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In writing the autobiography, I realized a central driving force behind my life was a feeling of alienation and a deep longing for friendship. I did not really choose my friends: If you were willing to be my friend—and why you would be I could not imagine, as I felt I had nothing to offer whatsoever—then you were a friend of mine. Inside, however, I was haunted by my own sense of worthlessness—not that I was made happy by this, but I felt it was nonetheless a cold dose of reality. It was just a fact: I was a nobody. Though I have worked through many of my insecurities, there are still lingering remnants that surface at odd moments in unexpected ways. Many of my spiritual struggles and issues can ultimately be tracked down to my perception of my own worth and value. This being said, however, I would maintain in hindsight that we often first have to recognize that we are a nobody before we can truly become a somebody: that admission is its own form of the haunting described in Holy Discontent: The “God Question.”

As the autobiography reveals, in high school I developed a very close group of friends, and, in tribute to this fact, it seemed only natural and fitting to dub ourselves “The Family.” For those of you who have not read the autobiography, I will sketch in a few of the details. We were all middle to lower class kids and not one of us really had made many friends prior to The Family. We were hungry for love and acceptance and when we found it, we began to grow incredibly close. However, every human being alive has a dark side—every last one of us does if we will care to be honest—and this dark side has the potential to emerge and corrupt even the most beautiful of human relationships, as it did in The Family. Our dark sides were our downfall: a group of kids trying to escape from the pain and emptiness life so often seems to “send our way,” but trying to cope in ways that were counter-productive, involving long-term consequences. Soon, nearly all of us were smoking, drinking, and partying our lives away.

By my senior year, I knew that what we once possessed had nearly completely crumbled, but by then I was a local “superstar.” The sense of validity and confidence given me by The Family translated into an immense popularity that transcended the dividing barriers between various cliques in high school. Yet it was not the same as the intimacy I shared with The Family: I was always hungry for more, yet it never satisfied. For one thing, there was a girl from The Family I was very interested in and our relationship ended up being rather destructive. I was involved in Hypnosis, a rock band with an unusual sound and a cult following, and had met a girl through my Radio Broadcasting class. She was enthralled—infatuated—with me, and I was lonely for female companionship and would often bemoan my romantic losses and she would play a sort of motherly role to me.

In time, we found ourselves at a party where the alcohol had affected my resolve and I then I felt obligated to continue the relationship. Not that I did not enjoy the sex: we started spending a great deal of time in the back seat of my Mom and Dad’s car late into the night hours, parked in reclusive places along the countryside. But I never felt I loved her. Looking back, I realize just how much I did grow to love her, though my own selfishness kept me from seeing it. There is just something about the familiarity and intimacy that occurs between two people over time, ya know? But back then, I did not think I really loved her—I had not “chosen” her, I felt I had been “roped” into a relationship made by my own guilt of sleeping with her, which ran up against the Christian values with which I had been instilled. If you slept with a woman, you did the honorable thing: you married her. Because I devalued her, I consequently took her for granted. I think I was trying to discover my identity in the perfect woman, and since “perfect woman” meant “Hollywood mock-up,” she was not “good enough” for me to prove my worth. And why did I need to prove my worth? Again, because I was always haunted by a sense of failure and worthlessness, convinced there was something intrinsically wrong with me.

I never wanted children, she did. When Jeremy was born, I was the world’s worst father. I did not want to spend any time with him and would throw a fit when she would tell me to hold him or watch him even for a moment. I resented the responsibility. I wanted to party, to be irresponsible, to be the teenager that never had to grow up. This tension, her postpartum depression, and many other cumulative factors such as my frequent lying, my perpetual partying—all of these caused a deep-seated unhappiness between us. And that was when my affair happened, which is documented in the autobiography.

I realized what I had lost, but it was too late. She always told me that if I slept around on her that she would divorce me and she was true to her word. I fared reasonably well at first, but soon spiraled down, down, down, and for the first time in my life tried methamphetamine. This addiction passed after the summer, or so I thought. I was once again back to just smoking pot and things were reasonably stable. However, I was always short on cash and started doing some legwork, buying ounces of pot and selling off three quarters to get the fourth one “free.” It did not take long before my business was blossoming and I was making enough money to support myself without working. Still, I clung to my job for a time, but my supervisors kept sticking me on one especially physical job. I threatened to quit if the management did not move me, but they either did not take my threats seriously, or were simply not that concerned with losing me. I was a hard worker, but in a factory, people are expendable. One day I threatened extra long and loud and as usual the management turned a deaf ear. That day was my last. I promised myself that I would find a part-time job to cover for my mysterious cash flow, but that was never to materialize.

Life as a drug dealer did not start out too badly. Soon, however, my crew was pressing me to run meth and I could find it in abundance, as Springfield is (or at least was) the top meth producing city in the United States. While it may not be the largest city in America, meth flows through the streets in abundance. I soon got into acid, which I started using regularly, and any other drug that traveled through my fingers. I especially liked cocaine (or its “stepped-on” sister crack) which I would combine with marijuana, but I always had a difficult time securing white gold, as it is sometimes called. And, of course, I always had money or could soon turn over more if I needed it; time was not an issue either, as I ran deals maybe two hours a day and I was good to go.

I was growing increasingly unhappy, soon totaling my car the day I took Jeremy to the half-way point to deliver him into the hands of his mother. After that, I pretty much fell apart. For all my shortcomings, I have always tended to have a natural streak of compassion, a quality that did not get me very far in the dog eat dog world of drugs. Trying to enforce my dealings soon brought out the beast in me and I started becoming much more aggressive and unpredictable. Everyone could see I was losing it, a shooting star nearly blackened into extinction. Many of my associates were to later describe me in fearful terms, as an “evil” man, someone from whom you could feel the blackness radiating. For that matter, I was evil. What did I have to live for? Nihilism took the place of honest agnosticism, the logical conclusion of a life where God is a question that cannot be answered with any certainty.

One day I began to hear voices. At first, it was the voices of my roommates, Jimmy and Leann, which I believed I was overhearing in conversation about me:

Jimmy: “He looks like he’s angry. Do you think we ought to go check on him?”

Leann: “Well, I don’t know. He looks like he’s really upset to me.”

And so it went. The vocal inflection, word choice, and intonation were exactly like their own. Reasoning through this reality led to the obvious conclusion they were “spying” on me through the vents that led down into the basement where I lived, which made me very annoyed. They were not my parents, and as much as I appreciated their concern—I knew I had not been acting exactly normal as of late—I did not appreciate the invasion of privacy. Soon it became evident that there was no possible way that I could be physically overhearing them, so I concluded that I must be able to read their minds. I had often heard that psychologists reported that we only used a small part of our mind’s natural potential, so this did not seem to be too large of a stretch of my imagination. It was no secret I was on a wide variety of drugs and who knows what kind of effect they have on a person! Among other drugs, I had heard that acid was a “gateway” that opened up the mind to perceptions beyond, and what were my startled senses to conclude than this was the most likely explanation for this newfound reality?

Soon, this seeming ability began to expand, and it was not only my roommates, but even complete strangers: everywhere I went, I could read people’s thoughts. When I would see a couple of people at a distance, the voices I heard would match up with their gestures and lip moments with startling precision. Even after I walked or drove out of the range of sight, I could will my focus on the person I had seen and read his or her mind as the miles between us multiplied.

When I say that I could hear them, I mean quite literally I could hear conversations that were spoken in English as plainly as you can read the text in this newsletter, though the difference was I felt I was perceiving it with my mind (as in ESP), instead of “hearing” it in the normal sense. Still, the voices were clearly audible to me and I knew then, as I am still convinced to this day, that these were not products of my own mind—figments of an overactive imagination on drugs—but were clearly coming from outside of my mind, from an intelligence existing outside myself. As you read these words, your sense of identity is clearly enough defined that you do not presume that the words you are in the process of reading are of your own invention. You may find them strange and intriguing, but you certainly realize they are not originating within you as you read them. Such is the case with the voices, though they were clearly on a mental realm. Does this make sense? In other words, they were audible, coming from outside myself, yet they were clearly of an extrasensory nature.

I realized that this newfound “ability” of reading thoughts was a terrible curse. I could not switch this ability on or off at will. At first it might seem like a really wonderful idea to be able to read people’s thoughts, but believe me—it is not! You are never alone. There is no privacy, nowhere to run, nowhere to turn. The voices are all consuming and will follow you everywhere you go. You feel like you know everything everyone else is thinking about you and everyone else and this in and of itself is something you would soon discover you really would rather not know.

I did not believe in God, despite my Christian upbringing. I believed that there had to be something more, but I wanted to know the truth, and since every religion I knew of required faith . . . Well, how do I know what is true, if I have to first believe it is true to find out if it is really true of not? Other people’s religions seemed to work for them, but I knew good and well that not every religion could be true on an objective level. I mean, the most basic premise of logic is that something cannot both be, and not be, at the same time. A tree cannot both be standing in my yard and not standing in my yard at the same moment. It may have stood in my yard and then have been chopped down so that it no longer stands in my yard, but it certainly does not do both of those things at the same time. In the same sense, many of the teachings of different religions contradicted each other, so I knew that they all could not be right. They might seem to work, but I knew that they could not all contain the entire truth—or at least not on their surfaces. So what was the answer? The answer was there was no answer. This was what enlightened people came to realize soon enough. I was not happy, no. But I was not going to be a fool either and believe in some naive, substanceless romanticism. Who was God? I was: I was king of my own destiny.

Still, I knew I needed help in being able to manage this forbidden “gift” of mind reading. I felt that I would never be the same again, but perhaps I could find someone or something that would help me make sense of it all, to learn how to control it and use it with some degree of wisdom. So I thought of the various possibilities, coming up with a very short list: perhaps a witch? someone who had passed on before? a demon? (The latter is a logical inconsistency—I did not even believe in angels—but nonetheless, it made it on the list.) I reasoned that if I could read thoughts, surely someone else could as well, and if that person could read thoughts, s/he could read my thoughts just as well as anyone else’s. So I went out along a gravel road where my friends and I used to hang out together. Walking along the road after twilight during my favorite time when the moon is out full and bright, I made this simple request to anyone or anything that might happen to be listening: “If there be anything living or dead that can help me, please do.”

Immediately, I felt the presence of some kind of spiritual guide. I could not see her, but I sensed that this being was a female and that she was walking by my side. Racking my brain to try to figure out who she might be, I came to the conclusion that she was Shonda, a witch I had known and intensely disliked in high school. Why did I believe it was Shonda, or at least a manifestation of her presence? Because she was the only one in my world I knew who would likely have these kinds of abilities, if anyone did. Yet I resented this: it was a blow to my ego. Despite the fact that she was helping me, I kept disrespecting her. “Bitch!” I would say in the most menacing of ways. I felt that she was toying with me, playing me for a fool.

It did not take long to realize that she was my only hope. One of her first lessons was “He needs to keep his thoughts in his own mind: we(!) can hear him.” Just as I first perceived Jimmy and Leann were talking about me, the third person “he” was her way of addressing me directly: was her way of saying the first person “you”: “He would like this” actually meant “You would like this.” I felt that I must prove myself a worthy “apprentice” to her, and I was working hard to restrain myself from calling her a bitch. So I found myself doing ridiculous, daredevil stunts at her bidding to appease her: things such as crossing over swift river rapids in the moonlight, getting soaked up to my chest, my shoes virtual pitchers of water. Fortunately, this took place in early June, so the water was warm enough the mist would frequently rise from it, which created an eerie effect in the moon-bathed atmosphere. Still, the night was my world and I felt at home in it—not in an evil sense, but in the sense of a childhood innocence and intimacy. The moonlit landscape was safe: a place of refuge for the troubled soul, though even it had begun to alter somewhat. I often felt I was surrounded by the presence of evil, especially while tripping acid, and it was not the nighttime air itself that was at fault, but rather the “companions” I attracted.

There is much I have left out, and much more I will need to leave out for the sake of brevity, but I will, however, tell you of some of the first lessons in respect she taught me. Every morning after only about five hours of sleep she would wake me and I would know it was time to go. I mean, much of this type of extrasensory conversation is not merely reliant on words. For example—and this did NOT happen, but it serves to illustrate my point: suppose that she showed me a street lined with fifty cars and she said, “He would like that car.” Even if I absolutely hated the car of which she spoke, of those fifty cars, I would have known beyond any doubts about which car she spoke. If you operate in the mental realm in this way, why do you even need cumbersome language for many things? Just “download” the information directly, bypassing the language center of the mind.

One morning, like all mornings, I knew it was time to go for the day: she had another lesson for me and I was an eager pupil, anxious to win her respect and learn how to master mind reading for useful purposes. After a day of driving, it was nearing late afternoon. To this day I have no idea where I was, but I drove up to a bridge that was under construction and impossible to cross. I knew she wanted me to park my car and walk, so this is precisely what I did. I walked along the small stream, a nice path making for a pleasant stroll winding along its edge. Up ahead there was a section that had some dense vegetation and the path forked in two: one fork led along the stream, the other led up and around the top of this cluster of plant life.

I wanted to walk along the path to the stream, but she wanted me to walk around. I started to defy her, as was my custom, but then, after taking only one step, I backed up, started down the way she wanted me to go and said, “Okay. Okay.” I bit my tongue, and was proud of myself for not calling her “Bitch!” the way I did at first.

Soon the paths once again merged into one, and I crossed the water in the shallows. On the other side was a massive hill, not quite a mountain, but very steep and tall for a mere hill, much like many of the foothills between the border of Missouri and Arkansas. She had me climb to the top, and as I did so, the clouds began to gather, the sky darkening down. She instructed me to lay flat on my back on the hillside and close my eyes.

First one and then another creature began crawling over my body—and I soon realized that she had me laying in an anthill!—those big, blank ants of which Missouri has a few. I knew I was to lay there and not move, my eyes tightly closed. But I wanted to brush them off, and in fact, I started to brush one away, but then paused, just as I obeyed her on her choice for the path.

As if that were not enough, I suddenly felt one big drop or water splash across my face. Then another and another, soon drenching my cigarettes and me. All the while I lay there, the ants crawling on me, the rain soaking me to the bone, my eyes closed, motionless, trying to prove myself worthy to this mysterious spiritual messanger.

In time, she released me and allowed me to smoke a bowl of marijuana. I had given up all the other drugs (except nicotine) but was still getting high. Since I had gotten busted on my way to divorce court with a pipe and a small bag and spent twenty hours in the “poker,” I was more cautious, and only carried large quantities when it was necessary. Otherwise, I would carry only a small amount—enough to last me and anyone I might share with—throughout the day. I would wrap it up tightly in a small plastic bag (much tighter than rolling a normal bag of weed), fold it over on itself several times, and carry it in my sock.

By now, the storm clouds had rolled in and the sky was nearly black, though the rain had temporarily ceased. While there was still enough light to see, visibility was becoming much more difficult. I knew I was now to walk back down the hill. It was very precarious, its steep sides and wet, slippery jagged rocks could easily seriously injure or even kill the less wary. Yet I knew that this being would protect me. I do not know how I knew. I just knew: I was completely certain that nothing ill would happen to me: that she would guide and protect me as long as I listened to her voice.

It was then that I saw something I had seen several times before, but it still had not fully taken shape in my mind. Midway down, there was an orb of light, about the size of a person, glowing dimly. As I said, I had seen it before, but it was not as well defined this time; it had been brighter before. And there, in the middle of this faint orb of light, was a barbed wire fence I had not seen coming up, for I was going down at an angle nearly perpendicular (think of a triangle with the point meeting at the anthill) to the one I climbed. I would never had seen this barricade if she had not shown it to me.

After I crossed the fence carefully, I finally made it to the bottom of this huge hill where the stream ran. I knew that I was to bow down with my face to the ground with my eyes closed tightly. And when I say bow, I do not mean merely kneeling, I mean face prostrate to the ground all but kissing the earth the way Islamic worshippers pray when they face Mecca. I was singing a song in my mind I heard on the radio, which, up until the time of this writing, I thought was by the alternative band No Doubt. In searching for the link to the lyrics, however, I soon realized I was confusing it with Fleming & John’s song “I’m Not Afraid,” from the album Delusions of Grandeur. Fleming repeats “I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid, I’m not afraid of you” during the chorus.

Still, I wanted so badly to look up. I had finally put two and two together and realized that the orb of light was all part of this mysterious journey I had been on for over a week now. Finally caving in to my desire, I made the mistake of raising my face. What I saw absolutely terrified me. I have known fear well in my life, but this was different.

What I saw resembled volcanic magma flowing from a volcano. If you have ever seen footage of this, you know that the magma forms a thick black crust over its flowing liquid, but because it is in motion, cracks form, revealing the red, fiery-hot liquid beneath. This is exactly the way the entire earth looked as far as the eye could see on the opposite side of the bank. The very ground seemed alive, imbued with a power unlike any I had ever seen or known before. Even the lightening that blindingly flashed and the thunder that roared deafeningly close around me did not even begin to hold this kind of power. No, this was beyond human. This was obviously not a mere witch, a mere messenger, a mere spirit guide. This was something far, far greater and I came to the startling realization that I was in the presence of the Earth Goddess, that Wicca really was true after all! And here I had thought of it only as a myth system that gave a bit of beauty to the fact that the answer was there was no answer: Reincarnation—my body rotting in the ground and its elements recycling themselves—the Earth Goddess—Gaia—mother and sustainer of life poetically portraying the fact we depend on the earth for our sustenance. I was grateful that I was allowed to be in her awesome presence and live! I quickly put my head down, and begged for her forgiveness. Then I unashamedly began to sing in my mind, “I am afraid, I am afraid, I am afraid of you!” as a tribute of gratitude. And I meant every word of it. Never in my life had I ever seen anything of that magnitude, nor have I since. I realized that I was but a mere mortal human being, a mere speck of dust standing in the presence of The One who could so easily destroy me.

Eventually, she let me go, but it was totally dark by now. I had to trust her as she led me back through the storm, each flash of lightening allowing me to walk a few more steps. Several times I felt as if she or someone else was trying to get me to cross over the stream, but my will was all but broken. I had no desire to prove myself. I just wanted to get back home safely. And I was not really sure the temptation to cross the stream came from her anyway. I had begun to notice that sometimes when she spoke, it did not feel right. It did not take me long to conclude that there were other spiritual messengers whose purposes were not to help me. They pretended to be her, but their purpose was to destroy me. They would lie to me as sweetly as honey, their voices perfect replicas of hers. But with discernment I could usually tell them apart, though this was no easy task. I just begged (prayed?) that she would forgive me for my disobedience if it was her telling me to do that, and would not she please understand the fear that I felt?

I was grateful when I finally saw my car up ahead and I climbed in and closed the door on the hill and the stream. She led me safely home and I went to bed for another evening. The next morning, I awoke and hurried to my tape collection to find a tape to play as a tribute to her. My best friend’s parents in high school were Wiccans, and they had given me a nearly two-hour long cassette of Wiccan music which glorified the Earth Goddess and the other gods, such as the Horned God.

Putting this on to pay her tribute for her provision during the storm and for allowing me to live seemed only right. So I was very hurt and startled when she asked me, “Why is he listening to this?”

Hurt and confused, I replied, “To glorify you.”

What she said next was profoundly simple, yet it sliced me to the quick. She asked, “What about God?”

Well, there went my idea of the Earth Goddess! Her words jarred me to my depths. GOD? I had no idea that was such a filthy word to me. So God really was real! It was not “she” who had graciously allowed me to live when I was by the side of the brook nor was it her presence I saw, but rather I was in the presence of God himself and it was in his compassion and mercy that he did not destroy me. The impact of that encounter grips me still. But undoubtedly this guiding voice who just now told me of God was that of a woman’s, so who was she? She was obviously not the Earth Goddess, for who I took to be that entity was actually God himself. Whoever this messenger was, she was obviously one of God’s servants, though whether living or dead, human or divine I did not know. I only knew that I must trust her, for she was good, truly good; yes, I knew that she was good and I knew that she would help me if I would listen to her and do what she told me.

My roommate Leann’s mother had died some years ago and Leann believed her mother’s ghost frequented the place. There were several times I had felt this presence as well, so I soon concluded that the voice must belong to her mother’s spirit. Somehow, I got this confused in my mind and ending up thinking of her as Leann’s grandmother instead, concluding it was she who spoke to me of God.

Throughout the next several weeks, she kept telling me about God, repeating things I had learned from my Christian home. She never lied to me (there is so much more I could explain on this note) and she was so incredibly kind to me. I could not believe anyone would love me, a washed-out drug dealer, my cheek bones sunken in from all the methamphetamine, my eyes wild and crazed, my long hair dyed jet black, my mirrored sunglasses keeping anyone from seeing the insane cesspools of my eyes, and yet love me she surely did.

I would break down and weep like a baby, tears spilling below my mirrored glasses, blinding me, making it hard to see the road, and I would ask her in stunned amazement, “Why are you being so nice to me?” She never gave me an answer. She didn’t have to.

I asked her again and again what her name was, but she would never tell me. So I told her I would just call her “Mom,” to which she simply replied, “That’s fine.”

And so “Mom” and I rode around together for the next several weeks, she teaching me about God, pointing out many different Christian churches and loving me like I never have been loved before or since. It did not matter that I could not see her. I knew she was there: I could hear her, feel her at my side, never lying to me, always gentle, always loving, though very stern when she needed to be.

One day, she had me picking up litter beside the railroad tracks. She was teaching me that by helping others, that is where true happiness is found. In short, she was teaching me to be a human being again, rather than the rabid animal to which my lifestyle had reduced me. I was not prepared for her simple question that day. She asked me, “Why doesn’t he give his life to God?”

I spit “Why?” at her, my mental voice a snarl.

She was not at all ruffled, calmly replying, “Why not?”

I thought for a moment, taking a momentary break from the task at hand. Here I was, standing beside the railroad tracks picking up trash, a man who had lost everything. I had no wife anymore. I had no family to call my own. I had no friends. The people who were supposedly my friends cared only about my drugs, not about me. I had no job. I had nowhere to turn. I had absolutely nothing to lose. And so I said the first real prayer I had prayed in years, the first prayer I had prayed since I was a boy.

“Dear Jesus, I pray you would come into my heart and my life.” Then I paused for a moment and emphatically added, “But I am NOT going to church! In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

Well, (smile) two weeks later I was in church. But there is still something else I want to tell you before I conclude this shortened account of all the many things that led me to being the Christian I am today.

I made a deal with God. I knew he “was not cool” with my smoking and selling pot (she—his messanger—told me that on no uncertain terms), so I told him if he would just let me sell off what I had left I would get out of the business for good. Apparently this was cool with him, and that is exactly what happened. I kept my promise.

But a week went by and I still had not sold it all yet, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I was the only one in the house who could not party anymore and had not smoked a joint that entire week. So I decided I was going to indulge myself. After all, I did not feel any different—I did not feel like I was a Christian, ya know?

So I walked down the sidewalk to the construction site where Jimmy, my roomate, worked, and when I was safely hidden behind the cement walls, I fired up my bowl. I had only packed it about half full of weed, but it did the trick. (By the way, this was the last time I ever smoked marijuana; cigarettes—the hardest addiction I have ever given up—did not depart until several weeks later.)

Just as I began to cop a buzz, the voices suddenly began to intensify in my mind. They did not get louder really, it was just that I was not able to get them out of my head. It was like they had more control over me. By now, I was really sick and tired of listening to them all the time. It was then I heard her voice say, “Even when he gets stoned he listens to the good voices.” This pronouncement did not line up. She had clearly told me that smoking pot was something that was not right. I did not believe this voice—I knew it was not her.

So I decided I really was not going to put up with it any longer. And what do you suppose I said? “Shut up.”

And what do you suppose I heard?

“You’re not GOD, HUMAN!” It SPAT these words out at me, venom dripping off every syllable as though I were just a tiny speck of dust: as though I were absolutely nothing at all. “God” was a contemptuous snarl, but “human” was especially stressed to unmistakably communicate to me how inconsequential I really was—an intimidation factor that worked well. (And, as an interesting aside, do you notice it addressed me directly: “you’re” rather than “he’s”?)

The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and right then and there I realized the true identity of the other voices that would pretend to be her voice. The other voices, the voices of my roommates, the voices of the “thoughts” of others, these were the voices of demons. In sum, I never could read other people’s thoughts, though the voices I heard were no less real for all of that and it certainly seemed as though they could read my thoughts. I wasted no time getting to the house and I was literally trembling with fright. Demons are nothing to mess with!

I do not know who “Mom” was. She seemed to be an ancestral spirit, but much of Christian theology leaves little room for this explanation. Many would conclude she was one of God’s angels, sent by God in response to the prayers of the many people who were praying for me, which could likely be the case. Whoever she was, she did not seem to be at all concerned with taking any credit: she had a mission to perform and that was to love me like no one has.

Would I have chosen Christianity? No. It went against my every instinct, against my every grain. But I was nonetheless transformed. Perhaps Max Lucado says it best when he writes, “God loves you just where you are, but He refuses to leave you there.”

God bless,
Eric

P.S. The story does not end here, of course. In fact, it is still going on all these years later, albeit a little quieter and more sanely. Want to know what happened immediately after I got back to the house? See Sin Stained Shards of Stained Glass Windows.