It has always struck me as funny how people’s image of you is never the image you have of yourself. Whenever I tell people here at the ministry my testimony, they are always a little bit shocked.  Most here have only known me for perhaps the past four to six years and when I tell them that I used to dabble in drugs and not live for Jesus, they are like “What?!”  Even Pastor Jim, when I first got here and I told him some of my testimony said, “Well my goodness, I thought you were a good church boy all along!”

I was raised with my brother and sister in a normal town in Illinois with the most wonderful Christian parents and a foundation in the church. But, as most of you know that doesn’t mean you are on an automatic road to stay with what you are raised. There were many times as a child where I felt very close to God and others where I just didn’t pay much attention.  It was as though it was just an everyday part of our family life, but I didn’t really think that much about it. I do remember that I always felt a little different than my good and faithful parents, and even my wonderful sister and brother.  I always felt like the odd duck out.  But something I experienced in October of 2007 profoundly set me on a course that changed my entire perspective on life, my spiritual heart and the supernatural forces that are at work around us, all the time.

The reason I am here today is because of something that happened to me when I was a junior in High school.  I was a big, 17 year old, football lineman, a varsity starter, well liked at my school and basically quite normal. I played sports, did my homework and most days I really, really enjoyed going out and smoking weed with my friends.

It all began my birthday weekend of 2007 and we all wanted to go out and get some really good weed to celebrate.  After purchasing the best stuff we could possibly find we immediately went to find a place to smoke.  We didn’t know that the marijuana we had purchased had been laced with something.  Whatever it was would launch me into a downward spiral that went to the deepest darkest places I feel the spirit realm has to offer. Something began that night that so deeply terrified me I didn’t come back to reality for probably three months. You have to imagine, I’m not saying my life was just affected for three months I am saying I felt like I wasn’t in the real world for three months.  I was in a dark, demonic world seeking as hard as I possibly could to get out! The only English words I can use to describe what I was feeling every minute of every day was absolute SHEER TERROR. I was in a dark supernatural PIT and couldn’t get out.

I smoked more that night than I had ever smoked in my entire life and I had been smoking every day a couple of times a day for quite a long time.  Soon we all began to see that we were starting to hallucinate. Even though we were very high, we knew enough to understand that this shouldn’t be happening. We knew that weed was not a hallucinogen.  All of us were seeing things that weren’t really there, experiencing things that weren’t really happening.  My buddies were all having hilarious visions and we played along, laughing with each other.  Later on, when I walked into our basement at my home I was even imagining penguins walking around me. It was all fun and games until everyone went to sleep…

When I was growing up I was always bound by this feeling of fear and even as a little kid about 3 to 5 years old, if I went to stay at someone else’s home I would get this feeling at night; this absolute overwhelming sense of fear.  I would have to go home.  It wasn’t an ‘OH I want my mommy’ fear, it was deeper than that. It was an evil, deep darkness that you wouldn’t expect a young child like that to feel. It had been years since I had felt it, but out of nowhere this drug, whatever it was, triggered that same, all-encompassing terror.  It was so overwhelming that no matter what I thought or tried, I couldn’t shake it! I remember tugging and pulling on one of my friends as he kept trying to sleep, begging him to just stay awake with me so I wasn’t alone. Here I was, this big 17 year old boy, trembling in fear and pleading with all of his might, “Please stay awake with me! Please!! There was no pride left within me, all that was left was a nightmare.

My buddy tried to stay up with me but would quickly fall right back to sleep. I literally felt as though the whole world had left me. All the light was gone and I was being sucked down into this tunnel of blackness. It was here, in this darkness, that a cunning enemy, a demon, would begin his attack on all that I knew and understood.  It is good to remember, that fear is fuel for the enemy.  We are all faced with demons at some point in our life, but it is the fear that will give the darkness its strength.  My terror during this drug induced, powerful moment in my life, gave the enemy all the strength that was needed.  A battle began that night. The most painful, exhausting, battle I could imagine.  But as you know now, it the Lord who will ALWAYS be VICTORIOUS!

(To be continued)