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The old self and its inability to acquire the important things I needed, basically just had to get out of the way before something better could take its place. It's the first time I'd found myself in a totally impossible situation since my last ambush patrol in Vietnam... Otherwise, I'd always been strong, always one to give others a hand up when they couldn't make it. I survived the war when a lot of other guys fell out. I was a leader not a follower, but now I was the one who needed a hand up. I had to face the fact that I couldn't make it any longer without His help. As it is with all of us, my over inflated ego kept telling me, I could get what I needed by myself, 'as long as I just tried hard enough.' My pride was a dead end street that just kept making life more miserable. I needed a family of my own that I knew was gonna stay together, but I couldn't put it together. Anyway, I laid there and wept. I'd given it my best shot on my own several times and it wasn't good enough. I didn't have anything left to give and God knew it...

Aside from God, there was no one to go to for advice, or answers. From what I could see, no one had it together enough in their own lives to be giving out advice to help someone else. They were all fighting an uphill battle, just getting married and having babies without really knowing each other. Cheating on your spouse was basically the norm. To me, divorce wasn't an option, but neither was cheating on your spouse. My search for the truth had shown me that life is to be taken more serious than that. I've found that the most powerful things in life are spiritual rather than physical and that the Bible is the only book that's been able to give me the spiritual insight I need. In order for it to survive and be fulfilling, a relationship needs to be based on spiritual things rather than on physical, or material things. Love is definitely in the spiritual realm of things and is mentioned quite often in the bible. God is love, and "whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love." (1st John 4:8.) Some try to belittle the significance of love by saying that it is simply one of the many attributes of God, but as far as I'm concerned, 'without love, there would be no God.' The bible reinforces what I'd already discovered about life on planet earth. It's all about love, because love is the force that's holding everything together, including the connection between the north and south pole of every planet in the universe. Physically, the stars, the universe and everything beyond it, all have to have it in order to live and grow. When there is love, it makes communication and understanding possible between individuals. It has it all...

I realized I wasn't alone anymore after saying 'Father' and sensing that He was hearing my words. I'd shed a lot of tears, and the old self with all of its troubles was given to God. I was finally developing a relationship with the Father, the one I'd been reading about for so many years. I became familiar with His Spirit after a few years of reading the bible and trying to understand it. We finally came in contact with one another after I'd unsuccessfully exhausted all of my own attempts at trying to make things happen without Him. I wish I had the words to explain what going through a total life change in a matter of minutes, hours and days was like, but trying to describe something spiritual with words doesn't do it any justice. It takes place on the inside, where God and the individual are the only ones who truly understand...

My life since then, has been spent trying to help others realize that there is such a thing as unconditional love, joy and peace... Needless to say, I haven't found very many who've wanted to know about such things. It's been a little discouraging, but the things He's done for me have out weighed anything that's tried to bring me down. Until the day I die, I'll always be trying to share with others the truth that's helped me get my life together. There's an over abundance of hurting people out there...