I Met God in Hell E-Book

Tim Ehmann

• Herausgeber: BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 433

Beschreibung

On September 1, 2000, Tim Ehmann, a wild, thirty-five-year touring rock 'n' roll musician steeped in the underground entertainment industry, overdosed from shooting too many successive speedballs of heroin and crack. He collapsed and died in his upstairs bedroom. Within moments he found himself in a place of inconceivable horror and absolute terror—at the very gates of hell. To his shock, Tim heard and saw many of the old friends he had played and partied with over the years who had previously died untimely deaths from those wild decades. Fully knowing his just fate, lost for eternity, unexpectedly God met Tim in hell and pulled him up into His protective arms and into the wonders of heaven. Tim was shown his calling and destiny, and resurrected seven hours later. This miracle-packed book reveals a God whose love proves so outta control that He continually chased and supernaturally protected a man bent on destruction through countless surreal situations with no other possible explanation for his survival. Since that day, Tim has been experiencing God with ongoing explosive encounters, while being led on many dangerous and sometimes comical front-line adventures with God. Tim Ehmann has a unique friendship with God that shows just how fun and exciting God and heaven can be!

Leseprobe

BroadStreet Publishing Group, LLC

Racine, Wisconsin, USA

www.broadstreetpublishing.com

I MET GOD IN HELL!

Copyright © 2015 Tim Ehmann

ISBN-13: 978-1-4245-5119-4 (soft cover)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4245-5120-0 (e-book)

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher.

I Met God In Hell! is a trademark of Tim Ehmann.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture is from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version, Cambridge, 1769. Public Domain. Scripture marked MSG are from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © by Eugene H. Peterson 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Scripture marked NIV are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cover by Dan Pitts and Chris Garborg

Interior by Katherine Lloyd

Stock or custom editions of BroadStreet Publishing titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, ministry, fundraising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail [email protected].

Printed in the United States of America

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DEDICATION

To my Papa-Yahweh, Jesus, and Holy Spirit—my best friends, and Your amazing power that keeps me alive!

Also to my family, children, and grandchildren, and all those who encouraged me to finally write my story—I’m forever grateful.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

PART ONE: OUT OF THE DARKNESS

1ENCOUNTER

2THE UNSEEN PERIMETER FENCE

3UNWELCOME “FRIENDS”

4SEX, DRUGS, AND ROCK ’N’ ROLL!

5HOLLYWOOD DREAMS

6REBELLION AND ANARCHY

7JUST LIVIN’ THE LIFE

8ADDICTION 24/7

9INTO HELL

10HE’S A KEEPER!

PART TWO: INTO THE LIGHT

11GO GET TIMMY NOW!

12ASK GOD!

13YOU JUST GOTTA BELIEVE!

14GOD’S TRAINING PROGRAM

15IT’S YOUR TIME!

16GOD AND HEAVEN ARE FUN!

17THEY DON’T KNOW ME

18THE FAITH WALK

19THE HOLLYWOOD ASSIGNMENT

20WALK TOWARD DESTINY

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PREFACE

In this book some names have been changed to protect the privacy of others, though the story of my life is true.

Because Almighty God, the creator of everything seen and unseen, often chooses to reveal Himself to me at different times through one of the distinct persons of His Divine Godhead—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—I have chosen to mainly refer to Him as “God” in order to simplify the flow of the story. However, at times I will specifically refer to one of the distinct persons because He chooses to interact with me through that person.

God is the “One God in Three Persons,” otherwise known as the “Holy Trinity.” Each person of His Godhead is coequal, coexistent, and coeternal as revealed throughout His written Word, the Bible, from the first pages of Genesis where He said, “Let us make man in our image and likeness” through to Revelation, where he defines Himself as “the First and the Last.” Often referred to as “a mystery,” difficult to grasp through human reason alone, He becomes more understandable and knowable only through His personal revelation of Himself to you.

This book shares things that God personally taught me about Himself after He got a hold of me—yet there is so much more to God than just what I know and have experienced. Get to know Him. Let Him teach you personally. Use spiritual discernment on your journey. Most importantly, make your life a love affair with the Lord!

At first, I didn’t want to add Scripture references to this book or fill it with “Christian-ese” language because that’s not how I usually speak. It’s also never what God wanted from me or how He intended for me to represent Him. He wouldn’t even allow me to be seen carrying around a Bible or wearing a cross around my neck, displaying typical Christian symbols to the world. For the majority of my walk, He’s asked me to stay out of most churches so there was little chance of confusion that could hinder the already pure and accurate words of the revelations I receive from Him—just as I’ve received from the very beginning.

My call from Him is not to address the church but the world, those not even looking or asking for Him, just as it had been with me when He made His first astounding unannounced grand entrance into my life—for which I’m forever grateful!

God is in hot, passionate pursuit for this world, which He loves with an outta-control love! Prop items, popular Christian-speak, and the usual status-quo Christian representations tend to turn people off after they’ve seen and experienced what’s been popularly modeled to them as “Christian.” Much misrepresentation of God and who He really is has been commercialized, institutionalized, drastically watered down, and stripped of its truth and dynamite power; it’s not at all what God originally intended.

Many people have bought their “fire insurance” by saying the typical salvation prayer, thinking they’re saved, packing their suitcases, and getting ready to go in a self-centered, quick escape that leaves behind what God truly yearns for. His heart cries out for the world to know Him, and He wants His children to love and trust Him enough to put their relationship with Him first and start walking in heaven’s unlimited supply and eternity with Him now—to change this world. Yet so many live in fear, unbelief, cowardice, compromise, and false assurance, propped up by religion, religious systems, false beliefs, and good works. That’s just false light that looks good; it only serves to extinguish the Spirit of God, the true saving relationship with Him, and what He’s really saying and trying to show and teach us personally.

The Scriptures, also known as the Holy Bible, are the reliable, inspired Word of God (in their original form). God’s Word is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, and a hammer of Holy-Spirit-breathed truth that will never fail and will always stand the test of time. God even says, “If they speak not according to this Word, it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20 KJV). The Bible brings absolute truth and light that you can trust and learn from, because God’s Word never changes. It’s also His initial love letter to a world that He wants to know Him, but it’s meant to lead us to know what’s most important, the living author and “Word” Himself, in a personal relationship.

God also speaks to us in our everyday language in amazing ways. Without that one-on-one, two-way personal relationship with Him, we’ll never really know where our true eternal position stands, and we’ll never know our true identity or reach His great destiny for us in this life.

Hearing and discerning His voice to you is the primary reason for a relationship with Him, and it is absolutely vital in these days more than ever. God was always meant to be your primary teacher, encourager, helper, and personal friend above anything else that calls for you, your heart, and your attention.

Everything in my life story “passes the test” for those who require scriptural backup of the validity that it’s really God who’s been working in my life. But then again, some of it may be new to you, and it may leave some staunch theologically bound Bible bangers ready to lynch me for telling it like it is. That’s okay. I learned a long time ago that it’s only God’s opinion of me that matters.

God will never contradict His already spoken Word, but the layers of personal revelation He wants to give you, communicated directly by His Spirit, go to much deeper levels than you could ever imagine. He is a big God, and what He does is ever creative, new, and different, but always redemptive and founded in truth and love. It’s who He is and what He’s all about, and that will never change.

Let God out of your box and beyond the limits you may have confined yourself in, and let God stretch you into the depths, layers, and realms of revelation of who He really is. Many of you are going to need it as you read my story.

My best advice is always to ask God for yourself and let Him personally teach, confirm, and show you Himself. What He’ll show you will be completely accurate—and He wants to share Himself with you.

I finally relented and added Scripture in this book, only to serve as confirmation of my experiences with God as a solid foundation for those who want trustworthy validity that it is truly Him speaking to me. For you:

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms. (Ephesians 1:17–20 NIV)

The walk of a true child of God is always a faith walk. That’s all that truly pleases God. It’s an exciting, risk-taking adventure founded in step-by-step trust of who God is and what He wants to show you through what He is personally saying to you.

May my story stretch your faith and stir you up to new levels to dare to believe God for, as you experience the goodness, trustworthiness, and faithfulness of this amazing, almighty God who knows no bounds, in ways you never thought possible.

With regard to all of what God is about to do on this earth, one thing I know for sure is that “you ain’t seen nothing yet, baby!”

– Tim Ehmann

INTRODUCTION

I see both realities: heaven and hell.

I’ve been there.

– TIM EHMANN

On the night of September 1, 2000, I overdosed from shooting too many successive speedballs of heroin and crack. I collapsed in my upstairs bedroom, my heart stopped, and my spirit left my lifeless body. Within moments, I was in hell. It is without a doubt the most dreadful place to experience—and it is real. But it was where I belonged. After all, it really was my choice at the time.

I met God in hell.

I wasn’t looking or asking for Him, nor had I ever cared to. He made it no secret, though, that all He wanted was just me. That alone surprised me. Why would He want me? What could He possibly see in me? I was just a hell-bent, self-centered show-off rock ’n’ roll musician who lived only for all the drugs, women, and possessions I could obtain. By that time in my life, I didn’t care about anyone or anything—especially about looking for God.

Everyone I knew back then is shocked that I’m alive today. Most of my rock ’n’ roll friends died way too young. Untimely deaths. The lengths God went to just to get me were crazy and wild! This God truly is 100 percent love, and I can assure you there are no bounds that can hinder Him and no place He cannot go to find you. There’s no way you can hold Him back or stop His outrageous love for you, no matter who you are or what you’ve done. His is a persistent, pursuing love that’s totally radical and unintimidated by anything—even your unbelief in it.

My life is a miracle story. It started with miracles, and the miracles have continued all the way through it. What I’ve learned is, no one else has the power or authority to save you from that awful place, hell. In fact, God is the only one who can save you from yourself too.

My story is just one example of so many that reveal the true character of God and the depth of His passionate, unrestrained, and unstoppable love for us. God is love, and I am living proof that His love is always outta control!

Part One

OUT OF THE DARKNESS…

“Old life” rocker in the 1980s

1

ENCOUNTER

This is for you, son. Use it, use it!

I’m giving you My very heart.

– GOD

It was March 2010, ten years after the fateful day I died and went to hell. I was spending a quiet evening alone at my home in Dormont, a suburb of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The cold weather had finally eased after a long, bitter winter, and the beginning of spring was melting the last of the snow and liberating the trees and flowers to bloom again.

I anticipated a trip to Chicago for a meeting I’d been invited to attend by the speaker. After packing my bags, I reviewed the itinerary one last time. The trip would start with an eight-hour drive, and I planned to leave that night so I could arrive in time for the first early morning session. Satisfied that I was ready, I lay down to get a few hours of rest.

I settled onto my bed, a simple air mattress on the floor at the time, and talked with God for a while, praying over the trip ahead. But as I wondered what might be ahead for me, my mind wouldn’t relax. Finally, a thick blanket of peace fell over me. That’s when I noticed that a tiny angel had come into the room. It flew over and sat on my left shoulder. I’d seen this same angel before, just sitting there quietly and hanging out with me.

God had been letting me see His angels quite often by now, and their presence always reminded me that He was with me and watching out for me. As well, they also came for special purposes. As I lay there pondering why this particular angel had come and what God might be up to, the bedroom door behind my head suddenly flew open with a loud thwack against the wall.

I looked back to see what had happened. To my astonishment, the entire doorway was illuminated with a brilliant white light, and it emanated powerfully into my small bedroom. I squinted, trying to see into the near-blinding light, and there I found the awesome being of a big, beautiful angel. It stood right on the threshold of the doorway, its size filling the entire doorframe. I lay there frozen, not daring to move and wondering what would happen next.

Then I became aware of the sound of music coming into the room. I followed the sound, turning my gaze back toward the foot of my bed, and saw the window on the opposite wall also radiating brilliantly. As I looked into it, I could see what looked like hundreds of angels outside the window, jockeying for a position to peek into my room. That’s when I realized they were the ones singing. The music was unbelievably beautiful, and it flowed effortlessly right into the room. As I listened more intently to their amazing unearthly song, I distinctly heard the words of their repeated chorus. Covered in a supernatural peace, I lay there still, trying to take it all in. Soon I just knew the name of their song. It was called “Eulogy,” and they were praising Jesus.

The music itself filtered right through the light beaming into the room. Its sweet rhythm flowed through the light like it was alive. Yeah! This is pretty cool! I excitedly thought. Then I became aware of movement directly above me. I looked up and saw a giant hand slowly come into the room—right through the ceiling. I was in awe but felt no fear; the atmosphere was too full with such tranquil peace. I recognized this familiar hand, as I’d seen it before on several occasions. It was the hand of God.

His hand was cupped and in it He held a huge multi-faceted white diamond. It too was brilliantly lit up, and it glowed with sparkling brilliance, pulsating and vibrating with a life all its own. Probably two feet wide by two feet deep, it was cut in the shape of a heart. Slowly and steadily, God’s hand floated down from the ceiling toward me in a soft, rhythmic flow in perfect time with the angels’ serenade and paused right above my belly. It opened wide to reveal the gem’s wondrous living beauty to me, and I gazed at it in awe, my heart beating wildly with excitement.

I heard the voice of God say, “This is for you, son. Use it, use it! I’m giving you my very heart.” Then His hand just dove seamlessly into my belly and He released that heavenly gem directly inside of me!

When He gently pulled His emptied hand out, it again floated slowly, rhythmically back up and right through the ceiling. The motion of His hand flowing with the angels’ chorus was so tranquil, smooth, and free, just like the flow of Heaven is, with nothing out of sync. The angels outside watching through the window still sang their beautiful Eulogy song, and the angel in my bedroom doorway continued standing there, still emanating that brilliant heavenly light powerfully into the room. About eight minutes later it all faded away, with the big angel leaving last.

There I was on my bed, alone again. The bedroom door remained wide open though. That in itself was a revelation to me: the sign of the “Open Door,” another name for Jesus—and a message God often repeats to me.

God often gives me love gifts like these, but this one was quite special. After that awesome divine appointment, I was intrigued. I know from experience that there’s always profound and precise meaning in every minute detail of what God does or says. It’s full of revelation and layers of more treasure gifts from Him. Sometimes He even continues to give more understanding of those deeper layers over years throughout life.

God’s far from boring, and He likes to play treasure hunt games with His children. Like a big kid having the time of His life, He’ll entice you along with wildly creative clues to lead you to the grand reveal of each and every treasure from Him, if you’ll just stay in the pursuit. He doesn’t hide His treasures from us; He hides them for us. Sometimes I don’t know who gets more excited when I figure them out. He loves to watch us have those “aha” moments when we discover them, and He doesn’t make His treasures too hard to find. It’s all part of the fun and adventurous love relationship He wants to have with us.

After this special encounter with God, the more I thought on every detail, the more He revealed. I just needed to find a dictionary to look up the word “eulogy.” I wanted to see if it provided further clues to what the word really meant. I learned that its root meaning is “to praise” and that a eulogy is typically an event performed in order to express words of love, gratitude, and remembrance of someone on a special occasion. This only added to the wow factor of it all. I’d discovered another deep layer of what God was saying to me. Then I realized that God had considered this gift-giving event such a special occasion that He sent a stunning herald angel with a backup choir to celebrate it with Him. God is really cool!

Even the angels love to watch in awe of the things God is currently doing. They’re especially curious and still ever learning themselves about the creative ways He continually showers His love, mercy, and grace on His most beloved creation—people. His love for us never stops, and everything He does is new and different just to specially reveal Himself to us. God loves to give His children gifts, and with them always comes some sort of special impartation of Himself. He’ll lets us have, see, and use His gifts even before we go to live in heaven. These gifts are meant for the individual, and often for others as well.

There’s no way I could describe in a book all that I’ve experienced so far. I’ve had so many encounters with God; they’re innumerable and perpetual. How do you describe twenty thousand or so encounters with God per year? They come when I’m awake, and they come when I’m asleep—in visions, dreams, and awesome events where I know I’m actually there. Some mornings I wake up in heaven. Either I’m caught up in heaven with God, or the realm of heaven is with me, encompassing me in my bedroom as I first open my eyes. That familiar bright heavenly light surrounds me, and God’s awesome presence and peace fills the room. It’s one of the many ways He likes to greet me first thing in the morning.

What many people don’t know is that God is not only righteous and holy, but He’s also wild, free, and fun! He has a great sense of humor, even telling jokes sometimes, and can be incredibly funny. He loves laughter and joy. He also loves adventure and sharing with us the things of His heavenly kingdom, where all things are possible on a daily basis—and it’s available to us now.

I’ve learned to stay open to what God wants to show me, because I’ve found it rarely comes close to what my limited mind or natural reason can understand. He most often teaches me about Himself and His ways by choosing to vividly show me what He sees, thinks, and knows.

One thing I know is, God’s heart is crying out for His children to come home to Him. Perpetually seeking after each one of us is the full-time most important task on God’s agenda. Sometimes it’s hard to understand that we are truly His main focus; we don’t realize what great worth we are to God. He’s always demonstrating how deeply He loves and cares for me, but He also shows me His love for this world and its people, which He made for such a great purpose. God loves us with an outta-control love. It’s like He can’t help Himself.

Because He places such a high value on us, we are a major prize, caught in a mostly unseen battle between two kingdoms, light and dark, good and evil, and we are fiercely contended for. But God has a place available right inside Him that’s safe, peaceful, and pure, where we can know the truth of what’s really going on, walk in His protection, and rest in complete assured trust that we’re forever loved and already home.

2

THE UNSEEN PERIMETER FENCE

He is the God who does it all—

that’s a true salvation!

– TIM EHMANN

My life didn’t start out with my knowing and experiencing all these things. My story is one of an outrageously determined God who wouldn’t stop chasing after me my whole life—though I sure wasn’t looking for Him or asking for any of this. While I went about my days doing things my own wild way, He pursued me, sovereignly protected me, kept calling me, and patiently waited…for a long time. He gave me a lengthy amount of rope to run on (much more, it seems, than He gives many others), and I ran it out all the way to the end—and then some. But no matter what I did or how much I didn’t believe in Him, He never stopped chasing after me.

It was kind of like having a loving, protective dad allowing his wild, rambunctious kid to run himself silly in every direction, getting away with all kinds of things, for as long as he needed to, but in a yard so big that he couldn’t see that he had a high protective perimeter fence keeping him safe the whole time. I took my unhindered freedom to the max; that is, for forty-four years I ran and my watchful, heavenly Dad patiently waited until I was all run out doing things my own way. I believe the bottom line to my story is that if God could save me, He can save anyone.

Throughout my entire life of running at breakneck speed down the wrong roads, I was continually covered by an unseen hand of protection through peril after peril, most of which were admittedly self-inflicted. The protection He had around me defied any natural explanation for how I could have survived them. Most of the events were just surreal.

Yet even in all my stupid stuff, I was allowed to run. My lifelong vocation of being a touring rock ’n’ roll musician only added to the crazy opportunities and trouble I could find. I got away with a lot. Nothing ever seemed to touch or stop me, no matter what I did. Because of this, eventually a godlike complex took a hold of me, and this made me even more brazen and bold. I started to believe I was just invincible. I should have died multiple times through those first decades of my life. Even when I saw some of my fairly young friends dying, I never thought that would happen to me. I never gave much consideration to death, though everything I did, every day, was always on the edge of it.

Unbelievably, this relentless God who had been chasing after me my whole life—the one I didn’t even want to know—also chased after me straight into hell, which is where I went after I overdosed on drugs and died. Somehow He was determined (peculiarly confident, in fact) that He was going to get me, and to get me to the planned destiny He had intended for me since before my birth. His stubborn, outta-control love for me just wouldn’t let me go.

Many people believe God is all about judgment and condemning people, but that certainly wasn’t the way I came to know Him. I knew who I was and what I stood for, and I lived it every day to the max. That included writing and performing some pretty nasty songs about Him and inciting others through my music and lifestyle. I loved the shock reaction it brought, and many in the crowds really ate it up. I didn’t believe in God. I didn’t know Him, and most of all, I didn’t care to.

Despite who I was and the wild way I was living, this unseen God kept patiently drawing me in, piece by piece, with His never-to-be-out-done, relentless love. He didn’t do it with judgment, which no doubt would have made me run even farther from Him. Though I was living so wrongly and even ignorantly inciting hate against Him, it was His consistent, repeated demonstration of love for me over and over that finally proved irresistible in the end. God’s steadfast love is the only thing I know that can truly break the hardest, most crusted over, cold or apathetic rebel’s heart to Him. Yes, God even loves wild rebels! He knows and understands them well, because they are so much like Him.

Most people eventually give up on the wild rebels in their life, but God often sees these people as having the greatest potential and providing His best opportunities. In fact, I’m convinced He made me with this type of personality. Rebels are passionate about their independence and freedom to do whatever it is they believe in. They also tend to be adventurous and don’t like to be restrained or controlled. They question everything and have no problem going against the status quo, and they usually don’t care what others think of them or what it costs.

But God just sees all the juicy possibilities waiting right in front of Him. When God gets a hold of a wild rebel’s passionate, determined heart and turns it toward Him, there’s no end to what He can do with that person. He’s thrilled, and He greatly enjoys the entire process even when He has to wait a long time.

The Bible is full of rebel types. Not many of the great Bible personalities started out as what you’d call “good people.” Some were outright rotten. But these people once considered “rebels, rabble, and rubble,” often throwaways, discounted or maybe even odd ones to the world, were the very ones God specially hand-picked to train up for His front stage. They are examples of some of His greatest work and became known as His champions of the day once He got a hold of their hearts. He even chose to record His-story of some of their lives in His great love letter to us, the Bible. It shows us some examples of who He is, how much He loves, and what amazing things He can do with anyone’s life. The rest of those stories have also already been written—but they are still being lived and played out every day.

There is no “case” too hard for God, though I believe I had to be one of His toughest. In fact, I’m sure I wore out the guardian angels He assigned to me. I’m glad that when everyone else gives up on the rebels, God never does. He relentlessly calls to them until the last possible moment. I’m so ever grateful that, with me, He even went beyond that final moment.

It’s vitally important to never, ever give up hope and trust in God as you pray for the rebels you may know too. Let me assure you, I’ve learned God is limitless and extremely creative in the ways He chases after them. Our prayers are way more powerful than we think.

God has a dynamic unseen “perimeter fence” around everyone born into this world. Though its work may be misunderstood or seem harsh at times in the circumstances of your life, it’s inherently a fence of God’s great love at work. It’s designed to help move you right into the place where God wants you, to lead you into opportunities to finally hear and recognize His voice in His relentless, personal call for you. It seems this fence is much stronger when there are others praying on your behalf, even if it’s only one person. My life story revealed here is just one example to help you recognize what this “perimeter fence” of love can actually look like.

I thought I was wild, but let me tell you, I discovered pretty quickly that God is way wilder than I ever dreamt of being! He’s a revolutionary rebel in His own right. This alone was what first caught my attention at the time, and it brought me a lot of deep respect for Him. I’ve always thought big in my life and I don’t give up easily, but I knew when I was finally one-upped in the wildness department. God always goes against the usual, popular flow. He doesn’t play by our rules. In fact, He’s totally into anticonformity to “normal” rules, and He can bring shock value better than the wildest rebel ever known. Sometimes, He’ll even allow things that will purposely offend you, just so He can show you what’s off in your heart. Even so, no matter how creative or outrageous He needs to be to get your attention, everything He does is always in love and for a redemptive value.

One day, I think a lot of people will be surprised to see many “once-hard-core rebels” in heaven—people written off and thrown away by the world, considered no good or marked as hopeless cases. In contrast, what a surprise it will be when they see what they thought were some really good, moral, ethical people (even regular church-going people) in hell.

For God, it’s all a matter of your heart and what you’re really trusting in. This wild God loves to use what looks like foolishness to this world, to pull the carpet out from under those who think they’re wise and know it all already. And He loves to turn things upside down. He’ll purposely choose what looks utterly weak or even offensive to this world, and use it to reveal Himself.

I’ve found that God thinks a lot differently than we do. His thoughts and ways are completely way-out-there different from ours. In fact, this seems to be a signature mark that it is Him. So we’d better pay attention and be willing to take a second look at the things that don’t make sense to our natural reason or that scream, “That couldn’t possibly be God!” You’ll never get to know Him through your faculty of everyday natural reason anyway.

All I ever want to talk about are heaven and this incredible, personal God. That’s the real deal and the only thing worth talking about. Close friends and family who’ve seen my life and what I’ve experienced have urged me to write my story—that is, the whole story, the bad and the good. But it’s really all God’s story. Some things many people may have never heard of before, and He’s urged me to put it all out there anyway, just so others can know more of who He is and what outrageous things He can do—with anyone.

I resisted it for a long time, simply because I hate talking about my past before I knew God. I don’t like to give the Devil any more credit by speaking about all he did; he took enough years of my life. But at the time, I didn’t know it was really him driving it all. I didn’t believe in the Devil or hell, let alone God or heaven, nor did I believe that all I was trusting and believing in were just lies.

A prophetic friend of mine once told me he had a vivid vision where he was shown a scene deep in Satan’s lair. There he saw a spectacle of the Devil in his bedroom, fuming with anger and entirely frustrated. He said it was obvious how much he intensely hated me because he saw a big riddled dartboard with my picture on it over the head of his bed. With a familiar understanding of what it meant, we both laughed it off, though it was with deep and noted respect for what God was really saying. The Devil is always lurking about like a prowling lion, “seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8), and this was just another loving warning revealed by God to remind me to stay vigilant and close to Him. Even so, the Devil can’t have me anymore now. I belong to Jesus. He’s my best, most-trusted, and all-powerful friend. The only safe place for me is in Him.

Nevertheless, to show the depths of what God can pull any individual out of and how greatly He loves, pursues, saves, and desires to bring us into a love-affair relationship with Him, I press on in sharing my story. It will reveal something of who this amazing, almighty God really is, as well as His true heart, incredible character, and great grace and mercy toward us all. He alone gets the credit for it all, though, because I’ve found He is the God who does it all—that’s a true salvation!

3

UNWELCOME “FRIENDS”

But the way of the wicked He turns upside down.

– PSALM 146:9C

I grew up with great, loving parents. Our family was considered middle class in the ’60s. Dad worked as a superintendent for the US Postal Service, and his job was to train all the new postal workers. Mom was a homemaker who took care of the family. My older brother Mickey, younger sister Maryanne, and I were born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and lived in a comfortable two-story house in a great neighborhood.

Dad loved and trusted in God and participated faithfully in the Catholic Church, but Mom wouldn’t go to church because she felt church people were all hypocrites. She had a pretty defined relationship with God herself though. She kept it between her and God alone, but she knew and loved Him very much. God would prove to be her unquestionable lifeline through some unbelievably tough years ahead.

Mom and I were always close. We had a great relationship and could talk for hours and hours, even when I was older. She didn’t judge me, and that’s why we could freely talk. We laughed a lot and discussed everything, like good friends. She truly was, in many ways, my best friend at the time, and I relied on that relationship a lot.

When I was nine years old, Mom started to suffer severe onand-off psychosis-type episodes where she thought she was losing reality at times, though she couldn’t figure out why. It was something that wasn’t discussed with children during that time period, and my parents kept it between themselves as much as possible. The fact was, Mom had spent years taking experimental fertility drugs after a series of miscarriages. Later, the use of these drugs became a worldwide scandal as the news broke out of the devastating problems they caused. Mom was one of the many guinea pigs used in testing these experimental drugs, and the side effects were utterly debilitating. When she reached menopause, the strong hormonal drug’s lingering side effects sent her body wildly out of balance and she couldn’t understand what was happening to her or why. At the time, the doctors didn’t know why either. Nobody understood it.

Dad was faced with the dilemma of seeing Mom greatly suffering and having doctors tell him that the best option for her was intense professional help that required institutionalizing her in a specialty hospital. My parents loved each other, and Dad was pretty torn, but after multiple consults and strong advice from the doctors, he believed they knew best. My parents discussed it and she finally agreed. Mom then went through a nightmare over the next three years, in and out of institutions that conducted further experimental treatments on her.

The first time she had to leave us, she was gone for about two years before coming back home—but she stayed only for a short time. Then she left again for another year of more “treatments.” What was most tragic was that all the new trial regimens tried on her were in an attempt to fix what the first treatments caused, all at the hands of doctors and so-called “experts” trying more new experiments on her. These included shock treatments to her brain that proved devastating and almost killed her. In the end, finally dismissed from the treatments, she came home but wasn’t the same person. She remained in a daze, barely able to speak, and was only a shell of who she’d once been. She’d often sit alone for hours at the kitchen table just staring off into space, smoking cigarettes and sipping a drink, not saying a word to anyone.

Amazingly, though, about a year later she somehow snapped out of it and came back stronger than ever. When she learned that it was the infertility drugs that were the initial cause of her problems, it was like a light went on. This made her so mad that she became fiercely determined to fight her way back. And her long journey in all that deep, dark desperation led her to reach out to God with a wild, fierce faith like never before. She leaned on Him with all she had because she first-handedly learned that He was the only one she could trust. He didn’t let her down.

While Mom was away for those long periods, Dad had to raise us kids by himself while working full time. Struggling with three of us, he thought it best to send Maryanne to live with my aunt. With our family further broken up, Mickey and I spent a lot of time home alone with no supervision.

The hurt of losing my mother and best friend in those formative years hit me hard. My strong emotions quickly turned to misunderstood anger toward Dad, as I placed the blame on him for “putting Mom away,” not understanding all that was involved. A spirit of intense hurt and offense seated itself in my young heart. Once I welcomed and harbored it there, it grew and began to invite its friends: sadness, depression, bitterness, anger, and then others. Over time, it so intensely internalized that I didn’t know how to deal with it at my young age. I mention all this because, looking back, I believe this was one of the major pivotal points that began the successive and long course of my own self-destruction.

I remember back to one of my first strange “seeing” incidents when I was just seven years old. I was in my upstairs room, tucked in bed for the night, and my parents were asleep in their room down the hall. As I lay there in the dark, with my bedroom softly lit by the streetlight outside the window, I saw something fly into my room—but it came in through the closed window. It looked like a black crow, and it wildly flew around and around my room over my bed. I laid there in awe, watching it for almost ten minutes and wondering how a bird could possibly get into my room through a closed window. Once in a while it would land on the old mantle on the wall opposite the foot of my bed. Then it would take off again and make its rounds circling over my bed.

Finally, I yelled out at the top of my lungs to my sleeping parents, “There’s a bird in my room! There’s a bird in my room!” My parents hurried to my room, threw open the door, and flipped on the light. But the moment they opened the door, the bird simply disappeared. At my crying insistence, they looked through my entire room—my closet, cupboards, and in every corner—but found nothing.

Only after I came to know God, when I was much older, did I understand the unique discernment language He uses most often to speak to me: he just shows me. I now know it was a warning vision back then, though it was as real looking as anything physical. God was showing and warning me, even in my younger years, that I was being targeted by the Enemy, but I didn’t understand it at the time. Spiritually speaking, when God symbolizes black crows to me, they’re generally a sign of rebellion and witchcraft, which He calls one and the same (1 Samuel 15:23a).

By the time I’d entered eighth grade, I became quite unruly and mischievous. Dad, who was a committed Catholic, was really proud of me, though, because I agreed to serve as an altar boy during the Masses at Holy Innocents Catholic Church. Being an altar boy included learning a lot of practiced rituals, and we carried out our learned routines well.

One Mass I served for was particularly large, as it was Christmas and the church was filled with people. All the teams of trained altar boys were required to serve for this special Holy Day service, and we were dressed in matching altar boy garb: black pants and shoes, the traditional long black robe to the ankles, and a shorter white vestment layered over it. However, because this was a Christmas Mass, we were required to also wear long red matching ties, which hung down on the outside of our garments.

At the middle of the service, the altar boys had to pick up their own tall lighted candle and line up in two rows on either side of the altar as three priests continued the service. But waiting there for what seemed like an eternity in this particularly long Mass made me extremely bored, and I was getting fidgety. That was when I came up with another of my harebrained ideas. I glanced out the corners of my eyes at the altar boys standing in line on either side of me, their eyes glazed over in an obedient, mesmerized daze. Then I discreetly tipped my candle sideways, touching my flame to the bottom tip of each of their ties. Ahh. Some fun and excitement at last! I thought to myself.

When they finally realized flames were starting to lick up the length of their ties, they jumped around frantically, pounding at their chests while trying to keep as quiet and unnoticed as possible. It was like watching an old silent slapstick comedy show. I just stood stock still, holding my candle tightly upright and trying to look like I didn’t know what was going on. But inwardly I was deviously thrilled at the fun of being mischievous and outrageous once again.

Eventually, the boys got the flames patted out and stepped back in line. The Mass continued on, though the atmosphere was now electric with some excitement. I waited, hoping I’d somehow gotten away with it, but Sister Mary Giles, the nun who headed the team of altar boys, could hardly wait for the Mass to end. She was fuming mad and had been impatiently pacing in the dressing room, pausing every couple of minutes to peer with intense anger at me through the cracked-open back door.

When the Mass ended and we headed out the back stage door, she grabbed me and lit into me. Of course I was fired on the spot. Later, I somehow got through the lecture from Dad, and that ended my days as an altar boy. I loved getting attention, and it didn’t matter to me how it came.

Sometimes I think I was born to be on some sort of a stage and that’s what first attracted me to music. Writing and playing music became the passion of my life after I picked up a guitar at the age of thirteen. I’d first thought learning keyboards was what I was destined to do, and I tried a few lessons, but that was short lived. At school I would lie, telling everyone I was already a keyboard player in a band, while in reality I had just started lessons. With my growing major-show-off-type personality, I loved the extra attention it got me, especially from the girls.

I had only two short periods with guitar lessons, each lasting about a year. One was with Bill Clydesdale, a famous and very structured teacher. The other teacher was a jazz player, and I’ll never forget his advice to me: “Whatever you do with your life, don’t make this your career!” That statement devastated me as I struggled along, learning to play the best I could. But I was determined that the guitar was what I wanted to do with my life. So I decided to keep at it on my own and spent hours and hours practicing at home. Before long I invited friends who also played instruments to jam with me. Then I started up experimental bands.

It was the late ’60s, and in those early days I loved the popular rock music at the time. My favorite guitar players were Alvin Lee, Jimmy Page, and Richie Blackmore, and I tried to come up with a sound that was my own but also emulated them.

My older brother, Mickey, also played the guitar, and for a couple of years he was in different bands. They would practice downstairs in the basement, but I would never go down to watch. Mickey was a big, muscular guy (unlike me), and he frequently got in fights at school. He was known as the “baddest muscle guy” in his class, and he’d often practice on me. I’d go to the fights to watch just so I could root for the other guy. This started some major sibling divisions between us.

Mickey was the first person to sell me drugs. They were black beauties (speed), but later he turned me in to Mom and Dad for doing drugs. I couldn’t believe it—and that turned me against him even more at the time. Our on-again, off-again brotherly friendship lasted a long time, though I do love my brother dearly.

At that time, the hippie scene was big in downtown Pittsburgh. It was an atmosphere of “peace, love, and rock ’n’ roll.” British bands were big too, and groups like the Beatles, The Byrds, The Who, Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, The Doors, and Grateful Dead were coming out and taking off like wildfire. The older generations mostly looked on it as wild, rebellious music, but the younger generation loved it.

The Vietnam War dragged on, and peace sit-ins and activist protests, especially against the war and government, spread throughout the country. Hippies loved to protest, but there were also some groups with way more radical ideas. They’d try to recruit some of the hippies at the park. These were people, I found out later, who protested through outright mayhem and destructive violence.

One day, I went with a group of my hippie friends to Oakland (part of Pittsburgh), where some of these convincing recruiters offered to take us to one of their underground meetings. I was only about fourteen or fifteen at the time. There they shared plans for unleashing riots at a whole new level, including major destruction of property, attacking police, bombing public buildings, and even murdering innocent people—anything to bring attention to their cause. But when the leaders then incited everyone there to go home and kill their parents, I balked. They were much too radical for me.

Those days were also a time of hitchhiking. Everyone seemed to be doing it. We’d hitchhike to get to concerts, then someone there would give us a ride home, with everyone getting high on the way back. The growing population of young “long hairs” hanging out in the city weren’t trusted by many people—and by the cops even less. Police would yell brash remarks at any guy with long hair, and the guys were greatly mistreated, looked down upon, and considered “no-good rebels.”

With plenty of spare time on my hands after school, if I wasn’t playing my guitar, I’d walk down to the city’s downtown park and hang out there with the hippies. I partied with them, doing drugs, and spent more and more time there. I’ll never forget a scene that really caught my attention at the time.

Huge crowds would come in droves during certain times of the month, meeting in a big old stone church, called the First Presbyterian Church, across the street. Traffic was always heavy, and huge crowds would gather outside the building’s doors and down the sidewalks. Everyone looked desperate to get into that building, so something was obviously a big draw. Many of these people were in wheelchairs, with canes, or using other medical devices. Some even lay on stretchers carried by their friends. It looked so bizarre, and I wondered with great interest what was going on in there.

Finally, I asked a couple of the hippies if they knew what it was all about. They said some sort of minister lady came to hold so-called “miracle healing services” there. I later learned that lady was Kathryn Kuhlman, a well-known healing minister, and she had been regularly holding the meetings there for years.

I’ve often thought back to this scene. I now believe that it was God tapping me on the shoulder, even back then. Only much later did I come to know and respect Kathryn Kuhlman. She knew the Holy Spirit and the voice of God; she had a real-deal relationship with Him, and God used her powerfully. A lot of people came out of those services miraculously healed.

At the age of fourteen, I started using heroin, and then reds and acid too. Before long, heroin became a daily need. I’d buy it from one of the hippies at the park, then practically crawl back home to sleep for hours. I used the money Dad gave me for weekly allowance, and soon after, began to steal spare change from his dresser too.