From a very young age my biggest dream was to have my own horse ranch. I started very young to pursue my dream by participating with the Future Farmers of America. I won awards for my sheep and cows and I judged dairy cows in national competition. As a kid we moved around a lot as my dad’s jobs dictated.
I started in college and was building on my dream with a major in forestry and agriculture. As with all dreams I needed money to continue and because they promised to pay for education I joined the Navy.
Wow what a twist ..I join to go to school, they sent me to school to be.. a physician assistant in the surgical department.
Here I am a simple country boy used to birthing cows and slinging fodder, then to be a highly sterilized, scrubbed up, gloved and gowned surgical room assistant!!.
Two years into my four-year hitch, I was newly married, I got a major shock – I was sent overseas to Viet Nam.
Now I was raised in a Christian church but I had never really given much thought to any thing spiritual since I was a boy. By this time I was partying daily and the drugs and alcohol were filling the empty spaces so I didn’t have to think about it.
While I was in Vietnam I saw much death much suffering and knew there was more to life than the this gut wrenching pain and the drugs and alcohol I was using to dull my mind were only a temporary fix.
I met this man named Bible Jonesey. I realized that I was in need of what he had.
At first I didn’t know what it was he had so I hung around him for a while and soon it became apparent that what he had was the love of Jesus. I asked Jesus to take me back, since I had strayed so far away from Him from when I was a kid. To show my commitment to Him I was baptized in the South China Sea.
Several months later I was sent back stateside.
When I got back home I had some very devastating situations that faced me.
I was angry and I felt the Lord had changed. I decided I knew better than the truth I had been living and allowed my faith to be compromised.
Two years later the stress and anger had gotten the better of me. I ended up in the hospital with huge ulcers in my stomach and intestines. They removed big portions of my insides and declared I was disabled and would never work again.
I knew I could never work a conventional job again because I needed to take frequent breaks, eat every two hours and my strength didn’t rejuvenate the way other people’s does.
So I started my own business. My business was very successful but I was still very empty. I knew I needed something, I just didn’t know what.
Seventeen years later, I moved my family to Hawaii sure that was the answer I needed, but instead I found more partying more emptiness and more trouble than I could handle.
After a few years, my wife and I split up, my business went falouee; I had broken my leg and I was sleeping in my van.
Then I met this man who had something I vaguely remembered having years ago but now it was just a dim memory. I knew that I knew it was what I had been looking for all these years.. the Love of Jesus.
Jesus hadn’t changed I had. I choose to walk away from His love. I thought I had left my military days behind until the desert storm guys came back from their fighting.
I became angry and starting raging; lashing out at the world. I didn’t know why. I asked God “Isn’t there any help for guys like me:” The next day I found a book. It was written by a guy named Chuck Dean. It told me about a Christian group called Point Man International Ministries. I reluctantly went to a meeting and met many men who could relate to many of the same issues I was dealing with. I choose to allow the anger and discouragement to take me to this pathetic place where only God could rescue me from.
The guys at PMIM helped me to put Jesus in the rightful place He deserved and to truly put my past behind. I was at first afraid to believe He could heal the painful memories of amputations I had performed and standing ankle deep in blood every day but it wasn’t long before His love penetrated my fears and reassured me that His love endures forever. He died so I can be healed mind soul and body and for my sins. He gave His life so I could live a full life, free from the limiting life of sin.
Now His joy is with me daily and I am confident in His love. I know that I will spend all eternity with Him and I no longer have any empty spaces that need to be filled because my heart is overflowing with the Love of Jesus.
How is your heart today is it full of the love of Jesus?
If not, would you like to ask Jesus to come into your heart and fill all those empty, aching places?
Dear God,
I know I have sinned,
but I believe you love me
and sent your son,
Jesus Christ
to suffer and die in my place to pay for all my sins.
I invite you, Lord Jesus,
to come into my heart
right now and cleanse me from all my sins.
Make me the kind of person you created me to be. Thank you
for hearing my prayer
and for coming into my life.
For God so Loved the world
He gave His only Son, that
Whosoever believes in Him
Should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
John 3:16