Hello and thank you, in two parts

[ian]

Hello, thank you for the invitation. I'm appreciative to have been invited to this group. Thank you James.

I'm not published apart from some poetry long ago. From my teen years I'd pursued horror and fantasy fiction and had written a couple of unpublished books as well as an assortment of speculative stories. Something held me back, some inner sense that kept me dissatisfied with my subject matter. I seemed to be pretty good at coming up with scary stories, but yearned to communicate ideas of substance. If only could come up with something worth saying, worth writing, and especially, that would be worth reading.

So I researched more. And sought to live an interesting life to become an interesting person, like the authors I’d read about. I drank, inevitably wrestled with depression, and at times pursued interests in mythology, New Age, and the eclectic. As time passed, the writing dwindled off, the research was put on hiatus, and I slipped deep into deception and frequent intoxication. Although I’d started my life in church fairly early, having prayed at the altar in church to receive Jesus when I was about six, I walked away from any semblance of faith in my teen years and fully into darkness by my mid-twenties, although I declared myself a Christian at convenient times.

But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love, sent his Son Jesus Christ to die for me, while I was yet a sinner, trapped in darkness and without hope.

Which is to say, that I thank God, for he intervened numerous times in my life in order to reveal the truth to me. I know that there must have been people praying for me along the way, but I cannot recall having anyone ever really speak to me about faith since I was a young boy. It was the Lord who intevened, at first in ways that some would call providence, and later in ways that I can only say are Biblical.

Early on, I noticed something I struggled to understand. When I would make choices that went against my inner depravity and instead were “good”, it seemed that there would be coincidences that happened. A name, or word, or number that I’d notice in random places and ways throughout my day. It could be anything; a name heard in conversation later seen on a billboard and then spoken in a movie. A number on the clock also on a receipt and perhaps the number of the last page in my book of the night. I couldn’t detect a larger meaning or message to them, except to speculate that there was some underlying force guiding events which caused an alignment in my life. It seemed to happen only when I was making good choices, and I had the impression in my mind of it being a sort of curb or maybe milestones along what I thought of as the good path or right way.

In my mid-twenties, living far from home and deep in depravity, I was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider. There’d been weird stuff with black spiders that seemed to appear out of nowhere when I was looking deeply into New Age stuff in my late teens, but I’d left that behind when my occult interests had given way to alcoholism and drug addiction. The spider bite turned out to be more than an irritant; the wound turned necrotic and the venom attacked my organs.

I found myself in the hospital just a few days later, infected, sick, and nearing death. About a week into my quarantined stay, doctors came into my room one evening, to evaluate and plan where they were to amputate my arm in an attempt to save my life. I listened to what they had to say, but something came into my mind, thoughts that didn’t seem normal to me. I realized that right there, I was on the edge, or maybe at a crossroads. I told the doctors that they should go away; I was going to pray that night, and if God really did exist, there’d be no need for the surgery in the morning. I’m certain they thought me delirious or just plain nuts.

But I prayed that night. All night. I’d doze some, from the fever and medications, but each time I’d awaken, I’d just pick right back up where I left off, asking God, if he really could hear me, to please heal me. And did God hear me? I’m typing this with both hands. God certainly did hear me, and I praise and thank him for answering me. In fact, I was out of the hospital just a few days later, all traces of infection gone.

I wish I could say that I turned to follow Christ at that moment. I didn’t, because I didn’t yet know that I could. But my life changed. Immediately, I was launched into a trajectory that would ultimately land me on the path I follow today. I turned more and more to a quiet voice that was leading me out of the darkness and chaos, into a place where my steps were stable as I discovered growing periods of sobriety.

Within a few years, I was living in Texas, married, with my first child and in a corporate technology career. I thanked God most every day, though I did my best to block out of my mind where he’d brought me from. I was sober almost all the time, only very infrequently binging on alcohol. I even began writing again, a few stories here and there. I’d joined an online writing workshop sponsored by a major publisher, and enhoyed the interaction with other writers.

Then very quickly I found myself unexpectedly divorced (only to me, I suppose), and the writing went on hold until I was into my second marriage. Then after the birth of my second child, I found myself again wanting to do more than talk about writing. I managed to make some outlines, notes for stories, but I was pretty sure I wanted to write something lighter than what I had in the past. There were still macabre aspects to some of my ideas, but I began reading and thinking more in line with modern Sci-Fi.

Somewhere along the way, I noticed that a lot of the Science Fiction I was reading had these questions buried in their plots, that had to do with the human soul. Stories involving cloning, transfer of consciousness, cyborg transformation, jacking in and uploading to virtual reality… it got me thinking. A lot. About whether any of it was possible. About whether, when I went to sleep, I awoke as the same person I’d been the day before, if my mind was just an emergent effect from the biological activity in the brain, things like that.

I came to the conclusion that there was more to life than cellular function. That there was more inside me than just neural activity, Dan-embedded instinct, and learned behaviors. I was convinced that yes, I had a soul. That each person must, indeed, have a soul. And with that, I was also certain that yes, God really must be there, because how else would we have gotted to have souls if he hadn’t made us that way? How could anything at all have come into existence if not for God? I’d read the Bible at times in my life, but it had generally been somewhat cryptic and mostly boring. After all, it was written by, and about, primitive people. And we were much more, not evolved necessarily, but certainly far more civilized. Much more advanced.

And I suddenly had a story accepted for publication in an anthology. It was exciting, to be accepted on my first try. Then the publisher went out of business prior to publication. I still have that contract somewhere, though.

At a certain point in time, I supposed I’d now call it a favorable time, I found myself in New Orleans for the weekend. I was in Louisiana for a three-month work assignment, and had met up with a friend to spend the weekend in the Big Easy and see the sights. Which that certain Friday meant visiting every drinking establishment on Bourbon Street. We'd worked our way up one side and had just started down the other, when my friend suffered an alcohol-induced misstep that landed him in the hospital.

So we were stuck there in New Orleans, at a hotel on Canal Street for the weekend so my friend could recuperate a little before flying back to Texas. I mostly stayed in the room to take care of him, but was increasingly restless. I hadn’t told him, but the night before I’d had weird thoughts while we were out, wondering where the water might rise when it came. I’d laughed at myself for being so foolish, but that Saturday afternoon I went out for a walk around Canal Street and found something again itching at my mind. I couldn’t place it, whatever I was sensing.

It began to cloud over late in the afternoon, and a long, curved bank of clouds cast the city into gloomy shade. Something about the cloud didn’t seem.. usual. “The hand of the Lord is stretched out against this city,” I heard. I looked around, shocked. No one was there that I could see. “The hand of the Lord is stretched out against this city,” I thought I heard again. And a third time, I think. But there was no one there. I laughed and walked a little distance away. It came to me that I needed to take some pictures, but I should see if I could capture what it was going to look like when… whatever had happened, when it did.

So I snapped pictures of Canal Street when the traffic lulled and the street was empty. I took a photo of an empty parking lot with a lone, forgotten balloon blowing across it, and later captioned it, “The Party is Over”. You know, as one does when an unseen voice pronounces pending destruction. And then I found myself telling most any person I encountered, that something terrible was coming and they should leave. And I turned down a job offer and six-figure salary from the company I was contracted with, and explained to them with a smile that I couldn’t accept it, though I’d love to, because something terrible was coming and they should leave while they could. And then I left.

So, yes, it was 2005, and about three weeks later, my wife and I watched reports of Hurricane Katrina on CNN. Once it began to look like everything was going to be okay, I started to breathe easier. But then the levees broke, and we saw days of madness reported on TV. And I was in shock. The waters had indeed rushed in.

We bought Bibles, as you do when… things get weird in a certain way. And I read mine, a random paragraph or page each evening at bed time. It seemed to be easier to understand than I could remember, but I still had a sort of dislike for most of the New Testament so I avoided it. But I also prayed, a little more than I ever had. My wife asked me what the point was, she didn’t find anything about the Bible all that interesting so she’d put hers away. But I kept on with mine for a couple of years, not really sure what to do beyond my lucky-dip reading.

And then I found myself unexpectedly going through a divorce. Again. Unexpected only to me, again. I couldn’t believe I could still be so bad at picking wives. For a moment I hoped I could get through it somewhat intact, maybe somehow win her over and woo her back. But the despair began growing and didn’t seem to stop. And the depression, the hurt, the anguish, the shock, the anger, the pain, the… Well, you get the point. I was crushed, and being crushed, under a terrible, crushing weight.

So at my bleakest, darkest, most terrible moment I could ever remember, I called out to God in prayer. Not the wishy-washy prayers I’d slopped out there all my life, but I called and cried out from the heart and pleaded with him to save me. And God answered. He responded, he moved, HE acted on my behalf, and touched my life, changed my life, rescued me. Specifically, precisely, then and there and at that moment. Unambiguously, undoubtedly, and most undeservedly. God touched me, and I will never be the same.

(Splitting message here, see part 2)

[ian]

God’s Word, the Bible, opened to me in a way I never imagined. Not to reveal some new things, but rather, so I might know the truth, and in that truth, be truly set free. After just a couple weeks of praying and reading and learning, God revealed to me my own sin nature. That I was the bad apple in every bunch I’d been part of; that I was the jacked-up one in my bad relationships; that I was the one who was responsible for the wrongs in my life. And that through Jesus Christ, and only through faith in him alone, I could be forgiven and washed clean and born again into new life and peace and a living hope. And so I thank God for revealing Jesus to my heart, soul, and spirit; and for making me alive again, for the first time, his peace overtaking me, a peace I had never know nor could have imagined.

Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, praise God.

So now, while I do read Sci-Fi or other fiction every so often, it is my practice to study the Word of God as my daily Bread. And to pray, seeking God’s face. To know Him, to grow in Him. As a disciple, a learner, a student, a committed follower of Christ. I and my beloved wife now of more than a decade, we seek God together, doing our best to raise our children to know Jesus for themselves.

Occasionally, I have ideas for fiction that come to mind. Never horror nor anything dark. Sometimes I write background notes, every so often an outline. I’ve been waiting, to find my voice, to find substance, to find a message worth sharing. And in Christ, through what God has done in my life and how He continues to work, I have.

When at first the Lord led me out of drugs, drinking, and darkness, I found that it was easier to focus on immediate circumstances and ideas rather than risk the pain of recalling the past. So I became very, very good at micro-focusing on aspects of life, while letting others slip until absolutely necessary for me to deal with them. Becoming a workaholic and a perfectionist at that, fit all too well. God allowed it for a number of years, even after I was Saved. It did somewhat change when I committed to follow Jesus, and like a glacier thawing over time, my focus has gradually loosened up and broadened, as God has progressively healed deep wounds in me.

That focus and concentration hasn’t been all bad, though, because it is part of who I am, as God made me. It was sin and damage that warped it out of shape, but God has redeemed it as I’ve been healed. For the past few years, there are certain topics of study that I’ve been led to, which relate to the Church and the world and spiritual forces, in the past, present, and still to come. I delved very deeply into a number of areas in my studies, and have been comforted to find that other Christians have also traveled the same roads before me. Because what I was learning was sometimes troubling, the implications and possibilities.

But God has brought me to a point now of broadening, in my focus and in my thinking. He has set me in a wide place, where I can begin to understand more how things fit together. I praise God for his grace and mercy and generous love.

I do now want to write. There are things that must be written, spoken, preached, proclaimed. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and his coming Kingdom, yes, urgently, more than ever. And there are things, ideas, signs to watch for, encouragement, hope, peace, joy - so very many things to be shared… truth to be spoken with our neighbors, in love. Truth. This world is passing away, it dies for a lack of knowing and receiving the Truth of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.

So thank you again for inviting me. I have been praying for how and when to get started. I do write essays from time to time for sharing on the Web, but am thinking that there are some things I’d like to express in longer form.

And if you’ve read this, thank you for your patience. I started out with the intent to write a very brief note, but felt that it might be better to say a little too much rather than too little. God bless you.

[C.]

Hi again Ian,

Well, your testimony kept my interest! Wow, what a story! I am so thankful to hear that you finally came to Christ! We surely need Him! And I am so thankful for His long-suffering and grace and mercy and forgiveness! He is truly a great and mighty God!

Take care, and thank you for sharing!

With the love of Christ,
C. Read

[James, Head Cook & Bottle Washer]

Ian,
Praise God for HIs mercy and grace. Thank you for sharing your story. Welcome to our group. We are blessed that you are here.
James