This is possibly going to be a long testimony for you to read, but even then it is not all that the Lord has done in my life since the beginning and how even through my many failures and fallings over some dark periods of my life the Lord’s mercy, grace, and love were there to pick me up and restore me to the glory that he called me to walk in. If all the exploits and victories of the Lord in my life were listed here all it would fill up too many books that we all couldn’t read. This will be long read but I am sure that the Lord will use it to convict and bring encouragement to many because if I can make it in the kingdom with my many issues then anyone can.

** © Mark Lowery Comedy Act not my own thoughts but worked here.

In the beginning I was born into a family that was by the very best highly dysfunctional. I was at first not a wanted child because of the expenses that they incurred having me so I felt strong rejection form an early age and my father took a lot of his frustrations out on me at an early age. Also the enemy tried to kill me already from birth forward I was told I had an allergic reaction to my mothers milk it does happen but is rare, so they had to make a special formula out of condensed milk and molasses that I had to drink, and it was expensive and if it would not have been for my grandparents and great aunts I would not made it. Then when I was 2.5 my younger brother had just came home from the hospital after being born and we had only one car and if it had been the day later my father would have been out drinking and we lived in the country with no neighbors for over half a mile. When all of the sudden I had a what the doctors later called as acute respiratory arrest and the had to give me shots and get me breathing right again this almost killed me.

I remember being little around 3-4 and being very angry at what was going on in my life. I was constantly praying and wishing I could grow up quickly so I could fight back and beat-up my father because he got me so angry especially when there was domestic violence going on in my family towards my mother, and myself when he had been drinking too much. He would come home real Iate maybe after being gone a few days and expect my mother to getup, and when she wouldn’t he would start to hit her, then I would get in the middle and then get beat down myself but I would not let him hit her without trying to come to my mothers aid. I bring this up because the roots of some of my problems later really start clear back in the beginning, because once someone is beaten for doing what is right they start to lose all respect for authority and there is little more that one can do to these people so my thoughts in those days were a beating only hurts for awhile and I was still rebellious and hated authority even from a young age. I remember being as young as 4-5 and praying that God would kill my father on his way home this I have since learned after having 4 boys of my own that this is not natural response of a son towards a father, I cannot imagine any of my boys getting this mad at me. I have forgiven my father and I am in the process of having Jesus help me forget all that is possible to forget about this.

One time at around 4-5 we went to live with my great aunt for a week or two when my mother had to go to the hospital due to a broken back. While there at my great aunts there was an older lady who lived across the street called Mrs. Martyr she was a Christian lady who went an Assembly of God church she would make me and my sister cookies and share Jesus with us, this was a different more caring Jesus than what I was taught in the Catholic Church. I remember asking her a million questions about Jesus and the bible and then one Sunday my sister and I went to church with her and I remember in the Sunday School program asking Jesus into my heart. I also remember Jesus appearing to me in the room I was staying in at my great aunts houses and him Smiling an d the Warmth and Love I felt in my gut that affirmed to me that Jesus was real. I said to Him when He was there in the room with me, " Please let me die and come home to heaven with you". I was in so much pain in my heart from my home life that all I wanted to be free of the pain and rejection and shame.

So I felt love and such as never before growing up. When we went home the following week I told my father that we had gone to an Assembly of God church and that we learned about Jesus and I saw him get angry he had already been drinking that day and her said, "that he never wanted us to go there again". But I still drawn to the things I was learning about Jesus so the next time we went to my great aunts home I sought out Mrs. Martyr and she took me to church with her again I just had to go no matter what it would cost me in pain. When we got back my father was there early to pick me and my sister up to go home and he was furious and he had been drinking already, I should point out that I was sure every man drove down the road with a can of beer in his hand I never knew until later on when I was older that you were not supposed to do that. Well when we got home I got a belt whipping for going to church but I was more resolved to learn more about Jesus.

There was an incident about a year or so later when I was 6 and could read/write where I was given an old watch from my grandfather that did not work so I took it apart to see how it worked I always like to understand mechanism and such. Well I wrote a little note to God that said," God if you keep me and my mother safe when I am older I will serve you because you make time for me now, when I am older I will make time for you." This is why I had the watch it symbolized time. Well about a year or so later things even got worse in my home and I was mad at God and threw the watch away in a cornfield on the farm that we lived on. I felt that He had abandoned me but all along He was there making sure things did not get any worse. Remember this part it will come up a little later in my testimony.

Fast forward a couple of more years and My parents had gotten divorced when I was eight or nine years old and I helped support our family during some very lean times before my mother got re-married. This is when I started my first business adventure. It was a simple snow removal business, where I had gone out and gotten the businesses up and down mainstreet to use my snow removal services. I had I believe around 15-20 or so business customers that I shoveled their walks before school. I remember sometimes not showing up at school until 9:30-10:30 and being tardy for school, and having to stay after school for being late. This was a hassle but I knew when 4:15PM came around I would go out and collect a check from each merchant and $100.00 or more dollars for all my hard work. Then I would go out and shovel some residential work to make even more money until it was too dark to work. This was an awful lot of money for a 10 year old boy in the winter of 1978-1979 . I went to a catholic grade school and I remember the nuns would say that school should come first , I would always reply well I am not making money here.

If most of you are anything like me, you have felt a call to achieve in the marketplace as business or entrepreneurial leader. For myself since I was a young pre-teen I knew beyond a shadow of the doubt, that I was called to be involved in several unique business opportunities. I did not know how but I knew that I was chosen to be wealthy someday, I have a gift that few people have and that is on top of loving business, the Lord gave me a hyper-creative mind that loves to invent new products, and new ways of making, marketing, and financing new adventures.

The Lord allowed me to learn so many things about basic business at a young age. Such as placing a high my value on doing a good job for my customers and the Lord was showing me that work and doing good with the money I earned was very important. I used my money that I earned to feed my family and helped my mother pay some of our monthly bills, since allot of the time we did not receive any support from my father. I remember that winter I signed my first business installment contract when I bought a snow-blower from the local Gambles Store, my mother had to co-sign since I was minor, and this snow-blower was the first piece of business equipment purchased with credit and paid for by hard work. If I remember right I made around $3,500.00 that season in Iowa. The lord blessed me with a rather unusually severe winter that 1978-1979 season.

I knew that I was the happiest when I had new product idea to think about and design. I had always been an inventor as far back as I can remember. I would take things apart like lawnmowers, bikes, TV’s, radios, almost anything to see how it worked. I never remember not having this gift, some people would say that

I was always taking the easy way out and that I was lazy. I would say that is true because I always wanted to make my life easier, and other people thought that through hard work alone that they were doing a better job. In elementary through high school I was for sure an anomaly and did not fit into the mold that they wanted me to fit into.

During this time when I was around 11-12 my mother who was also brought up Catholic was given what appears today as a prophetic dream for my sister, brother and myself but ¾ or more of the dream she had about me. She said that I was going to grow up and be an inventor of many things, that I was fore-ordained to do this and that basically the devil was going to do anything he could to destroy me, because some of the inventions I had would help mankind, she said I would be like Edison or Einstein and everybody would know about me as an inventor. She seen me join the Army be in Germany like I was, and be in a war 12 years before I was in one. She said I would meet a women with shoulder length dark hair about ½ head shorter than myself and she saw the word south, and that this women would truly love me, well my wife has dark hair, and she is originally from South Dakota and from what we went through in the early years of our marriage she must have truly loved me to stay. In her dream she also said that this dark haired girl and I would have our first child when I was 23 and that we would give her the first grand children out of my brother and sister, and that we would have 3-4 children. Guess what I met my wife when I was 21, and we married at 23 and my first son Zach was born when I was 23 and now that I am 38 we have 4 children. She said something that I designed and sold to the Government later would help our war effort, and that the doors from being a veteran would open some door to do this, and I am currently working on bio-medical device at the writing of this testimony, that may give some soldiers a second chance at life and a chance to get right with God before they have to see him.

When I was around 12 years old I also had developed a severe alcohol problem that had spun out of control and only got worse, yes you read it right at 12 years old. I remember the first time I ever got drunk I had 4 beers and was wasted loving how good it felt and how much I liked it, since it released brain endorphins that never got released otherwise in me. That is why most people who suffer from physical, emotional abuse never feel a sense of well being and peace because these natural endorphins are never released when children never feel acceptance and love from their parents, when hate, chaos, anger, take the place of love, stability, mercy and kindness then they are almost for sure to manifest in some form of chemical or relational addictions.

Then things in my life seemed to be in a downward spiral from bad to worse, A root of rejection had been inflamed by the move from the farm to the town when my parents divorced. I felt like I just did not fit in with other kids either, like I was an outsider who was picked on when I was younger and when I grew up I put fear into other people and was always in fights, starting to gravitate towards the negative in my life, I had an uncontrollable rage, and anger that would just overtake me at times I was dangerous to myself and others for sure. I remember once at around 13 a demon manifested in my basement room it was ugly it had what I would call a combination pig/bat head that was around 6-8 feet tall it was an awful color of death gray with some red mixed in with it, once this occurred I only went down hill faster. I remember wanting to even talk to the Catholic Priest about it. When I tried to talk to him about this demon encounter as I tried to speak I could not speak because my whole head went numb and I couldn’t speak until I left his office.

Then around the new year on Jan 2, 1983 I was listening to some very bad Black Sabbath music, and I had what is called a Texas Fifth of booze that is a ½ Gallon Bottle of Vodka. When I started drinking alone that day a voice and thought entered my mind to kill myself with the booze. I had sought out the alcohol to forget and when I was real drunk I would temporally forget the past and the pain I felt especially towards my father. The voices kept saying it will be over soon you will have no more pain, and I kept drinking and I finished this whole bottle of booze. I knew I had gone too far but I wanted to die because I had so much hatred in my heart for myself and others. But this didn’t happen I was in an alcohol induced coma for around 36 hours and I miraculously just woke up. The miracle was that I woke up and that the alcohol did not cause any permanent brain damage.

Now my wife later told me that when she had a visit from the Lord in a dream where she was taken to the River of Life, that Jesus appeared to her and told her about our separate past and joint future and Jesus showed her at least 8-9 times when I should have died and he sent his angels to intervene on my behalf and how one time he used his own hand to do it.

This was the time that the Lord himself routed the enemy out of my life. I had never told my wife this story but the Lord revealed it to her in 1996. She said." That the Lord showed her my room and that I was on the verge of death due to the alcoholic coma and I had been that way for around a day or so, and that at the foot of my bed was the angel of death who had filled the room with darkness, this death angel was waiting for me to die so I could be taken to hell and I was about to breathe my last breath, when all of the sudden the room filled with light and the Hand of God came in grabbed the evil angel and threw the death angel out of the room and said you cannot have him he is mine, then I woke up suddenly. So I was a very dry vessel for a season and I was seeking something and God made me hungry and the first step of the 12 is to trust in a higher power and I knew that God would have to help me with my chemical weakness.

The reason that The Lord showed my wife he intervened was because when I was younger around 5-6, I had made that special covenant with the Lord as a small child. I had a broke watch. So I put the note in the back of the watch and screwed it back together then I wore the watch all of the time for a season, and then things got worse and I think I was angry with the Lord and I threw the watch away in our cornfield. But in God’s Book of Remembrance, he kept the covenant that I spoke and wrote down as a boy knowing when I was older that I would follow Him and serve Him, this is from what I understand is what kept the hedge of protection around me even though others died around me.

However by the time I was 14 I was in major rebellion and problems towards authority, this was a manifestation of the abuse I suffered as a young boy. I hated all authority around me, because it was this same authority that hurt me. So I was always in trouble and looking back on it I am very sorry for what I put my mother through, I was always in the Priest or Principal’s office of the Catholic school I was sent to. God used this rebellion to His advantage. It was during Holy Week of 1983 and several other students and me had to go to this special mass at the bishop’s church in Davenport, IA. On the way there the young priest said to us in a conversation, " he told us about this group of crazy people who interpreted the bible for themselves, and spoke in tongues and believed in the power of the Holy Spirit, he told us where they met and said we should have nothing to do with them." So this thought about these people and what they believed in was implanted in my mind and I was curious about such things because all I saw in the Catholic religion was rules and no power, I was after something from God that would show me His power something that I could never refute and something that wasn’t dead like the religion I had known up to then. This was the second time I heard about spirit filled groups in a matter of days. I had watched the 700 club and prayed the sinners prayer with Pat Robertson around the same time as Holy Week around Easter of that year, so I called in and prayed with a counselor and they said to seek out a spirit filled church or fellowship.

So on a Monday night a few weeks later I went for a walk and I ran across the meeting place that these so called crazy people met, and the Lord used my own rebellion to get me to the meeting since the priest said not to go I had to go for sure. So they had a posted meeting time on the door and like always I was way late probably 45 minutes –1.25 hours late. I tried to sneak in and not make a scene, but like always that was hard to do as well, here I am a 14 year old boy in the midst of a group of 15-20 adults whom I have never met before. They were doing a Kenneth Copeland teaching series on video and it was ¾ over. They paused it and welcomed me and I said," I came here to be filled with the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues"! So they stopped their teaching and they had me sit in a chair and 4-5 laid hands on me and I remember saying," Dear Jesus" by the time I said that I was overtaken and radically filled with the Holy Spirit and wave after wave of love, glory, peace, laughter washed over me for around 20-25 minutes. I had emotions for the first time in my life such as peace, love, happiness, joy, and kindness. I was on cloud nine and changed for the better.

The man who let them use some of his business space to have the meeting was Ed Jordan, he was the first Christian Businessman I had ever met, he owned an apartment building with a meeting area set aside fore Christian Fellowship, and I truly believe that without his support these people would have never been able to form a group and meet. Ed was a good teacher and I learned allot from him that I still use today, and one of the main things he showed me was that as a business person we should meet the needs of the poor, hire people to speak into their spiritual life, and help out people with the resources that God has blessed us with. I remember for awhile that I worked for him I was asking allot of questions about the bible and probably spent more time learning the things of God than working, yet he was ok with this because he cared more about me than the building and people were always put ahead of profit. From that time this was probably my deepest true desire to have a business that would feed into the lives of many people to advance the gospel after seeing Ed’s life.

But I did not have a strong foundation or the knowledge of what and how to deal with the bad stuff in my life. So I did not deal with the pain in my life the way that God had wanted me to. And just like the bible talks about the seeds that land on different types of ground I had been placed on rocks because I received the word with great joy but I did not have the roots to last long without a major fall. So by the time In was 15 I was in a miserable backslidden condition. And I feel my immediate family was relieved about this thinking it was just a phase I was going through but believe me the seeds had been planted in my life that the hounds of heaven would not me go that easy.

As I said earlier I knew I was happiest when I had a new product idea to think about and design. I had always been an inventor & entrepreneur as far back as I can remember, I never remember not having this gift. Some people would have said that I was always taking the easy way out and that I was lazy. I would have to say to some degree that this is true since I always wanted to make life easier, while other people thought that through hard work alone they were doing a better job. It has always been my motto: to work harder and smarter through innovation, while others seem to want to harder and stupider not utilizing the right tools for the job and getting mad at people like me for finding a better tool to get the job done quicker. In elementary through high school I was an anomaly and I did not fit their educational teaching model that they wanted me to fit into. So I just quit trying, for example one year I was in college for kids and TAG ( Talented And Gifted) Program and in special education classes at the same time. In my senior year of high school I was the highest scoring person on my schools’ academic decathlon team, I had basically begged to get on this team because I had something to prove. Out of 64 of the brightest students in our region of the state I got some very high scores like 3^rd Place in Science, 1^st Place in a Public Speaking Event, and 4^th Place in the History portion of the test, and I only had a 1.01 Cumulative High School GPA.

I had more raw talent than most people ever would or will have, but because of the sin and poor attitudes in my life, I lacked the qualities to be effective during this period of my life. I was also very athletic and had allot of extra energy, so I went into the Army under a special trial program where I actually went through basic training between my junior and senior year in high school. So I had for the first time at this point in my life finally accomplished something that allot of other people never make through this training but I did, and the Army started to add a measure self discipline into my life. So I went to the Army for awhile and I am grateful for this because I was in no way ready for the rigors of college and I would have flunked out.

So I got out of the Army the first time in March of 1990, and the week I came back home I met a girl who was at a party for a couple who was getting married that weekend. There was a lady with her who cut my mother’s hair and she introduced us so we talked awhile and then we got more steady over a period of 6-8 weeks, then by the end of summer we were already planning to get married. This again is the dark haired girl from South Dakota. She had gotten a teaching job at the school in Eastern Iowa almost 450 miles from where she grew up, and she had moved into the area when I was away at the Army.

Then in 1990-1991 the first Gulf War broke out and I was recalled back to active duty within 8 months of being home. So then again even though I was walking in rebellion and totally backslidden the Lord was still faithful and His hand of protection was strong around me. I remember that one time in the middle of the night I was in tent by myself and I was very tired after being sleep deprived for several days, and I did not hear the air-raid siren to take cover and get our chemical gear on, and I was awakened to the loudest explosion I ever remember hearing as a rocket exploded almost danger close to me. The ironic thing about it was that I was in a canvas tent that would not have offered any protection to me from the overhead explosion but right outside the tent within 15 feet were jagged pieces of exploded metal all twisted and mangled the size of tennis shoes and it had stopped at the edge of my tent.

Also on my way over, some of us who had gotten recalled to active duty, were sent to FT. Benning, GA, we had to get weapons, qualify with these weapons, get to take a PT test, and had new gear issued to us, and have all of our personal files updated with new pantographic dental exams to identify us if we were Killed in Action. So if we needed any major dental work we would be held back until it was done and a new x-ray taken so they could identity us. Well I had some problems that did not show up on the x-ray I did not realize this until later how blessed I was, I had a cavity that had left a gaping hole between my 2 front teeth on the back side but for some reason only the Lord knows I passed the dental exam. Those people who were holdovers because of the dental work needed, had to wait until mid February 1991 to go over, the rest of us arrived in Saudi Arabia the same time that we had the first counter attack of the war on Jan 17^th, 1991. The holdovers needing dental work were placed in a reserve unit, the same unit that had their barracks explode in the Port of Dahmmam the night that 38 soldiers were killed, some of the people killed were people who I met at FT Benning, so if I would have been held over I may not have been here to write this book, look at the Lord perfect will for all of the people who have a high calling there is always protection even when we are walking in rebellion.

Now some of the things that I learned while in this conflict are still being used today. The Lord blessed me with 2 of the best officers that a person could serve under to learn leadership skills, one was a West Point graduate, and the other had a father who was a 3 star general so he always saw leadership and how to use it from his father while growing up. I had allot of responsibility thrust upon me with no formal training in the job I was doing. The traits I admired the most from both of these officers is the fact that they were both under a great deal of stress from the higher ups and rockets hitting our position, but even on the worst day, they never went off on their subordinates for no reason. I had worked for some officers who would take out all of their problems on the people they were leading because they poor leaders, while I feel that most of my management training was learned while under the leadership of these 2 people.

In the beginning of our marriage things were to say the least rocky. Between the issues I had not dealt with such as the pain I felt in my heart from what happened as I was growing up –to the added stress in my life from what I was trying to drink my self into forgetting again, sort of self medicating my PTSD and this only lead to more problems for me that what it was worth. So I was progressively getting worse I was staying gone for days at a time, blacked out and not knowing what was going on every time I drank, and at times though I was holding things together because I was still in college and at times I had a full-time job, and took 23 credit hours of college and still partied more than should be humanly possible. The semester when I had 23 credit hours I had six problem solving classes such as College Algebra, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Statics, and all of this as I was working full-time in material test lab, I still had a semester GPA of 3.0 , I wonder what I could have done if I was not weighed down with the booze.

But the next year I got worse and worse I had developed depression as well. I was a manic depressive drunk and people like me are the hardest to diagnose because we will work harder than five people around us, but when I got too high on the manic side the feelings that I did not deserve success would overcome me and I would use alcohol to fall into depression. Then I would wake up with speed and work all day like nothing had happened the night before with very little sleep, and then at night I would use alcohol again to come down from the high that I had put myself in the first place. Just going down a negative spiral further. Then in 1993 I went to Iowa State University and left my wife and 1 year old son at home so I could get an engineering degree thinking this was the course to being a better inventor, but ISU about killed my marriage, at first I came home every weekend and then every two living again as I was single. Then in the last part of the fall semester that year some things started to be happening to try and get me awake spiritually.

I remember partying and getting drunk and I was supposed to go with some people that I hardly knew from Ames to Des Moines. And I heard the prophetic voice of the Lord and I had an impression that it would not be good if I went and it was a trap planned by the devil, and that it would be a bad trip. Now you have to remember the gifts of God had been dormant in me for nearly a decade but this was so powerful that I did not question it. With no revelation for this long and even as drunk as I was I did not know what to do, but knew I should not go, so I staid behind. It was good thing I did not go that night or I would have probably gone too far to be used by the Lord, or I would have died and never fulfilled my purpose on this earth. This was the beginning of my new awakening but I was still on the run, and I still was bound to alcohol and all of the trapping that come along with this lifestyle. Well as I said things only went from bad to worse.

So as I was sitting there reading this free magazine, but I was still so far from the truth and right relationship with God that I said to myself in my heart if this is real I am going to call one of the three numbers on the back page and if I got an answering machine or no answer I was just going to think it was emotion and that I had gone too far like I had thought. Now this I thought was going to hard for God because it was early afternoon and I figured that they would be at work, but the first number I called someone answered and what they told me sort of disappointed me they met at 7:30AM on Saturday mornings. But I made a second deal with the Lord and that is if He kept my wife from leaving me, and if the anxiety went away I would go to this meeting.

So anyway by that night I went home and started to sleep off my alcohol induced enormous hangover. My wife stayed the anxiety left and I felt exceptional under the circumstances at hand. But by Friday three days later I was starting to renege on my promise to the Lord. I was really being tempted to go out that night and start drinking again, the nagging monkey on my back was very strong. But I felt that would be too big of a Judas Kiss, and I did not want to go that far, so instead I decided to go to bed around 1:00AM on Saturday Morning and I did not set my alarm so I figured I would sleep through the meeting and then I would not have to go. But it was the Lords plan for my life because I woke up at 6:00AM and I was uncomfortable and could not sleep so I got up and went to the Full Gospel Businessman’s Prayer Breakfast Meeting.

The meeting stated at 7:00AM and I got there actually right on time it was Dec 18^th, 1993. And it was the Lord’s perfect timing in all things. The week before it would have been a dozen or so middle aged men singing Kume-bi-Yah or something and I would have surely left, the same with the next weekend. But the week I went they actually had a speaker something that they had not had in 4 weeks or so. So anyway the man who was speaking was a minister who had been a missionary in Africa in the 1960’s and the Holy Spirit was using this man as an instrument to reach and convict my heart of the sin and hurt I had caused myself and God. Because when he was done I was heartbroken and repentant for my sins I felt the loving hopeful conviction of the Holy Spirit that offered me a hope and brilliant future in God. So I said a simple prayer that morning and I was changed for the better and still walking out the walk that I was called into at that time. A few of the brothers came up and they led me through the sinners prayer asking Jesus to come into my heart and forgive me of my sins and to come in and take over the hidden things in my heart that I kept holding against others. When it was all over I looked up and saw the brightest sun rise coming up over the Mississippi River and the light and warmth of God came into my heart in a new way.

So on the ride home when I was alone and relaxed the power of the Lord started to fill me in a new way I had a hope and a future once again. I saw the world in a glorious new light, it was as if the world were more vibrant and colorful and beautiful all at once. I was 25 years old then, but all of the sin and abuse to my body probably made me look 35-40 well older than my years.

Well anyway I went home and watched my son while my wife went out and ran errands that Saturday morning. While she was gone I sat in my living room and the power of God came over me, and He started to fill me with His Glory and peace and love. It was such an intense power encounter that it led to many years of the iniquity and damage of the sins in my life to wash off of me and the power of God came in anew and washed over me and removed the most vile evil first layers of my sin in my life. This wave of peace and love and warmth lasted for around 3.5 hours until my wife returned and she said to me, without me even saying anything to her about what had happened to me at the morning meeting. She asked, " what happened to you? You look 10 years younger and there is a glow about you." I told her, " that I had rededicated my life to the Lord Jesus and I was a changed person." She did not know really how to take this since she thought it was just another phase and ploy on my part to keep her trapped in an unhappy marriage. Thinking that if we sought out help that she would have to give it a try. She was also very leery of what I was starting to do, like read my bible, speak in tongues in her presence, and other far out there stuff for a man who was living like the most vile heathen only a few days earlier. She basically thought I had gone nuts and completely crazy now, she knew how to deal with a drunken man but not a Holy-Roller. This was definitely causing some strife in our marriage almost to the same extreme as my substance abuse had.

Then after around 3-4 weeks of being on cloud nine with the Lord my pride and sins came creeping back into the picture. I can only say that the devil was working overtime in my old friends lives, people I had not seen in weeks or months started to drift back into my life, and I let my guard down only for a minute and I was back into substance abuse, and then pornography, and then I realized my walk with the Lord had been broken and I was drifting away all over again. I was drinking and using drugs again, and my heart was along ways from the Lord. I was the most miserable during this time than in my whole life. I was told all kinds of lies to try and keep me from moving forward. I was walking on both sides of the fence, one day partying one day in repentance asking Gods forgiveness for my weaknesses towards chemicals.

One time around May of 1994 I came home after going on a 3 day binge and my wife even said we should go to church, it was a Sunday morning and we went to Westside Assembly of God in Davenport, IA and it was a divine appointment as well. They had a guest speaker there a young woman named Gillian I believe and her life was one of total rejection and abandonment, when she was 4 years old or something her mother left her and her older brother off at a bus stop in East LA and let them fend for themselves and she was and her brother were both abused in foster care, and she was adopted by a Christian family who were ministers. Because of all of the abuse and hurt she felt so ashamed and confused that she still went into drugs, sexual problems, and even starred in several pornographic movies. Well it got so bad that the drugs were taking a toll on her body and that is when God started to call out to her. I remember the important thing that she had said was nobody that goes through the kind of pain that she did and other did, would not be whole without the power of God changing their lives and to come forward for prayer for God to start to clean these scares and heal these wounds.

As I said I was still walking the fence in a lot of areas of my life in 1994 I can remember in May of 1994 I went to Full Gospel Businessman’s meeting and an older brother in the Lord had a product development and manufacturing business and he hired me and worked with him all summer before school started again I had decide to go to the University of Iowa it was allot closer only 75 miles away one way but it was driveable so the brother who hired me prayed with me and I went out and got my transcripts and God said do this on 8/8/94 and I went out to Calvin Hall the admissions office at the University of Iowa , and as I was at the counter talking to admission lady she said me transcripts and stuff were not entered in yet, this actually happened as I was talking to the lady in the admissions office my info popped up on here screen and I was in orientation the next day, something like this never happens.

About this time in late summer of 1994 the Lord was dealing with me for the first time about my pornography addiction and how it was limiting my walk with Him, and I felt the Holy Spirit convict me about it and I was told to round up all the porn I had bought over the years and get rid of it I fought this for a few days but finally one night I gathered it all up it took a few garbage sacks and we had a community dumpster in the trailer court we were living in and I put these sacks and the other household garbage on the hood of the car, when I putting the last porn bag in the dumpster the car made a howling grinding sound and sputtered and then quit, I actually had to push it bask to my driveway. The timing chain lower sprocket just all at once snapped and caused the timing chain to break and the motor bend all 12 valves and it was ruined and would cost me $900.00 to fix well it would be about a month or so before we could afford to do this. I should have known I would be attacked for breaking an addiction that I acquired at 10-11 years old the first time I watched a porn film with a friend who lived next door his older cousin was 16 or 17, and he let us watch this movie in his parents house when they were at work. My innocence was totally lost at this young age and I lusted for more in all areas of this newfound addiction. I should also point out that even though I won the first battle I lost many battles to the temptation to pornography and it was not until 2003 or so that I began to walk in more freedom than falling and not until 2005-2007 that I am winning the war I hope through grace in this addiction that the battle is completely won now in this area, although I may end up walking with a limp the rest of my natural life. I seemed to fall into this sin the most when I was weak and when I would get upset and mad at my wife or when the walk with God got too hard in me then I was weakened. I bring this up because out of all the sins and addictions that I fell into this one has been the hardest to overcome and walk in. It was not a sin that I could say I accepted the Lord grace and never fell into it again. I am emphasizing this because out of many things that bind man almost every man I know suffers in some degree to this sin if we let our guard down even for a minute. It has taken out quite a few men of God over the years and is one of the strongest weapons the enemy has in his arsenal to keep us from being what God wants us to be

The car I had lost the motor to was used for so many evil activities that it was a target for the attack on it. It was like the Lord saying that the old vehicle would not carry me into what He had for that and me

But as I said I was still controlled by my many other addictions I could be good for a week or two at this time but would fall hard and felt that I was worthless to the Lord for any good. I was in a bar one night getting drunk and a women sitting next to me said to me out of the blue, " I used to be a strong Christian but I backslid and cannot seem to get back to the Lord, I am miserable but want to get back to the Lord. So no matter where I went I could not get away from the Hounds of Heaven and the Long Arm of The Lord, He was still visiting me even where I was at.

One weekend I went out on Saturday night and I felt miserable on Sunday, but the voice of the Lord was still very active in my life and I had been told to get a book by Kenneth Hagan called the Gifts of The Spirit and one gift was called healing and diverse miracles and discerning spirits, and then I was told to go to this church I had never gone to before in the inner city of Davenport, IA for their Sunday evening service and the pastor said that if we felt led we could all pray for people and such during the ministry time and a lady was bound up with crippling arthritis and in a wheelchair and had been that way for 5-7 years or so. I could visibly see that the minister did not have the faith for this, and I was thinking to myself wouldn’t it be easier to teach me with an easier trial run at this healing gift stuff but then the Holy Spirit came upon me with Power and I was stepping into miracle faith glory. I heard to say by, "His strife’s on the way to the Cross by the breaking of His body we are made whole!!!!! " Then I felt like electricity and power come through my right hand that I had placed on her hand in the wheelchair it left my body and flowed into this lady then a powerful tongue came over me and as I spoke this tongue loudly I kept intermingling with English by His Strife’s we are healed and as I did she rose and walked and straighten up in her posture and her hands that had been crooked and bent not natural in appearance started to open up as well and I had here walk all around the room several times, and then I boldly said does anyone else need a healing now is the time and after everyone saw the miracle with the lady they had known was bound for years their faith level went through the roof as well and all that had any aliment hat night and came forth for healing prayer were healed.

But as I was moving in this gifting I heard the voice of the enemy tell me that he was going to get me , that he was going to destroy me and I did not take him seriously but this was Sunday night by Wednesday I was backslidden and using alcohol and looking at porn again. It was like something came over me and I was not in control, over a portion of my mind to say no! I realize now that it was a direct attack for the ground gained in the people whom I prayed for who were free and was wounded and ashamed that I could not walk the walk , and was tormented but seemed powerless to change the actions in my life. God did not leave me like this but put some other more mature prophetic people in my life who help equip me and restore me back to a battle ready condition and I believed in the power of God’s word, and I was miraculously set free of Alcohol and all the demons that were let into my mind from this stronghold on Halloween of 1994, God has a good sense of humor doesn’t he.

But the point I am trying to make here is that we are in a true life and death battle for eternity in the spirit, and we must tell others about Jesus and whatever way possible advance his kingdom and wounding by having doors open will happen even in Gods kingdom. Because if the enemy’s power wasn’t real and the possibilty of being hurt wasn't there, then it would not require ay real faith and we would never grow and subject the world God has given us to do.

More To Come in a Theater Near You from Oct 1994- March 2007 Walking ever into Higher Glory and Freedom.  probably by 4/2/07 please come back and see the power of a simple saint one of the fellas.