Basket of Thoughts

Hey all, it’s been a long time. Too long honestly and I’m hoping to make a more concerted effort for more writing for the upcoming year. I wanted to end this year with something and I figured why not make it a testimony of my faith. I’ll be honest, religion in general has always been sticky for me because of the fact there are several so it leads one to believe, well, which one is it? I do have a Christian background from the get go due to my grandparents being very faithful people as my grandfather was a minister and my father had been raised up in that sort of strict religious upbringing. Due to that upbringing, my father did not force it upon us so it was not something I took time to delve into much of when I was younger. In my 20’s I was young, dumb, and careless. I feel like I have always believed there is something else but I just never truly felt I could commit to a religion of any sort. Fast forward to where I am at now, heading into the last few months of my 43rd year and I have to say I’ve come to the conclusion my grandparents were correct and Jesus is the Lord and Savior and he is the path to being with God when we leave our earthly vessels. How have I finally come this conclusion? Well, honestly I think a lot of it is just getting older and realizing my own mortality and understanding I won’t always be here. As I’ve gotten older, especially when I hit 40, the thought of dying had become a very real fear of mine so therefore it had prompted me to start to investigate faith a bit more. My mother has actually spearheaded some of this as well as oddly she became a Christian on her own and her gentle prodding had gotten me to look more into it, one of the best gifts she gave me was a bible that was very modern and actually had historical facts included with it. That was huge for me, to be able to put the history to it and as I investigated things online and have been reading the bible myself without going to church and getting the spoon fed message they provide each service, not that that is a bad thing. I will admit church is still something that I have struggled to keep up with. I have gone here and there but for some reason it is tricky for me, it could be the social aspect of it I suppose but either way church is something I struggle with. Now that I have blabbered on about this let me get to the meat and provide examples of how I have witnessed and felt God’s presence in my life. If this testimony does anything I hope it will help any who may be seeking something I hope this will help you to the right path and perhaps help you to reflect on certain times where perhaps God had been there for you and you didn’t realize it. Ok, lets get to some of these events in my life that I feel had God involved. I’ll go chronologically the best I can on the events, too so here we go.

When I was only 2 maybe 3, this is also my oldest memory, my mother was holding me in her arms sort of cruxed on her hip and my older sister had some dick head that was over and if I recall he kept throwing a blanket or something like that on my brother. My brother would have been 8 or 9 at the time but I don’t even know if I was talking or anything yet but I got an instinct that told me I had to protect my brother for some reason I felt he was in distress. The dick head that was picking on my brother happened to have long hair and sensing my brother being in distress, I took matters into my own hands and started pulling the dude’s hair. Needless to say he stopped fucking with my brother, he did turn to me as my mother told me and apparently raised a fist and my mom said don’t you dare and kicked his ass out of the house. So, to me that’s a very minor moment of God’s presence but being that young how the hell did I naturally sense my brother’s distress? Not sure but to me that is a small example. The next thing I can think of was when I was 5 or 6, oddly enough my brother and a friend of his was picking on me and the final straw was when my brother started to spit on me. I picked up a rock with sinister intentions as my brother ran out into some woods that were in our back yard and I threw that rock and somehow the fucking thing hit my brother in the back of the head and he had to go and get stitches. I felt horrible about it after it happened but I honestly don’t see how in the hell I had the accuracy and the arm strength to pull that off so I have zero doubts there was divine intervention for the rock to actually hit him.

Next event is when I was in 3rd grade. I didn’t know how to swim above water at the time and I had gone to a pool party for someone at my school. My mom didn’t want me to go at first due to the fact I couldn’t swim but I begged and pleaded and she allowed me to go. She had also been advised I think that one of the parents was a lifeguard so that made her feel better leaving me there. Well, leave it to me to fuck that up. I went to the ladder and climbed down into the pool and my feet were on the bottom of the pool I took 2 steps and then under I went. Long story short, I was fucking drowning and I recall one of my friends looking down at me into the pool and I couldn’t tell if they were pointing at me or trying to reach their hand out to try to pull me out, I wasn’t able to reach them if they were and as I was starting to run out of energy I remember a bright white flash and my hands had gotten hold onto the edge of the pool and I was able to pull myself out, and thank God I am here now because of that. Was that flash of light God? I can only conclude it had to have been.

The next thing I have multiple posts on and that was when I had gone to South America when I was 25. I strongly believe if it wasn’t for God, then I never would have made it back from there. Too many things happened during that trip that worked out just enough for me to get by for me to believe they were coincidental. One stupid silly thing I will reference and is actually the opposite of God but it freaked me out was at one point in that trip I was literally negative $6.66, if you’re at all familiar with the bible, that is the number of the beast/ the devil so not only was it not good being negative in my account it was just so odd that it was the number of the beast.

The last example I will bring up was a couple summers back I had to go out to Michigan for a friend of mine’s wedding to be best man. The only way I was able to afford going out was by flying into Detroit which lead to about a 4 hour drive up north to where my friend lives as the airport which was closer to him was way more expensive so I was a bit nervous about driving that far and in unknown land so to speak. I was just starting to really dig into my faith at that time so I had been praying a lot about that trip and praying for everything to go smooth, etc. Well, I get out there and I happened to rent a car that I absolutely loved to drive and the route was quite direct and simple. Another sign to me that God was with me, I couldn’t get any radio station to come in clearly other than a Christian station, I think that was His way of speaking to me and saying, ” I got you ” and He did.

In summary, these are just some examples of things in my life that have helped me to come to have a relationship with Jesus and God. I’m not trying to stand on a pulpit or anything but I do hope that it gets any of you that read this thinking about it and putting pieces together in your life where you may see signs of God. Happy New Year and God bless.