Joseph’s Christian Testimony

Thank you Lord, thank you.

When I was lost . . .

Back when I was in my early twenties, I was involved in drug use. A lot of pot and some cocaine and acid. I started smoking pot with friends when I was around fifteen. I don’t recall where the first joint came from, but it came. As time went on, I smoked more, experimented with other drugs, fornicated, stole, etc. I pretty much broke every commandment of God but murdering someone.

When I look back, the Spirit of God was always convicting me. “You shouldn’t” type thoughts—but I always did. No sooner did the thought pop into my head, was it quenched out. It was like a peer-pressure type thing . . . a cool thing . . . a hanging-with-friends type thing. In the crowd, we would shame each other. “Seriously, you’re not? Oh, you’re gonna get all clean on us? Come on man, you’re no fun. I can’t believe you won’t smoke this with me . . . you’re gonna make me smoke this by myself? That’s not cool.” Bla bla bla. I think you get the idea. Peer pressure. Eventually, I just did drugs as I was now molded into that life by my surroundings . . . it’s what I thought life was . . . party.

When I believed and prayed . . .

I was one of those spiritual but not religious people who believed in God . . . well, I should say “had an opinion of” God. I had this opinion with a little faith. I would pray almost every night if I wasn’t hammered . . . and I’d rattle off an Our Father and a Hail Mary . . . make petitions for my family, and that was about it. Maybe some questions here and there. Well, not every night. Prayers would come and go.

When He answered and revealed . . .

Things started to change when the Lord began to reveal Himself. During a very trying time in life, I was contemplating suicide.. One night after a prayer, I was lying in bed staring at the stars out the bedroom window, wondering if God was out there. I remember saying—”God, I need to know you’re out there watching over me.” Within seconds of asking this, my dog jumped off my bed. I leaned up to see if he went to the door and needed to go out. What I saw was a miracle. My dog was nose to nose (within 2-3 inches) from a picture of Jesus that was sitting on the floor leaning up against the wall. He was wagging his tail. The picture was a house warming gift from my grandma that I hadn’t hung up yet. When I sat up and saw this, my dog looked back over his shoulder at me (he was facing the opposite wall) and he stopped wagging his tail when he looked at me. Then he looked back at Jesus and started wagging again. He was literally nose to nose. I called him back to my bed and I didn’t “see” Jesus . . . but I saw Jesus at the foot of my bed. I sensed the glory of the Lord . . . the presence of God.

Around this time, He also delivered me from a high on acid. Three friends didn’t have a ride home that night so I drove them to my place to crash out. Everyone was on drugs. I remember feeling a great sense of evil and I sat down on the couch. I was in rough shape, so I closed my eyes. The three friends thought I had passed out, but I was trying to calm down from the high. Then it happened . . . as wicked as wicked could be, these three “friends” stood in front of me saying some of the most wicked things. These weren’t “joking” slams. These guys were tearing in. “You’re such a — ” type comments. One whispered, “Shh, shh, he may still be awake.” Another said: “#@^ him, he’s a –!” They were standing right over me. You get the picture. I heard everything, so I decided to let them know I was awake and crack an eye open. Funny, when I did, all three immediately turned away to act like they weren’t standing there. Ya know, hands up to the head, looking away, lol. One went to the stereo, one picked up something off the table, the other went towards the kitchen. I closed my eyes again and within a minute or two, it started back up.

I went to the Lord. I said to Him “God, get me out of this . . .” With my eyes closed, off in the distance of the darkness of my mind . . . there was a brightly golden cross moving in towards me. As it got closer and closer, it got brighter and brighter . . . bigger and bigger. The intensity was powerful. Just when the cross seemed like it was going to smack me up against the face—bam! I immediately went out. I’ve done a lot of drugs in my life. But I never passed out like this while in full consciousness. A few minutes later, I woke up. Fully sober. The guys were in the kitchen raiding the fridge. I asked how long I was out for; they said around twenty minutes. I went to bed. To the best of my recollection, I do not believe I touched acid after that.

From there, I started to repent, read the Word, etc. My pot smoking greatly decreased, I quit smoking cigs, and other things. I was following God. After one year, my pot smoking started to increase and I was hanging around a new friend. We got involved in cocaine. This was a time when my mom and my dad divorced and dad went to prison.

During this trying time, one night in bed, I began to yell at God. I was screaming at him, asking why, asking Him to stop this. I was crying, yelling at Him at the top of my lungs. When I completed this rage, I closed my eyes. When my eyes closed, a beautiful lady appeared in the left side of my vision, just her face and head. The face appeared from bottom left and moved slowly upward until her full head was in view. Her hair was slicked back and she had beautiful eyes. Her caring, love and peace was felt. I felt very much at peace. I heard her say very clearly, without her lips moving, “Everything is going to be O.K.” I didn’t “hear” it with the ears—I heard it in my mind, in my thoughts. Then she gave a slow and slight nod and I heard or felt, “Understand?” I said yes with my mind. Her face then disappeared downward in the same manner in which it had entered my vision. I took a deep breath, felt very much at peace, felt God’s grace, was very thankful, rolled over and went to sleep.

Those were the early revelations. He then turns it up, big time.

Fast forward a year or so, and I was living in a new city with a girlfriend . . . yes, living in sin. I was still smoking pot, but nothing else. I was smoking it daily. After a few years of a great relationship, things turned sour. My days were spent in front of a computer playing video games to zoink out the emotional turmoil of the relationship. I would smoke a lot of pot to keep the mind numbed.

As I’m playing these games and high, I’m thinking of Him. I was in a rough place again. But it was so weird. I’m playing online video games where people have names on their characters. Almost every time I started to dwell on the Lord, names on the screen were jiving with my thinking. People would have names with God in it, with wicked names, with worldly type thing names. I wish I could remember a few, but it was just so odd. I wasn’t “looking” for words . . . they would just pop up. During this time, as I’d go through my day doing things, like housework, I would dwell on the Lord. When I would have a question on something and be considering it with Him, my eyes would fall upon a word on something in the house . . . something on the counter, in the fridge, or someone would say something, the radio song would say something, etc. But it was always a direct answer to my question. I mean, it was ODD.

Oh, here’s one . . . just a sample of what was going on constantly: I’m walking through Walmart and my mind started to travel down a path of lust. I said to myself in my own mind: What are you thinking?

No sooner did the sentence finish in my thought than a lady in an aisle that I’m walking by says “Ya! What were you thinking?” I was like, uhh . . . I turned, looked, and she’s on her cell phone.

Oh, another . . . music is playing on my computer . . . I’m not paying attention to it as I’m dwelling on Him. I ask the Lord “How am I doing?” and then this verse pops out of the radio – “I’m satisfied with you.” It was constant, daily, multiple times a day. He was revealing Himself. Now be careful here. We can’t just go, “Wow. I’m going to start looking for Him in these things.” Be very careful of telling God how He’s going to work in your life. Let Him do it.

He delivers . . .

Another miracle. This is about the time my blog starts, maybe around 2005? One of my major growth steps, which is when the veil was removed and I was spiritually awakened, was with my friend Jim. He and I were discussing spiritual things. We were into a deep conversation pertaining to how I continually get stuck in personal thoughts and topics and how this takes me off the righteous path. I was trying to figure out how the Lord forgives me for my sin if I keep choosing to sin. He kept explaining Christ, but I just didn’t see it. Then he drew a pattern on a piece of paper, which has been replicated in my blog here: Illustrations (the top drawing). The second drawing is early in my walk and is not totally accurate. He showed me how sin takes me off the path, how I continually beat myself up over the sin, and that I’m still involved in the sin. That I just need to get up and move on. When he said this, something finally triggered in my mind. I realized how I was in a trap due to my own thoughts. I was hindering myself. When I realized that I was making my own choice to continue to do the things I did and when my friend showed me that Jesus brings us back, a miracle happened. When this event happened, he was still talking and I asked him to hold on for a second. At this time, I was evaluating my body because something major was happening. I felt, for what seemed like the first time in my life, a relaxation come over my skull. The surrounding skin around my skull sank. . . because the muscles relaxed. It was so odd! How can I put this? I didn’t realize it before this happened, but the following was just revealed: those muscles were tensed up constantly, 100 percent of the time during my life. When I felt everything relaxing, dropping, it was the first time I’ve felt my muscles and my head in this state. Ya know, when you’re body is in a certain state for its entire life, and something changes like this . . . it’s huge. I’m like 34 or 35 years old at the time and I feel something brand new in my body. I felt this huge huge pile come off of my mind, my shoulders, etc. and I was completely at peace. While everything was relaxing, I literally felt a sucking feeling coming out of the center of my forehead. I felt a flow of energy that was being pulled out of my forehead and it happened for about fifteen seconds. It actually felt like someone was pulling a string out of my forehead because I could feel my skin in the center of my forehead feel like it twas pulling outward. I felt the flow of this energy come from the old stressors that were tensing me. It all flowed around my head towards the center of my forehead and was leaving me. It was truly a miracle. A few seconds later, a man walked in with a marijuana joint and offered it to me. I said “no.” I looked down, and my eyes fell upon a bag in the corner of the room. I looked at what my eyes had fallen on (because I was in a daze), and I was staring at the words “Thank you” (right after I denied the joint).

Current journey . . .

Well, from around that moment in my life the smoking of pot started to dwindle and eventually stopped. That’s about when I started my blog (the dates are deceiving on older posts because I re-did my blog in 2007, which changed all those dates). But I started to blog about my transformation . . .

For more on why I’m doing my blog, please check out the “About Me” page. Bless you and yours.

joseph

Serious Things