My spiritual autobiography

My mother introduced me to Jesus when I was very young- my earliest memory of expressing faith in Jesus was when I was about 5 years old. My father used to put me to bed and stay with me — you know, he’d sit on the side of the bed until I was asleep— and I remember telling him one time that he didn’t have to sit there anymore because Jesus was there… I was convinced that Jesus was there with me- to that, my dad just said “what??”—- so that’s my first memory of my faith in Jesus.

At around that time my parents were divorced, and then within a year or so, my mom took us 4 kids from Los Angeles up to Washington with her new boyfriend, who would soon become my new step-dad— a man I could not accept as my dad until much later in life. So the divorce, subsequent move a couple states away, and this new dad in the family really put me into a personal crisis in my early years. Not just personal but our whole family was thrown into significant crisis— though we were able to move into a new house in a beautiful area of western Washington, our financial situation was awful for a while, we had some very lean years- I remember going to the back of grocery stores with my step-dad to rummage through the large garbage bins and pick through whatever packages of food to take home that were expired but still edible— it was a rough time and it only engendered even greater feelings of anger toward my step-dad and my real dad! So those early years threw me into a shell— I crawled into myself and resolved to push the world out— this became the root of all kinds of issues that I learned about and had to deal with much later in life, before and after I got married— from mistrust to misunderstanding the heart of Father God, to deep-seated depression, and anger. All of this just translated into sadness for me from my childhood, but God looked at my faith and he did something.

In 3rd through 5th grade, I went to a private Christian school and a number of significant events happened that would forever cement my faith in Christ and my belief in the Word. During those years, I was zealous in my devotion to God, I memorized probably a hundred verses, and I especially loved singing out loud to the Lord. I had a little one-speaker tape recorder that I used to pop in my mom’s Maranatha tapes, and I would turn it up as loud as I could and sing unashamedly at the top of my lungs- worship and the Word were the one place I felt peace in my soul. At some point a missionary came to the school and he held a time of prayer for each of us students individually. When it was my turn to walk up, he suddenly let out a loud cry and turned around. I stopped dead in my tracks wondering what I did! He took a minute or two to compose himself and he turned around with tears streaming down his face and said that he saw a vision of me on a boat in SE Asia preaching the Word, and thousands were coming to the Lord. He also said I would marry a singer— which I had forgotten about until I married my wife, a singer, who’s first purchase after we were married was a “singer” sewing machine— when I saw that, I remembered what that missionary had prophesied. Anyway, when that happened, I really did not know what to make of it, and I actually came to despise it because all the kids in the school teased me from that time on, calling me “preacher Paul”- I hated it.

The second significant thing that happened during that time was toward the end of my time there- so in 5th grade— all of the fire for worship and the Word had died down, and I started to become disinterested in worship, the Bible, even God. During a particular chapel worship time, I was sitting, thinking about other things, and I saw in my mind’s eye the words Revelation 3:15. The words were on fire. They started small and grew larger and larger, coming at me like an expanding, fiery movie credit. There was no escaping these words, so I hurriedly grabbed my Bible, the King James Version in those days, and I looked up the Scripture. It said, “I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.” I continued reading, verse 16: “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.” I stopped right there, closed my Bible, shrugged my shoulders, and thought, “well, if God is just going to spit me out then I’m done following him.”

The third and final significant thing that happened around that time was when my real dad came up to visit us for a weekend. My dad was an alcoholic. The night after he came, I was sleeping and I began dreaming that I was sitting in a bar. I could see all the bottles of alcohol on several layers of shelves as I sat there. Then I heard a hideous, mocking laugh in my right ear. It was such a jarring and loud laughter that I awoke and sat straight up. As I opened my eyes, I saw a flash of dim lightning from right to left that prompted me to turn to my left, and there was a demon face looking at me with an evil grin. It had pale, reddish skin, and a certain glow to its face that I can only describe as dim and fading—most of all it scared me half to death! I tried to scream but was unable to make a noise. I saw its eyes physically move from looking at me to looking behind me, then it disappeared— and I screamed like a banshee. To that note, later in life I came to believe that the demon saw an angel who came to my side, so it took off. Anyway, both my mom and dad ran into the room. I tried to explain what happened, my dad thought there was someone outside the window, but my mom knew what was going on and just started praying for me.

So these three major - I would say life-changing— events took a seat somewhere deep in my soul and for the next 11 years of my life, I walked away from God and just did my own thing— my teen years were just a rebellious party of drinking, bullheaded stubbornness and complete disregard for God, which carried over until I turned 21.

Even though I was not following God in anyway during those years, those events from my childhood started to loom large within myself. When I turned 21, I naturally started going to bars with my buddies. That lasted about two months. Every time I sat in the bar, all I could think about was that dream I had, and then, as I looked around at the people around me, all I could hear was their bitterness— they hated this, they hated that— they would talk about their wives in demeaning ways— I heard nothing but bitterness— finally, one night I was at the bar drinking, and God spoke to me— he said, “do you see each of these men I have shown you? You will be like them if you continue on without me, but I have a better life waiting for you if you will accept it.” So I went home that night drunk, and I fell on the floor and cried out to Jesus— I said, “Lord, I believed in you, but why did you spit me out of your mouth?” I was so broken inside. At that moment, the Holy Spirit came upon me and I would call this a miracle- my mind was made crystal clear—from drunken cloudiness to perfect clarity- my drunkenness totally disappeared, and I felt the Lord say to me, “my son, I never spit you out… remember my word to you, Revelation 3:15. You read verse 16 and stopped, so you believed all this time that I cast you out.” Then the Holy Spirit let me see all the times in my teenage life where I should have died or ruined my life, but he was protecting me and keeping me safe. After that, I felt the Lord tell me to continue reading from Revelation 3:15 through to verse 22, and I was amazed, comforted, and encouraged. I opened the door and let Jesus in, and my life drastically changed from that point to this day.