Tag: poetry reading

I walked a crooked path in life, sinning every day.

Drugs my meal of fun. Hiding in them

to get away from all the pain and suffering. From birth

to fourteen I was physically and verbally abused. At

fourteen, I was left on a street corner.

I would eat out of garbage cans or steal from the stores

just to survive. I was arrested and put in juvenile hall,

where I was beat up and raped.

My mother can and got me out. She was living with

an ex boxer. He liked to knock me around like a

punching bag.

At eighteen I ran away and thinking it would get better,

I joined the Army. I was wrong. In boot camp the sergeant

pushed me around and verbally abused me. It was like that

for sixteen weeks.

Then I went to Korea. I was put on the

front line to help keep the South safe from the North. Stress

was a daily thing and fear of being shot went along with it.

That’s where I got hooked on drugs. When I can back stateside,

I fell in with a bad crowd. I become a garbage can junky,

that means I took any drug I was given.

While I was on drugs I went through four very abusive marriages.

Up until then the only God I knew was one that sit in heaven.

He judged everyone and if you sinned you went to Hell.

So I could not look to him for help.

The rest of my life was a blur of mental hospitals. Into the hospital

out on the street over and over again.

Then one day I was sitting on the street corner looking for drugs.

A man came and sit down next to me. I thought he was looking

for drugs too. I shouted at him to get away but he did not move.

“Son,” he said, “What are you looking for?” Drugs I said you got

some? “I got something better,” he said. “it is God.” Oh no you don’t

I know about your God and He is a bad God, judging people and

sending then to hell.

He laughed, “My God loves you.” How could He love me I am just

a sinner? “He sent His Son Jesus to take away your sins.” How could

He do that I asked?

“Jesus was hung on a cross to suffer for your sins. He died so you

will never be judged for your sins now and forever.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. How would He do that for me? “He did that

because He loves you. Three days later He was resurrected from the grave,,

now He is in Heaven at the right hand of God. He intercedes for you.”

I looked at him and he smiled at me. No buddy smiled like that ever.

“Come let me help you.”

He led me to a clinic and introduced ne to a counselor. We talked and

she said I had PTSD and was bipolar.

That was twenty years ago. I found a Bible based churched, and found

a home there. I read my bible every day, and pray to God, Jesus, and

the Holy Spirit, I am no longer on drugs and have a handle on my

problems. Today I no longer walk that crooked road. I know God loves

me and He loves you too.