My name is John and my spiritual awakening and experience started in April of 1996. I am not going to bore you with the abuse issues I had to deal with, but as a result I had a lot of fears instilled in me from an early age.
My mother and stepfather, being agnostics, roused me accordingly. My mother had a serious problem with organized religion and I still do in some matters. When church members would try to tell me about the good news of God I would usually cringe, because a lot of them are very right-wing and conservative.
Anyway, with this kind of raising I picked up a serious substance and alcohol problem. I was using them to anesthetize my feelings that were being caused by my own selfish fears.
When I was 17 and in the Army I was exposed to the "12 Steps of Recovery" for the first time, but I was not ready to do them at all. After I got out of the army, my own fouled-up thinking and selfishness and rationalization ended me up homeless and messed up from the drugs and alcohol for about 22 years. But I had a thing going for me. I would still do to the 12-Step meetings, and on about 4 different occasions I accumulated a few years dry time.
Then on 2-1-96 I was truly done with the drugs and alcohol because even when I was using I was still miserable. I started looking at the principles and the steps again. Then one of the greatest things that ever happened to me-happened! I was truly able to admit that the problem was looking back at me in the mirror when I was shaving in the morning. That was a great realization, because then I could really change - I could finally get help.
FROM THE ALMIGHTY SPIRIT
God had always been there for me but I did not know it, because of my own deluded thinking, until a few good folks shared their experiences with me.
I was in Arkansas City, Kansas, sitting at my friends house, when I finally made the journey from my head to my heart and asked God, from my heart and feelings to help me.
What happened next was amazing. A circle of white light appeared, and my spirit left my body and went into it. It was some kind of portal. The next thing that I knew I was looking at this building or this structure. A voice some how originating from it told me and my spirit to look to my right, and there was a great big ball of white fiery white light. It drew me to it. When I got close the light came out from it and filled me. With an indescribable amount of love and power. The spirit took away all those fears and turned most of my negative ways into positives and permanently changed me. Because I wanted to change.
All those attitude changes I made from the steps I learned later were based on what Jesus Christ talked about in the sermon on the mound in the book of Matthew and his half brother James said about putting the principles of faith into practice instead of just talking about them like a lot of the members of organized religion do today.
Well, the last 13 years have been completely different- my worst day now is about a million times better than my best day before. I have only had to sleep outside one time in the last 13 years.
The greatest thing I had to say is that there is a God and it is not me. They are the greatest- FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT, they are the best and the coolest! ALL PRAISE TO THEM.
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your lil brother