It was September of 2009 and I was working as a Private Security Contractor(PMC) for the Department of State(DoS) in Iraq. I was a Designated Defensive Marksman(DDM) and my responsibility was to stand on the rooftop of the venue(meeting place) with a scoped rifle and binoculars and make sure our venue didn’t get attacked and our diplomatic clients(principles) didn’t get injured or killed. I was living the dream, I was the cool guy with a beard, sunglasses, a sniper rifle, and I was raking in $575 a day… I was also an alcoholic and I was brewing alcohol in my room on the base we lived at. We’d play beer pong, throw parties, and get wild and crazy. I was having a blast, I was making a killing, I loved this life… Then one night in a drunken haze, I said a racial slur in regards to a pack of menthol cigarettes I was smoking and the next morning I am standing on the X in front of the Project Manager(PM). He asks me if what he heard I said was true, I told him we were all drunk and I didn’t remember saying it but I guess I must have… “Well son, because of what you said the Department of State has a lack of confidence in you and the ability to do your job, you’re fired…." And just like that, I lost a $150,000+ a year job. It was the most peaceful thing that has ever happened to me in my life, I didn't know it then but God was about to change my life, forever.
I came back to Pocatello, Idaho with a pocket full of money and a desire to drown my sorrows. I didn’t have to look far for girls, alcohol, marijuana. Money speaks, and I had enough to hang out at the bikini bar in town every night and spend hundreds a night on girls, weed, and alcohol. My life was a mess. My friend from Iraq that taught me how to brew lived in Boise and he came to Pocatello to pick me up and bring me up to Boise for a while. He figured he’d help me get back on track if he could. I bought a bag of mushrooms and shroomed all the way to Boise, it was the most horrific hallucinogen experience I’ve ever had, demons, voices….
My buddy and I partied our heads off for the next few weeks, and months into December. He had more money then I did and still had a job to go back to, he couldn’t keep up with me. I was a blacked out drunk, and I was proud of it. I’d smoke you out till you couldn’t move, and then I’d drink you under the table. I was a mess. One night that December, I got blasted drunk at a hockey game downtown with some random chick. The next morning I woke up in my buddies house, my truck was in the driveway and I was freaked out. I had driven 15 miles home from downtown Boise to western Meridian, and I didn’t remember a thing. I was terrified, I woke up in a frenzy freakig out, what had I done?! I was mad at myself! I could have killed someone…I’ve driven drunk before, numerous times in fact, but this time was different. I was training for walk on tryouts at Boise State that were coming up in a few weeks, and I had already lost a $150,000 a year job a few months before this due to alcohol…..what was I doing with my life?!
I decided that it was time to change. I went to the Veterans Affairs(VA) and admitted to them that I had an alcohol problem and that I needed to quit, I needed someone to hold me accountable. So every day or every other day I’d go in and talk to them. A week later I called my dad, and he immediately asked me, “what’s new with you? what is it son, I can sense it in my spirit”. I begin to tell him that I’d been sober for a week and that I was thinking clearly for once. My dad sent me an email and shared with me all of the things God had been sharing with him about my life. I don’t remember all of the details of the email, but as I read the email on my blackberry in my truck, I begin to weep. One of the scriptures he shared stuck out, it read:
Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
I was dumbfounded, and couldn't stop sobbing, “God really?! After all this you still have plans for me?! After everything I’ve done, you still want to prosper me and give me a hope and a future?!” I couldn’t believe it. It was this overwhelming sense of Gods love, and His peace…. it flooded my truck.
I always knew God existed but He was always so far away, He always seemed to talk to me in the shower when I was hungover or still drunk. In my drunken mess He’d say “I’m going to use this someday” I’d respond, “shut up man and leave me alone”.I knew He was there, I knew He was real, but that day as I wept in my truck, God got extremely real. I didn’t know how to deal with it all, I didn’t even know where to go or what to do but I knew it was time for a fresh start, I knew something was about to change it my life.
New Years night was about a week later, and all day long I was getting texts from girls I knew from all the bars downtown wondering if I wanted to go out and party etc. I denied or ignored nearly all of them, but early that evening I responded to one of these girls and she convinced me to go to a party. So that night, new years eve, I left my buddys house(I was house sitting for him and he was back in Iraq working) and headed off to this party. I was driving through downtown Meridian on my way to the interstate highway when I heard that familiar voice. You know the voice I'm referring to cause you’ve heard Him too! He said “Go home and get right with me, give me a year of your life and see what I’ll do with it”…. Ahhhhh! I've heard that voice so many times, maybe I should listen this time. It was time to listen. Having denied that voice for so long I finally gave in, it was my chance to respond. I immediately turned my truck around and headed home, calling the girl on the way to tell her about my new found redemption in God. She thought I was a freak, a lot of people still do, I didn’t care then and I don’t care now, it was time to get right with my Father and no one or anything was going to convince me otherwise.
I didn’t know much of anything about getting right with God, I had been lost and living in the the wrong for such a long time that I didn't even know where to start! But I did know that communion was symbolic of repentance and a fresh start, so I figured I'd start there. I scowered the kitchen and all I could find was pita bread and orange juice, so with them in my hands I looked up at the ceiling(where we think God is for some reason) and I said “God you turned water into wine, this has to count for something right?”. I sat down on the couch and set my make shift communion down on the table, then I picked up my computer and googled the scriptures for communion. It had been so long since I had done any of this, I didn’t even remember where they were. I believe the communion scriptures I used that night were Luke 22:12-20.
So there I sat at midnight all by myself, just me and God. I calmed my fears, opened my heart to the One who created me, exposed myself, read the scriptures, and partook in an act that Jesus and his disciples did 2,000 years ago. For the first time in my adult life, and the first time in almost a decade, I got real with the real God. This is how I started off 2010 I told Him, "God heres my life, you've got a year, do something with it." After communion, I pulled out a marker and wrote out a list of goals on a dry erase board, the first goal was to put God first in my life in every area. That has been my goal ever since.
Now fast forward to tonight, 3 years later. Tonight, I will take communion as I do now every year with pita bread and orange juice. This isn’t a sacrilegious act, it’s a symbolic act, it reminds me of the night and moment that God saved me from myself. Will tonight be just another drunken haze for you? Another year of resolutions you won't keep? Another good night kiss that means nothing? Or will you start your year off with a symbolic act and allow God to come into your life and dominate your heart with His love?
Each year is different for me, but putting God first in my life is always first for my year. God gives me different a theme every year, in 2012 God told me it would be a year of restoration, and I've watched as God has restored my family, friends, and my identity as His son. This year, I think it’s a year to blaze a trail! God has given me a wild heart, many of you don’t understand that and that’s fine, it’s not your life ha ha its mine! God loves my wild heart, He’s told me 🙂 He has made me an adventurer, a voyager, and a trailblazer (a prophetic word I received from Bethels art ministry when I visited there). This is a year where I'm gonna blaze a trail through the darkness of the world, a trail that leads to my Jesus, a trail wide enough for others to follow and be lead out of darkness and lead into His light. I leave America in 7 days to blaze a trail across 11 countries in 11 months. The journey started 3 years ago, and this is my set course for the next 11 months. My compass is set, my sails are open, my bags are packed, and my machete is in hand. Look out devil we're coming.
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