of my toes to the top of my head; all I can say it was a divine experience. Something out of this world; heavenly. It was like an embrace of fire that stayed with me from the dream to my reality of being there sitting up in my bed. It took a few minutes for me to gain my composure and breathe. It was like nothing I had experienced before. I just knew in that moment my grandmother had made it. Wherever it was. She was ok. It was her or the universe’s sign of telling me so; I was extremely grateful.

4. You still following? Let’s go back to 2007. The two friends that I went to church with on that Sunday — one was my roommate Lola and the other was a friend I met through her named Helen. I thought Helen was weird, most people thought she was. Heck I’m weird, and for me to call someone else that is rare. (Or its more like the pot calling the kettle black.) The best way to describe her is that she had “psychic” abilities or giftings. It happened on too many occasions for me to ignore it. We would be hanging out at a party, at home, or out and about somewhere and she would be talking to a person she had just met; all of sudden, they were conversing privately in a corner and that person was crying or welling up. She did it a few times to me also. You’re wondering , well what the heck that she do? She wasn’t being malicious or saying mean things, she would just tell people things about themselves that no one knew but them. Yes, a mind reader kind of sorta. She could also describe the core feelings of your heart. She was a funny, cool person to chill with. She also had this side of her that kind of freaked you out . Whenever I saw her, part of my brain  “ please don’t tell me anything I don’t want to hear. Just be normal, don’t be intense.”lol. I know right? I was trying to do to her what people always did to me, try to put me in box. She had this ability since birth, she couldn’t control it nor did she completely understand it.

There’s other subtle spiritual experiences I’ve had in years prior to 2007, but I gave you an overview of either indirect/ direct incidents or people in my life that gave me an open enough mind for when I walked into that church on a Sunday morning of my 26^th birthday. Mind you, I had forgotten many of these things or dismissed them as something insignificant (except the dream) soon after their occurrence. I never connected the dots or looked at the bigger picture of my life. I would just carry  on with life and make due as best as I could. Drugs, sex (well kinda but not really), alcohol and a lot of sarcasm were my mojo to carry on. So finally, October of 2007,my two friends and I walk into this big conference room that had different sections of chairs and a podium in the middle. I think there was a banner with the name of the church on the podium. That was it. I was looking for the usual stainless glass windows and saints adorning the area. Nope, nada. The service started and people started singing songs of worship. There were lyric books to follow along. I could barely muster to utter a word; much less a smile. I looked around and was shocked that people seemed to be cheerful as they sang. I thought to my myself “ what are these people so happy about?” My mind was judging every little single thing around me. It struck me as genuine and heartfelt internally, but everything else in my body was trying to resist and find some excuse to make a run for it. I resisted the urge and made it past the opening worship, even probably cracked a smile that I hoped my friends hadn’t seen. I don’t even remember looking over to see my friends and their reactions. I was looking straight ahead at that podium trying to be invisible as possible. Oh did I mention, my coworker that had invited me wasn’t even present that day. The audacity! (haha) We knew no one in there making it more delightfully awkward.

The pastor was in a suit, started his sermon, shared a personal story and then tied it to whatever passages in the Bible he was covering. Same Bible that I grew listening to at mass or at school, same stories I had heard over and over, same ones that I had always fallen asleep and passed out to. Only this time, it was different, I was awake and shaken; it felt like the very words that were coming out of his mouth were being spoken directly to me. They were relevant to the turmoil I was going through. I got something out of it that I needed. I felt peace when the service ended. Peace I hadn’t felt since well…umm…ever.  I had never felt that way in a church before my entire life. Then I saw half the crowd leave and a good chunk remain seated. The pastor announced and pointed to the  sections of rows where prophecy would be received. People already sitting there didn’t move and the few seats that were unoccupied where quickly filled. Many people sat around those particular sections waiting for their turn to get a seat. I glanced over at my friends and we said ”what the heck, let’s do it. We’ll know if they are a fraud.”

The premise is, certain people in the church have the gift of prophecy, that God’s Holy Spirit speaks through them to talk to people.  At the end of each row two chairs were double stacked  so that the person sitting there would be a bit more elevated. Then the “prophets “(both regular looking men & women in normal clothing) would stand behind the person, lay hands on their head, and then begin whispering the Holy Spirit’s message to that person’s ear; so no one else could hear. They’re a conduit per say, for God’s spirit. It’s in the Bible since the old testament; I didn’t believe that still existed in modern times. Even despite the things I’ve experienced that I’ve been sharing with you. They would speak to each person for a few minutes , it varied, depending on however long the message needed to be. Then you get up off the double stacked chairs and leave. Then people would scoot to the right  and it was someone else’s turn. My friends and I must of waited at least an hour. We whispered and nervously chatted in the meantime; not knowing what to expect.

The moment finally came. It was my turn to scoot over into the double stacked chairs at the of the row. Some stranger that I didn’t know placed  their hands on my head and prayed quietly for a few seconds; I closed my eyes and he/she started whispering into my ear . ( I can’t remember if was a man or woman) I’ll paraphrase from what I remember and what  stuck in my brain: “ I have arranged to bring you here.  I haven’t brought you to judge you but to bless you. I know your father is sick and I will heal him. I’ve been calling you for some time now but you are finally ready to listen. The reason that you’ve thought I hated you for your whole life is a lie of the enemy. You have had many accidents in your lifetime where he has tried to kill you. From this moment forth your life won’t be the same. I will show you that there is quality to life, I will place a smile on your face from ear to ear. You won’t recognize the man that you will become. I love you my son.”

The message that was spoken to me that day was something no stranger could have possibly known about me. I knew it was God. A lot of words that came into my ear just spoke straight into my hardened heart, pierced it, and let out a wellspring of tears. Only God knew that I thought he hated me my entire life and that’s why he “made me gay”. (Which I no longer believe ) After the fact, I started thinking and realizing that I had been involved in several car accidents or near fatal misses throughout my life. Never attributed them to some “invisible enemy”, or the devil if you will.  I also realized that the dream with my grandmother and other various signs throughout my teens/ 20s had been gentle wake up calls.

I was like the coyote from the Warner Brother’s cartoons that had objects drop on me from time to time; but I kept running and chasing that roadrunner. The anvil that finally stopped me in my tracks was my father being near death; that’s what it took to finally stop and ask for help. I left the church that day a bit of a mess, rightfully so, amazed and bewildered all at once at what just happened.  My friends came out the same way too, whatever was spoken to them was particular to their life in that moment. An unforgettable birthday to say the least. And this is only the beginning of the story; it’s taken 8 years for me to begin to share it; I can no longer outrun my destiny, trust me I’ve tried…

Hold tight. To be continued..

 

It’s always darkest before the dawn….