03/31/2019
I Choose You, LORD Forever
At five years old in church I was inspired to read Psalms 100:1-5 to the church, which reads, “Make joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. Know ye that the Lord he is GOD: it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people and the sheep of his pastures. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name. For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.” This scripture blessed me and I was close to the Lord.
Everything I have ever seen teaches me to trust in the Creator for all the things I have not seen. It seem like yesterday when my parents were taking my eight sibling and myself to church on Friday, Sunday, and sometimes Saturday. Different ones of us would try to get out of going to church. One day I prayed to Jesus to forgive me and he touched my heart and converted me. I was about 9 years old. Then I was baptized. After living a life respectable to GOD, Jesus sanctified me.
As time went on, I begin to be influence by the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life and backslide from the Lord. This caused a chain of events that led to a downward spiral of destruction. My morals declined and things that were unclean appealed to me. All aspects of my life such as, physical, mental, spiritual, marriage, education, and child rearing among other things were affected. Things were so bad that I tried to pray to the Lord. He had never let me down. I realized that my mind could not concentrate long enough to say the Lord’s pray within my thoughts. When I tried to meditate on the pray before long my mind would wander off into something entirely different thoughts. Little did I know that a spiritual battle was being waged for my soul?
Before my forty-fourth birthday, I became deathly ill. The sickness started with pain in my stomach when I woke up. I went downstairs and told my wife. I drank some milk to settle my stomach. She told me that the milk would come right up. I went back upstairs and throw up the milk up immediately. I lay back down and tried to sleep the problem away. The pain became so acute that I told Susan to take me to the hospital. As we approached Lancaster Hospital doors, the pain worsened and became unbearable. Now I don’t know how birth pains feel, but these death pains were incredible and beyond anything I had ever felt.
I was in the hospital for two days and went through a barrage of tests and examinations. I was not any closer to being cured. Kaiser decided to transfer me to their Panorama Facility in California. They would treat me there with all of their personal and equipment. I was supposed to meet with a specialist to take care of the problem. I thought surely he would have the solution to my dilemma. He would have the benefit of all the modern equipment and personal. When the doctor, Susan, and I discussed the situation, he told me that other than a little fluid on my stomach he did not see anything wrong. He let me know that he was a surgeon and since I said there was pain in the lower abdomen area, his instinct told him to operate. However, he would have to perform exploratory surgery only, with no guarantees. I would have to authorize the surgery. I told him to operate.
I was given a sedative to prepare me for surgery. I was in the room with my wife and asked her to pray with me. It was years later that I asked her what she prayed. However, I told her that this may be the last time for me. We prayed and they came for me. In the operating room, I was quickly rendered unconscious. I woke up and found myself traveling without my flesh body. I knew what was happening. I had died and was on my way to hell’s waiting place. I realized that I was being observed from in front of me. I did not know him at first. Then I thought, “Who could be here with me?” Then, I realized it was the Lord, Jesus and my countenance went down. I was looking at the ground as he came over me. I felt the all mighty power of the Lord, the all-knowing, and yet humble one towering over me. I was not worthy to be in his presence. I had committed a multitude of sin. Just one sin is death. The weight of my sin held me. My soul cried out, “Lord, have mercy on me a sinner?”
It seem like an eternity had past but, time did not exist. Then I remember the unbearable pain I had experienced in the flesh and it was gone. However there was another pain that was more important than life itself, my soul was at stake. I was not in control, if the Lord had told me to go to hell I would go without hesitation. The final decision was his. Finally, the Lord began to show me my options. On one hand there was death, darkness, and sin (pleasurable sins, sins that had become habit, sins you could not do without, and etc…) On the other hand there was life, light, being with him. Without hesitation my soul cried out, “I Choose You LORD”.
When I woke up I was tied to the bed of the hospital. I asked the nurse to let me loose. She replied no because it was doctor’s order. My father can in and I asked her to tell the nurse to let me loose. She took the restains off and I was loose. I addresses my father as brother and asked him how was church.
Shortly after, my family went to Mother and Father’s house to go over the scriptures from the Bible.
The scriptures were so real to me that I became emotional and began praising the Lord as he filled me with the Holy spirit. My voice became loud and it became stammering high patched.
