Encountering the Divine – Part II (The Promises)

 

 So I feel like my blog is turning into the Chronicles of Narnia, which I would read on and off as a kid. I recall coming to the end of the chapter; then you had to choose which path the character would take and then jump to that section of the book based on your choice. I always remember choosing the path that ended quickly or resulted in my character’s death. lol. Ok fine, my blog is nowhere near as well thought out, I feel like all of my blog posts I preface with a hey, you have to go back to the previous post in order for this one to make sense. It’s scattered like my brain. But you good sir/madam, are the reader; you ultimately get to do what you want. Although seriously, listen to me this time, this one post will have your head spinning unless you read Encountering the Divine – Part 1 . You’ve been warned…let’s continue where we left off shall we? Strap your seatbelts on.

So my friends and I left the “church”, aka hotel conference room, that day; a bit bewildered at the prophecies/promises spoken to us. The three of us were kind of trying to solve mind puzzles that we didn’t even have all the pieces to. We shared with one another what was spoken to us (at least the parts that we could remember; even though all of our turns lasted at most a couple of minutes; brain overload); we were trying to decipher the messages or find out how to make sense of them. Basically whatever was told to my friends, Helen and Lolita (yes, these are pseudonyms), rang true to whatever was happening in their lives at the moment. Which I can’t speak to or quite remember at this point 8 years later. ( Maybe I’ll invite them to be guest bloggers on here in the future) Point being, they were emotionally shaken also. Overall, some of the things spoken to me were comforting, others were a bit of a mind trip. I wanted them all to make sense in that moment, but most of it wouldn’t until sometime passed and events happened. That’s what happens when the future gets foretold to you; you still have to go through life and experience the journey. You can’t just force things to happen to create your own interpretation of a message. It took me a while to figure that out. ( Who just knows these things? I wasn’t taught how to handle divine matters in any of my college electives..lol) I’ll digress for now, you’ll see what I mean.

Sunday ended, my friends and I went back to our daily routines and jobs the next day. At this point, I had been back a little over a week from leaving my dad in El Paso, TX from Aachen, Germany. As far as I knew — he was still hospitalized, somewhat stable and beginning a new round of chemo; it had been 5 years since his last chemo treatment. At that time I didn’t even realize I was a sex addict and that my way of coping with the stress of reality was to go online and chat/flirt with guys and then get off. It was sort of ingrained in my brain and a default go-to pattern after years of repetition at that point. This second week of being back in Miami, away from the mental chaos of a hospital, I guess afforded me a bit more of an opportunity to unwind and be self-indulgent. Or just try to regain some sort of “normalcy” again besides going to work and visiting a “weird” church. I recall struggling a lot on focusing at work and was heavily distracted by lustful thoughts and fantasies throughout the day. Needless to say, I wasn’t super productive. Somehow I made it through the week. The following weekend rapidly approached, I recall  an unusual feeling arising that second Sunday after being back in town. I woke up and I had this feeling of wanting to go to church.

Process that for a second..yea..it was organic. Like sprouting from the abyss of my dark soul ! Muahaha. It struck me so odd because that had never happened my whole life! Seriously. Like I’ve mentioned before, I was forced many a years to go to Catholic mass whether it be by my parents or at school (Catholic schools have their own in-house masses at least once a month); but I never had my own conviction to go. Like Captain Jack Sparrow once said, I had “stirrings”, not quite all the way to feelings. =P.  I told Lolita, ( no relation to “run Lola run”,) that I felt like going to church again that Sunday; turns out she felt the same. She and Helen obliged me and accompanied me once again.  I recall the service being late morning like 11am or 12pm. I think there was an early one and then a noon one. Which thank goodness, even though I hadn’t been clubbing in a bit, there was no way in my 20s that I was used to waking up early on a Sunday. Sundays for the most part were my recovery day after being out in Miami until 5am sat night/sun morning. That’s the time clubs usually closed; unless I was going to an afterhours gig. In that case, the party shifted from South Beach to the clubs downtown; some of which who kept the party going until 2pm on Sundays. Ever heard of Club Space? Ah yes, complete with a sunny rooftop deck, booming speakers, and dancing vampires! Nobody completely melted though, people came prepared with shades. ( I think 11 am-ish was the longest I ever lasted; with artificial stimulation of course)

( A little taste of the underground electronic scene I frequented often. Although this clip wasn’t from my Miami party heyday. Thankfully there were no smartphones back then.This is in New York circa 2011, much tamer party without any rolls. Some drinks, yes =) But you get the gist.

Often, a stop at Denny’s or drive thru at Taco Bell in the wee hours of the morning was most necessary. (Don’t judge, that food tastes fantastic when you’re drunk or high; although hours later your stomach might not necessarily agree) Either way, at 26, the drive to have those kind of all night party weekends was beginning to fade.

We packed into my little Sharky (aka my Hyundai Tiburon) and drove to church. ( I still have that car btw, it’s been 12 years, we’ve been through some fun times together alright. If it could talk about some of the trouble I got myself into..oh boy..and the number of people that puked in there..ok, just two I think..never me! The few times I recall puking in a car I had the decency to not do it in my own.hehe ). Back to the story, yes church; once again, I relatively enjoyed the service and then my friends and I stuck around afterwards for the optional prophecy segment. Main points that stuck in my brain after that prophecy (mind you, remember everything was in Spanish; which I understand perfectly, I just don’t write it as fluently. So I’m just paraphrasing & translating into English):

“ Be mindful, don’t let the desires of your flesh distract you at work. Read my Word and I’ll speak to you through that as well. I’ll be sending you a gift at work at the last minute so that you’ll know it’s from me. Pray to me, speak to me as you would another person, don’t speak to me in repetitive phrases. I don’t see man as people see one another. They judge by the outside. I see what’s in their heart”

Umm, that one was a bit freaky. As mentioned, I had struggled with being a bit over stimulated in lustful thoughts that week. I was like, how did this person know? ( I’m referring to the prophet who had laid hands on my head and whispered into my ear. Mind you, it wasn’t the same person as the previous week. (In fact, let me put this pertinent piece of info out there now, the approximate 5 month period of time that I ended up attending that church I never received prophesy from the same person more than once. Each time it was someone different. I didn’t know any of these people). Once Sunday passed and the work week resumed again, the cynic in me tried as best to rationalize and dismiss what was spoken to me as coincidence ,or my mind trying to somehow make my weekly situations fit the at times vague statements given to me. Others were just too precise to utterly ignore or make sense of.

My coworker Miranda, the one who had invited me to church initially, gifted me a Bible at some point during the first few weeks. It was in Spanish. So here I have a book that I hadn’t opened in over a decade, it was in a language that I was not used to reading, it was in the “Reina Valera” version; meaning written in old school Spanish from the 1960s. (At least the updated edition I had. Original translation was from the 1600s) So naturally, it had words that I had trouble completely understanding at times. Some were super archaic; although overall the concept was not impossible to get the gist of. (Comparable to the King James version in English I suppose; although I grasp that a lot better). Beggars can’t be choosers, but I would have preferred reading a bit more of a modern vernacular of Spanish. Just saying. Ha. Although I was grateful for receiving one for free. However, my enthusiasm level of starting to read it was about a .5 on a scale of 1 to 10. Again, other than the increasingly peculiar prophetic messages that I received on the 1^st two weekends, I had enjoyed the pastor’s sermons from the Bible and actually understood them. I amazingly no longer automatically started to epically struggle to stay awake during service like I always did as a child/teen at Catholic mass. Although I do recall constantly being barraged by distracting thoughts in my head which I constantly had to try shaking off or refocusing from. Predominantly it was the thumping bass line and disco flute of Madonna’s “Hung Up” as she danced around in a pink leotard in my head. Excuse me, say what? Yea yea I know; no need to shame me. I did enough of that to myself for years. Everybody’s got some weird guilty pleasure. I was a bit of a fan of hers for about a decade. A tad bit obsessive if I must be truly forthcoming. And that particular song was stuck in my head out of nowhere at the most random times. There’s enough material about that girl and her bad influence on my life to dedicate an entire future blog post.(See what I did there? :P) That should be quite entertaining. Just wait. Needless to say, I’m no longer a fan. She’s cray cray now. Back to the story.

Where was I? Ah yes, opening the Bible out of my own volition. I recall a couple of nights trying to read the Bible right before bed and I would literally fall asleep within a minute or so of beginning to do so. I also started to do something that I had done most of my life only when I was in distress: praying. And even before, it wasn’t me repeating a bunch of prayers like “Our Father” or “Hail Mary”, which I never really paid much attention to what they meant as a child. I now found myself just talking to God in my room, which was either dark or illuminated with a nightstand lamp. Or what some people might view as talking to myself while alone; at least it felt that way most of the time. (It’s not like a heard an audible voice answer back. Now that would be freaky) I would just try to talk to God about my day or share what I was feeling in that moment. I quickly understood, what God had meant in the aforementioned prophetic message. He enjoys listening, me having a real conversation with him that means something ; speaking from my heart. Not just me babbling something recited that was impersonal. Which was what religion taught me to do as a child.

Fast forward to next Sunday; new church service! What I was doing with my daily life during the week besides work I don’t exactly recall. I think you know the Sunday drill by now; went with friends to church, sat through the worship, heard the sermon, then nervously stepped into the prophesy section for the post-service voluntary segment. Again, for the most part, I don’t remember the exact timing of when something was said or which particular weekend, but it’s kind of all lumped in there within a 3 month period. There are some things, based on the timing and the events that occurred afterwards, that I do recall with more precision. Around the 3^rd time I received prophesy, God( through the respective prophet I ended up with that week), started relating things back to me that I had prayed about in the privacy of my bedroom earlier during the week. That started to trip me out a bit. Things that seemed insignificant to me, that I don’t even remember now, such as how I was feeling on a particular day. Or at times a precise request. One thing I steadily asked for in prayer was for God to heal my father. He’d remind me about that petition and acknowledged that he heard it. But yea, a cord was struck when specific prayer requests/conversations where repeated to me through a random stranger each week. Again, I kept wondering how the heck that was possible, trying my best to rationalize it. I just couldn’t. My friends and I would often go eat after service and share the curious “coincidences” that were spoken to us about our lives. Doubt, cynicism, and pride started slowly dissipating for the three of us. I don’t recall the three of us always going to service together, sometimes it would just be me with Lolita or with Helen. It was on the other side of town and kind of in the ghetto (Hialeah); so I never really went by myself. The thought of going alone made me uncomfortable. The people there seemed normal; but weirded me out at the same time also. Then again most people did, I was an introvert and socially awkward in most situations. The people at that church branch were all Latin, majority of Colombian descent; I later found out that the original church was founded in Colombia and spread to different locations throughout the globe from there. Nobody was flashy or pretentious, on the contrary, most people seemed to be from a humble background. However, everyone was dressed very presentable. I recall most of the women wearing long dresses, men were dressed business casual. I’m Latin, but remember, I’m more Americanized. It was hard assimilating to the life stage I was in already, so getting further integrated into community at that church or getting to know people there was not something that I was interested in or ready for. That and the fact that it was far from where I lived. My involvement was limited to attending Sundays. Although I did go to a mid-week evening prayer service maybe like twice.

To give some context, it’s important for me to share what kind of work I was doing at the time. I wound up in what I feared the most: sales. I was an account executive at a company called Cision (formerly known as Bacon’s Information). No, it did not involve pork distribution (couldn’t do that to Babe), but it was a “media intelligence” company. It was a welcome change from the insurance industry that I had been in since I was in college. I had been fortunate to have a job with an insurance broker that I worked with part time during the last two years in college. Then they offered me a full time position upon graduating. I greatly cherish the friendships I made there. My boss was influential and wanted to help me grow my career within the industry. However, the more I tried, I just could not get into it; wasn’t excited about it. Money didn’t motivate me either. After 4 years in the insurance biz, I wanted to try something different. I wanted to do something in the entertainment/TV industry. I had done a marketing internship with Mun2 Television (an NBC Latin affiliate) four years earlier that didn’t pan out to anything once it ended. Cision was a broadcast monitoring company, but not really anything that I had bargained for. I guess I applied because it involved “TV” and media in some way. Basically a monitoring company records all the TV channels (or majority of) in a designated market area (DMA).There’s like 270 DMAs in the US. My company was nationwide, and the South Florida branch covered all of the major markets in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas. We had to monitor the news everyday in cities from these states and see which businesses/companies had coverage. Then we would try to contact the company or their PR team and see if they wanted to buy the footage. We had a in-house editing /production team that would consolidate all of a client’s footage into a DVD. For example, if you were a big company, you’re probably mentioned a lot and want to know what’s being said about you in the media. Or if you’re just a small mom & pop business that got interviewed by a local TV station on a rare occasion, then you probably would want a professional copy of the clip right? TV stations don’t have time to sell or give copies of all the new stories they air daily for the public.  Additionally, without our monitoring services, you wouldn’t know if an affiliate station in other parts of the state picked up your story and aired it. Besides DVDs with actual video footage clips; I could also sell packages that had daily monitoring reports with close captioning text of any stories in a particular market area(or the entire country). As long as the client was based in my market, I could still sell it reports from any hits it got nationwide. These reports also came with audience numbers and publicity value. PR people love this stuff to prove their worth to their clients. Clear as mud? Hopefully a bit better.

Now that you have that background, it was approaching the end of October, I had been back about 3 weeks from Europe/TX. Besides going to church on Sundays, I wasn’t exactly twiddling my thumbs at work. I had to make cold calls every day after scanning the news each morning. I wouldn’t go after big accounts like a Wal-Mart or Chick-Fil-A, those accounts were taken by top dogs at our company or belonged to a competitor. The other more experienced account executives in the office already had a big client base built up. So you obviously can’t go after theirs either. Needless to say, it was the last day of the sales month, the 31^st of October, and I was at 20% of my goal. I thought I was shit out of luck at that point. Mind you, I had already been sluggish(understatement) with my sales goal before my whole Dad fiasco; I was working at that company for about 3 months before I had to take that family leave. Late afternoon that day, the Jimmy Carter Foundation called me. (I’m allowed to disclose clients from years ago right? Ah well who cares, it’s not like I spoke to freaking Jimmy Carter either). They were based in Georgia, I had prospected them a couple of months earlier with no success. All of a sudden, they wanted to receive text reports of any TV mentions their organization had in the US. I sent them an agreement, they signed and faxed it back. It was a small amount, probably like $500, not major in of itself, but for my low starting sales goal it was impactful. The way it works is you submit documentation to corporate before a certain time in order for your sale to count for that month, and the next day in a teleconference all of the nation’s account executive numbers get published on a spreadsheet and are announced. That last minute sale spiked up my goal from 20% to 99%. I was pretty ecstatic !! What good fortune I had that last minute, for a lead I had a while back to call me out of the blue and want services right?? Soon after, my train of thought was disrupted; I remembered the prophecy from earlier in the month,

“ I’m going to send you a gift at work last minute.”

Errrrrrr….hmmmm….naaaaa, wasn’t buying it, twas a fluke, coincidence merely” I thought to myself.

NOVEMBER

(Prophecies that I recall from around that time.)

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“ Your parents aren’t telling you everything that is happening at home.”

Upon further inquiry, I came to find out via phone conversation with my mother that my father had been discharged from the hospital but wound up having a fall in the shower at home and cutting open his forehead. So he ended back up in the hospital. That whole time since bringing him back from Europe I thought my father had never left the hospital after his chemo. She didn’t tell me so I wouldn’t worry. However, after that I started calling his oncologist’s office to get direct updates from them. I was constantly annoyed that I always got a voicemail and then a return call from a nurse hours later or the next day. (Patience was never a virtue of mine) I could never get the actual physician on the line.

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“ Stop going to those places that have nothing new to offer. You’ll never find what you are looking for there.”

I remember coming home perplexed about that statement. I thought to myself, well, where have I been that God may consider “bad” for me or a waste of time? I hadn’t been to a bar, or club, or out much at all socially since coming back from Europe. Hadn’t felt like it. Nothing wrong in of itself going to those places either.(I had already been back for a month at least at that point). He wasn’t talking about that. Then it hit me when I was in my room one evening. He was referring to chat/hook-up sites; which in the gay scene, are basically like porn sites since everyone is half naked on them and exchanging nude shots of each other(straight ones are probably somewhat similar, nowadays smart phone apps are all the rage) Yep, I unconsciously kept frequenting those sites whenever I had down time in the weekday evenings or on the weekend. Again, something habitual I did without giving it a second thought.  I always did that or smoke a bowl and listen to music on my downtime. I was like “oh shit, he really does see everything….”

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“You still doubt, I’ll manifest myself at the last minute again and help you at work.”

End of the sales month arrived; once again, I was struggling with low sales numbers. They had upped my previous goal from October. On the last sales day I found a green builder story in the Carolinas.( You know, eco-friendly, energy efficient home builder) This company had several TV hits throughout the state. I contacted them; when I finally got a hold of them they told me they had an outside PR agent that handled their media affairs. They gave me their agent’s info but I couldn’t reach him; I left a voicemail. I thought that lead was dead at that point. Unexpectedly, I did get a call back late in the afternoon but the guy told me he already had a monitoring company that obtained clips for him. Hope was ignited for a second and then fizzled out quickly. I had tried my best but it looked like I was going to flop that month. Suddenly, my boss suggested that I follow up again and send that PR guy a sizzler via email; which basically was like a full report of all the media clips my tracking software picked up. With that report I included audience numbers, publicity values, and a short low quality preview of each particular clip. Much to my surprise, the guy took the bait/replied and said his regular monitoring company did not pick up all of the hits I did; and that he wanted to buy DVD copies of several of the clips I showed him. Mind you, each one of these clips costs like $95. A lot of work is put into preparing them. The fat lady wasn’t singing quite yet though. The two or three editors in the production studio still had to process the orders, locate the clips in their countless DVR’s, combine and edit them onto one DVD, and get them out before the last FedEx pickup that day in order for the account executive’s sales to count for that month. Everyone in the office is bustling to get their last minute orders in so you can’t be on top of the editors to get your order out first. Basically we needed to stay out of their hair and just go home and hope for the best. When my new client faxed back the purchase agreement it was already super late in the day , like 4 or 5pm. The last FedEx pickup time was like 6 or 6:30 from what I recall. I thought it was too late for my order to get processed to be honest, I went home unsure of what would happen.

The next day we had our monthly national teleconference and the graph with all of the account executive sales figures appeared on a projector. It was hard to see since all of the offices were condensed into this one large Excel spreadsheet. But the head Sales director from California read out everyone’s names and when they got to mine she said 101%. The sale had counted!! I had even gone over my projected amount!!! Then I remembered the prophecy. Geez, I had to work my butt off to get the goal, but somehow God interceded for that sale to happen. Through my thoughts I was given a gentle reminder in my head, hey, remember what I told you? At this point, finally, enough little miracles had been happening to me to start believing something unique and special was going on.

DECEMBER

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“ One by one, I will answer every question you have asked me throughout your lifetime”

Oh yea, I had a lot of questions . Especially about my sexuality and why God had decided to include that nice load of baggage along with my life plan.

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“I will work through human hands and science to heal your father.”

Pin this one for now..

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“Pray to me for the gifts for wisdom and discernment”

Didn’t know what that meant at the time. I did it though. Sure I thought, I could use some wisdom in my arsenal.

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“Examine my Word. Through it I will speak to you.”

I was told this one several times since October. Like I mentioned before, slowly, maturely I started to read the Bible on my own. It was not innate, had to be intentional about it. Nor was I entirely convinced it was truly “God’s Word.”

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My sales manager handed me an ominous letter from corporate around the beginning of December, that stated that if I didn’t hit my sales goal of at least 90% that month; that they would have to let me go. Go Terminator on me basically. I thought “ Why? I’ve been doing great these past two months! ” Turns out they were averaging my total performance as in a AE thus far, which was roughly 5 months up to that point, so I needed to hit 90% to improve my overall average to get to about 70% . I started off quite sluggish before leaving to Europe. I did panic a bit after receiving that notice, but thought to myself that God would help me out again like he did the previous two months. I prayed about it fervently that week and hoped to get an answer at the Sunday prophesy. Whatever I was told that particular Sunday, for the most part, nothing stuck; I was just waiting for God to mention something about my job. Although one small detail left a lump in my throat:

“ What you are about to go through is for your spiritual growth; however, do not worry, I will provide for all your needs.” 

Oh huh, that one just didn’t sit right with me for the rest of the month.

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“ You will go on a brief trip to see your family. You will be at peace with them.”

I was like “huh, when? How? I have no vacation time left. “ Shortly thereafter, my boss approached me and told me to go see my father for Christmas. He told me he obviously couldn’t pay me since I had no PTO but he would allow me to take a few unpaid days. We were given one paid holiday, the 25^th. I ended up going on a quick three to four day trip to El Paso/Juarez. On Christmas eve, it was just my father, mother, and I at the dinner table. When I was a child, we would go spend it with my mom’s extended family. I remember looking forward to being around other family besides my parents ; like my cousins. After the death of a younger cousin in 2000, then my grandmother’s a few years later; the extended family started drifting apart and seldom spent the holidays together anymore. I never looked forward to visiting home from college when it was just my parents and I because there was always some kind of drama. They would always break out into a fight about something. Or something would get thrown at some point, like a plate full of food; ruining the evening. I was always on edge expecting something bad to happen on Christmas eve. Unfortunately, I was usually right on the money. Thankfully, not on this occasion! For the first time in my recollection the three of us sat and had a peaceful meal and time together. Sure, I recall a lot of awkward silence at times, the conversation was kept to a minimum. My dad was super frail and had gone bald due to the chemo; however, I was happy he was actually not confined to a bed compared to when I had last seen him. My mom did her best to keep it amicable as well. (She was usually the obvious instigator; although looking back my dad would throw in his subtle quips to provoke as well. Not one party was to blame entirely, everybody contributed to the past dysfunction on some level.) May sound silly, but that night was a special moment for me. I was shocked when I remembered God’s promise as that event was unfolding. We got through a whole meal without an incident. I was grateful.

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“ Mankind will try to confuse you; the enemy will use them to deceive you. Do not be fooled. He only speaks lies; which are sometimes disguised as half truths. Be alert when you go home . He will attempt to attack you. Do not fear, I will be with you.”

a) Sounds intense right? Like you now, when I heard that I was like WTF. And then I went back to the busyness of the holidays. I obviously didn’t realize the intensity or depth of this message until it came to fruition. Fast forward, two/three weeks later, during my unplanned Christmas trip back home; I went out one night to hang out with some old friends from high school. (Ok, maybe two nights).

But this particular night, I took my parent’s car since the get-together was occurring in El Paso at a friend’s home. (I was staying at my parent’s house across the border in Juarez, Mexico.) Two female friends that also lived in Juarez accompanied me. We crossed the border and arrived at my buddy’s house where the soiree was happening; not a ton of people were there but enough to distribute evenly throughout the house and split off into different cliques. A friend from high school that I hadn’t seen in a while showed up with his girlfriend. We’ll call her Daisy. I had actually already met her a few years back when they were both visiting Miami. In a drunken stupor, she and I had hit it off as friends instantly and stayed in touch; I really became closer to her then I was to my friend from high school. For the most part I really didn’t stay in contact with him. She pulled me aside at one point during the party and took me to an empty room telling me she really needed to speak to me. I can tell she had been drinking and had a light buzz at the moment. I hardly was drinking since I was driving. If you’ve read my previous posts you know I’ve described meeting other people throughout my life that have had their own unique spiritual experiences or events. ( I think we all have had experiences in one way or another, just not everybody is necessarily aware) She was one of those people that had taken notice. She had quite a troubled past and had been caught up in drug and alcohol addiction; plus numerous other heavy family stuff that I won’t mention. I thought my stories paled in comparison to some of the incidents she had described to me. She wasn’t completely out of the woods yet either. Throughout these moments or stages of darkness in her life, she had some instances where she encountered God in her own way and realized he had saved her out of a lot of the crap she got herself into. I considered her a good friend and valued her input into my life. When we were alone in that room, she seemed to sober up immediately and had the most serious look about her when she told me

“ Ricardo, I ‘m really worried about you and need to speak to you because I had a dream with you recently. God spoke to me through that dream. I don’t know how to tell you this, but you do know you have HIV right ? You also need to know you’re not gay. “

I nervously laughed her off, feeling awkward, perplexed and amused all at once. It was a smorgasbord of emotions. “What are you talking about Daisy? Umm, you know me and know I’m gay. And no I don’t have HIV, I would know. Trust me. I don’t have much of a sex life, and if I wind up doing anything; I get tested. Why are you telling me that?” She insisted. Anger started stirring in me. I prayed in my head for God to help me relax and better assimilate what was happening. She seemed so certain and concerned that I couldn’t take it as her trying to purposely hurt me either. Before I was even done processing, her boyfriend came into the room to look for her. We were gone at most 10-15 minutes. He seemed peeved though. The night proceeded to get stranger after that. Daisy’s boyfriend left not long after he found us talking. It seemed like he got upset at how drunk she was and took off. I was like really, you’re just going to leave her here? Apparently they had come in separate cars. But still, you just don’t ditch your girl. They obviously were having some beef beforehand. The weird part was that there was a huge difference in her state from the time I spoke to her then from the time her bf left. Which not much time had elapsed. I found it odd that she had gone from a light buzz to really drunk in half an hour. Especially since she’s no lightweight when it comes to drinking; she wasn’t “partying” either. Something else about her was off.  I knew it wouldn’t be safe for her to drive.

I decided to leave the party early to get her home. I took her in my car, and my two friends drove her vehicle and followed me. She became abrasive at me while driving. With her seatbelt on in the passenger side, she tried punching and biting me on several occasions which forced me to pull over several times. Needless to say, she was not herself. I had never seen her like this. I had partied with her before, so this was not her just being drunk or high. Man, I had partied with many people throughout the years and her state was quite unique. I can’t remember what she would say in the car but I kept trying to calm her down and keep her engaged other than trying to attack me. In the meantime I was also trying not to crash and arrive to her place in one piece. The only way to describe how her demeanor was or the kind of energy she was giving off that night: it was just something sinister. I got her out of the car and into her apartment and managed to tuck her into bed. I told my girlfriends that were following in Daisy’s car to wait outside. Daisy seemed calmer once in bed but she gripped my wrist and wouldn’t let me go. She just eerily stared at me and chuckled from time to time. I remembered just praying in my head and calmly repeating to her that I was leaving and locking the front door behind me. I think I hid her car keys and repeatedly told her not to go anywhere. At that point all I was wanted was to leave. After a while, I managed to free myself from her grip and slowly tiptoed away. Even her dog wouldn’t get close to her that night. I closed the door behind me and she seemed to remain in bed. I got in the car and drove back to Mexico with my two friends. I relayed to them what had happened. They agreed that the vibe they got from her was disturbing. Once alone, I reflected upon it when I got home. It was almost as if alcohol had enabled something dark to manipulate her that night. It’s a strong word to use, but it was almost as if she had been possessed. That persona/personality/ spirit (whatever you want to call it) was not my friend Daisy. From the moment she pulled me aside to converse with me and tell me those eerie lies early in the night, till the moment I dropped her off. I do believe her when she said she had a dream where she was told to tell me these “truths”. I also know it wasn’t from God though. I thought both statements had been lies. Cuz thank God, to this day no HIV/AIDS. I plan to keep it that way. However, I didn’t realize till months later that the statement “ You’re not gay”, wasn’t really a lie at all..

b) During the Christmas trip, one morning I took my dad to eat breakfast. First time we had alone time together since we were in Europe three months earlier. We seldom spoke on the phone since he had been hospitalized for most of the last three months. Or if we did, it was brief, I didn’t want to over exhaust him. I basically relayed messages to him through my mom. I had described bits and pieces of what was going on in my life to her. I was very light on the prophecy stuff. The extent of what they knew basically was that I was visiting a Christian church. Even with that, they freaked out initially. They reacted by disapproving, saying our family was Catholic; how could I attend a different kind of church? Which was funny to me because that was just a label, we actually didn’t practice that religion, or had done anything” Catholic” as far as customs go in years. Besides the occasional sign of the cross I’d see my mom do when driving past a church. (Which I think is just a bunch of superstitious hokum. But hey, to each their own.) Point being, it was still non-intuitive and difficult for me to suddenly break cultural tradition or not follow the family “norm”. After all, I did not consciously choose this new spiritual path that I was on, it’s just how the dominos lined up after I  cried out for help in Europe. Again, my parents weren’t religious or church going people, so they stopped giving me grief about it over time. I think they were just more concerned that I was going insane or that I had joined some kind of cult or something.lol. ( I don’t blame them)

So I’m at this restaurant called Village Inn (It’s kind of like a Denny’s); I’m having this deep conversation with my father; in retrospect, I was doing most of the talking. I’m pretty sure I talked a bit about my sexuality with him (although he never asked). I knew he knew because my mom told me. He never touched the issue directly though. But mainly the conversation was concerning these events that had been unfolding since we had gotten back from Europe, and describing to him how I was led to this church. Remember, he’s in his 70s at this point, frail, recovering from lord knows how many chemo treatments in his life; so his attention span was the best it could be. But he was listening. Mid-conversation, as I’m talking about these prophecies to my dad; all of a sudden, a middle-aged woman that was sitting in a booth behind him got up out of her seat and came and sat right next to him; interrupting us. She literally touched and rubbed up side by side next to him. We were both in shock. She had been in the booth with another a lady behind us for a while, with her back to me; but she was part of the background. I wasn’t paying attention to my surroundings before that, I was mainly engaged in the conversation with my father. (Like most people do at a restaurant. They’re paying attention to what’s happening at their own table.) My dad looks over in disbelief, like , who the heck are you? I was in shock too. I thought “What is this lady doing? Why is the person that was sitting with her not doing anything?” The booth intruder didn’t look at my dad, she just stared at me, didn’t say a word but started laughing. Cackling almost. It seemed like she was there for an eternity, but it probably lasted five to ten really awkward seconds. My dad finally spoke up. “Señora muevase (Ma’am please move)”. Nothing. Our waitress came up to the table with a puzzled face also, probably wondering what was happening ; when finally the other younger woman that came with the bizarre lady got up and grabbed her. No apology, nothing. I can’t remember if they left or sat back down at their booth but it was the weirdest thing ever. My dad and I left soon after that. Looking back, it was almost as if something (call it the enemy, evil, the dark side of the force, or whatever you want) did not want me talking to my dad about my spiritual awakening to God. That woman was an intentional distraction. The prophecies from earlier in the month came back to my consciousness, they made finally made sense. An eventful short trip back home I‘ll say! So who is this invisible enemy God warned me about? At that point, to my limited knowledge, the main enemy the Bible referenced was Satan(Plus his demon cohorts). I never thought he really existed. I started to think that this “being” was not exactly the pop culture image of a comical cartoonlike devil with a pitchfork . He probably was something far more nefarious. These minor incidents were only “the blindfold coming off” per say; an initial awareness of the encounters yet to come with darkness… 

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“ The news you’ve been expecting will arrive to you via telephone.”

I was stressed out ever since I had gotten the note from corporate saying I had to meet a now higher sales goal for December at 90%. I hit up all of my potential clients but December is just a slower sales month with everyone traveling for the holidays. I practically stalked one large prospect, the Miami Film festival. I reached out to their PR gal, chatted her up, took her out to lunch, etc. Seemed like she was going to give me some business. I went on my eventful trip back home for Christmas and came back awaiting to finalize my deal with them. It never happened. She lost interest and decided not to make any agreements for monitoring services or video clips at that time. I exhausted all my options as far as accounts and prospects went that month. Despite my best efforts and much to my dismay, the 31^st of December rolled around and I did not hit my goal. This time there was no last minute miracle sale. New Year’s Eve came, I remember nervously hanging and drinking with a few friends in a downtown Miami pad. I tried keeping calm and carrying on.

January 1^st I was off from work. I came back to the office on the 2^nd and as expected; I was let go. My boss liked me but there was nothing he could do. My numbers weren’t meeting expectations; it was a business decision straight from corporate. I don’t remember if I stayed the whole day or just went home. Probably the former. Being laid off is humiliating ; not matter what the cause.

Soon after, perhaps a couple of days later(it’s now January 2008); I was sitting in my apartment feeling depressed. My roommate was at work so I had the place to myself. You can imagine all the thoughts going through my head. “God, why is this happening? I thought you were helping me? How am I going to make a living and pay my portion of the rent? I hardly have any money saved up! I thought you were my friend?”

I sat on my aqua blue sofa (part of a pretty rad sixties futuristic furniture setup we had going on at the time), contemplating on my life and what had just happened for the last three months; why was I given hope by this higher being whose existence I could no longer deny, and then seemingly left to hang out to dry? My cell phone rang, the caller ID said ‘ Dr. Valilis office”. Odd, my dad’s oncologist office was calling me from El Paso. I wasn’t expecting a call, I hadn’t reached out to them recently. I picked up the phone, and a peculiar yet familiar Greek accent started speaking. It wasn’t one of his nurses, it was actually my dad’s oncologist. The same one that I could never reach from Europe or Miami to try to speak with about my dad’s case. Getting through to the president would have been easier via phone than Dr. Valilis. I only saw him when I dropped my dad off in the hospital in El Paso three months earlier.

Use your imagination, read this in a Greek accent. “ Ricardo Ricardo, this is Dr. Valilis. How are you ?? I’m sorry to call you in the middle of the day so unexpectedly. I have good news, I have good news. Your father told me you were just here in El Paso visiting not too long ago. After you left, I did a PET scan on your dad to see how his lymphoma was progressing. As you know , we give him chemo when you brought him from Europe. My colleagues told me not to; that I would just kill him. At his age and what his body has been through; he would not survive. But your father is fighter! Something in me told me I had to do this. I asked him. Your father wanted to fight. I give him a break from last chemo and now did PET scan to see what the next step is. We mustn’t wait too long and have to be aggressive with the cancer. I am in disbelief. I wanted to call you personally to give you the news. The results came in. I see no signs of the lymphoma in his body anymore. I am very happy! It is in remission !!!”

I nearly dropped my phone. I managed to kept it together for a few seconds; thanked Dr. Valilis, and then broke down in tears afterwards. The miracle I had been praying for since Europe finally arrived; just as foretold and promised; via phone call. Doubt was finally completely shattered. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, the heaviest anvil finally dropping on my head. My brain erupted with the thought  “Holy shit, why would God do all this for me if he didn’t love me?????!!!” Mind. Blown. Faith. Awakened.

To be continued in part 3 (Stay tuned, oh, it gets better. I’ll try not to make you wait another 3 months) …..

 

( A friend introduced to this song around 2008, every time I stumble upon it, the lyrics always remind me of God’s promises)

Wouldn’t it be nice, if we
Could leave behind the mess we’re in
Could dig beneath these old troubles return
To find something amazing…

 

Click here for Part 3