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Broken:  From Darkness to Light.

"Take Out the Garbage!" -

My First Personal Encounter With God! -

Salem, IL  Winter 1992

My second marriage was completely falling apart and I began to listen to the voice in my head! "You are a failure! You would be better off dead! It would be better for everyone if you were completely out of the picture! Why don't you just kill yourself!" The voice would not go away, so I decided it was true and I was going to finally do it.

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I had the rope hanging in the basement for some time now, but hadn't had the courage to actually put my neck in the stupid thing, which is somewhat surprising, because I was very impulsive and spontaneous kind of guy, especially when I was drunk, high, or 'trippin' on acid.

 

But all that childish behavior was in the past, and this was more of mind control and I was not sleeping for days on end, just waiting for the ball to drop on marriage number two!  So much more had gone on and I was finally at the end of my rope! I was heading to the basement for my final time! I just wanted the pain to end! I was convinced that it was the voice of God.

 

When you are in complete darkness, any light can be misconstrued.  But I am not surprised! Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 2 Corinthians 11NLT.

 

The unfinished basement was dark and dingy, with only a small single bulb to light the entire area. The rope was all the way to the back of the basement so my kids couldn't discover it by accident, while searching for a project As I approached the flickering light and the hanging rope a beam of light was directed to a small stack of maybe a dozen or so records that I had saved back from my collection of around eight hundred albums that I had gotten rid of previously as a half assed attempt to begin to change my life.  

 

 Suddenly, a huge booming voice simultaneously, as though I was in a Star Trek film beam me up Scotty sort of way, commanded "Take out the garbage!" I realized at that moment that I knew it was God , and that  I had held back those things from God!  The scales were off and my eyes were open. The liar was only capable of whispering thoughts in my mind! I grabbed the records, marched up the stairs, out the back door, out of the carport, straight to the dumpster and slammed those albums in that huge empty container with a sounding BOOM! It wasn't the records that were bad, it was Him telling me "He wanted all of me!" I finally got it.

 

He had to work with a clean empty vessel, otherwise it would never be pure. As I turned to go back inside my home, I realized I only had on gym shorts and there was practically a foot of snow on the ground and I was also barefoot! That impulsive spontaneous guy coming out again. I know now that I have to learn to breath before I react. 

 

As I opened the back door and my phone began to ring. I got to the phone and as I picked it up the voice on the other end was my mom's. "I bet you feel like the weight of the world is off your shoulders now, don't you?" She was right! She had been right all the time but I was always too stubborn to accept it! The Holy Spirit had showed her everything that was going on and promised her that "He would protect me! She just had to be patient and obedient, and Trust Him just as Abraham had to trust God with Isaac, his son." I was so shocked and amazed, and speechless, but not surprised. God had always worked that way for her and me in the past. I was just being too rebellious to notice!

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A lesson that God would walk me through just a few years later.