DO NOT READ THIS: A BORING STORY

If unfortunately you were not deterred by the title, and you are one of the strange creatures that likes a boring story...then take off your shoes, kick up your feet, and prepare for either a nap or sleep...depending on when you read this...
Part 1

I was born the 1982 the year of the Lord 1982...the second child of Charles Lee and Diane Faith Copeland...I do not remember much of my early childhood...I remember a strange dream I felt God gave me one night...or perhaps many nights...it was me calling two collies we had to come in the house...and when they came in, in came a lion!...so I thought to call the dogs back out (to solve the problem of having a lion in the house) and out went the lion! ...then I would call the dogs back in but the lion would always come in as well...so I just stood in the doorway frustrated because the lion always came in with the dogs...it is strange what you remember...

One of the first vows I made to God was when my mom lost her wallet...my mom tends to panic in situations like this and I remember her saying all sorts of horrible stuff that was going to happen as a consequence of the lost wallet...so I prayed with all my heart telling God that if He would but give my mom her wallet...I would ALWAYS pray before meals...and truly learn to pray to him...she found the wallet...

I do not know if that happened before or after my parents got divorced...I think I was 5 when they got the divorce...so it kind of confuses me about the connection between those earlier years...

My parents had pretty serious fights when I was really young, my father was physically violent and drank a lot I believe,and there was always that threat of leaving after about every argument...Oh yeah, I remember another memory, I remember seeing someone that looked very similiar to my father (my father was a twin) holding a Bible near the end of a stairway...

My beliefs as a kid...I had a profound boyish faith...Heaven was above us, hell was below us, boys died and became mighty warriors for God, girls became angels of course...though there is some photo of me dressed as an angel as a kid that I can't explain right now(talk about adorable, just playing)...and then there were the strange things I did...if ever I was swimming and I felt my lungs were going to burst from being under the water too long, then I would pray that I could swim two more strokes just for God, because he strengthens me...I did not think I was doing anything special for God, I just loved Him dearly...

Something happened in my life right now that is hard to explain...because of what it did to me...I was taught by my mom insisting that my father was evil that all men were evil...so I came to the conclusion that I would try to save them all from the evil men that corrupt them (the only problem that arose in my boyish heart was I could only marry one)...this started a long chain of idolization...but then I also had an experience when I was young that awakened me sexually...and I do not want to go into it here...it was not so much something that happened to me as something I saw...that caused this other image I had of women to fall, and made me almost the monster I wanted to save women from...

But as both these forces played out in my life...one prevented me (thank God) from ever acting on the disgusting impulses and the other prevented me from ever getting close to a girl...as I felt 'the monster' I was would be unleashed if I got to know them...and I never wanted to hurt any girl, so I kept everything to myself and always retreated from situations were they approached me, even to be friends...this was even as a young boy at the age of 7...

I remember being really mean to some girl that everyone is school thought had cooties named Debbie, I remember how strongly God convicted my heart even back then, so if Debbie from Hunley Park ever reads this I am infinitely sorry, I was an idiot...forgive me.

After the divorce, us three kids were brought up secular...We were 'baptised' as infants- I was like 3 or 4 in the Lutheran church did occur before the divorce...I have only seen pictures...no remembrance of the day...

My mom gets remarried... my youngest brother Russell is born in 1990...

I remember being really mean to some girl in elementary school that everyone in school thought had cooties named Debbie, I remember how strongly God convicted my heart even back then about how wrong I was, so if Debbie from Hunley Park ever reads this I am infinitely sorry, I was an idiot...forgive me.

Let me go back and clarify my spiritual struggles at this time...So I always chose one girl that I would idolize and then profane most of the rest in my mind...it was not like I wanted to have sex, and I am still a virgin, so I do not know exactly what my thoughts were, perhaps they were more evil sensual feelings versus actually being sexual...I was not masterbating or anything vile like that...also, I had horrible nightmares as a kid where my mom was not real but was a machine--or some demon dressed up as her; I had these nightmares almost every night...and they did strange things to my mind, causing me to trust my mom less.

I was picked on fairly much as a kid, but I then started having my revenge...I remember a kid named Seth that just would not leave me alone...so one day I just took his arm behind his back and told him I would break it if he did not just leave me alone from then on...this happened in the hall way of an elementary school in yorktown...I forget the name of it...I went by Tony with my family since birth, but Craig in school until someone called me Craig Cracker, Craig Cracker, Craig Cracker--and just wouldn't leave me alone...but said Tony was normal...so sometimes in school I would say my name was Tony and sometimes I would be too shy and remain Craig in school...

The first time I 'cheated' was stupid...I was the brightest kid in my elementary math class...I always finished way before the other kids...I made it a game to see how fast I could do it...one day, the teacher said to do all the odd problems on a page, and I thought to myself "I will do all the problems and still finish before everyone else." After a few minutes, the teacher tells everyone to ball up their paper and throw it to the front of the class, as she wanted everyone to do all of them and not just the odd ones...I started balling up my paper, but when I heard her say we had to do all the problems...I was like I am already doing that...so I tried to unwrinkle my paper...and threw a blank piece of paper to the front instead...Perhaps very wrong, perhaps not...I should have obeyed I guess...but I got accused of cheating for this, which was a gateway accusation for me...

When I was in middle school, God moved in my heart to ask my mom to take me to church because I felt/knew I was missing something important...and that I needed to go to church...I was brought to several Lutheran churches as that is my mother's family's church age without end...we started going...in no time my mom and dad were the youth leaders, where we basically just played obnoxious games the whole time...I was an altar boy, and also played a beat up saxophone with some boy's sister playing the clarinet during the hymms...I have no idea how bad I must have been...I got in a fight with this girl's brother in church 'Carl'--who claimed to be in some gang, he had the hankercheif to proove it--but I just got him in a head lock and wouldn't let him go until he stopped punching me...that's what I usually did when I got into fights...

In middle school band, my parents got me some church hymnal for saxophones that I loved playing...I even played those songs for solo ensemble...a pretty strange kid...

But underneath the vile and idol were fighting for my soul...

Enters Amanda Hutchingson...one of the few girls that forced me to have a relationship with her...I was in all of her classes but one, and she insisting on sitting next to me...We talked together like the whole day, and she always slapped me hard in math...until some other boy gave me her number and told me to call her instead of wasting my education for her...I was too shy to call, so I asked my younger brother, who thought it funny to play pranks on her number, my older brother got the number, and he started pranks as well...I don't know why I think this is important, it' showing I was I guess...but the tragic thing with Amanda was that I started cheating off of her a lot using the logic that, since she is my other half, if she knows some things and I know some things it is not really cheating because together we are one person...pretty spiritually warped...

My family moves to Gloucester my freshman year of highschool...devoid of my other half, lol, I was thrown into chaos...The high school situation just seemed insane to me...I remember looking at the cafeteria about where I was suppose to sit...and the first day I sat with like juniors or sophmores or something that smoked in the restrooms...I just thought "wow that is wierd--they are like the really bad kids--what am I doing here?" I walked around for a while after I left that table, and eventually found myself with those that hacked the hacky sack during lunch in the hall ways...with some awesome kid named Jonathon--I think...he would bite the hacky sack in his mouth without being afraid of germs, and he would drink other people's drinks without thinking about it...anyway, I started an idolization with a girl named April...but was always too cowardly to do anything about it...She would smile directly at me--and I would run away, literally...I stayed in band because of her, and I remember a band trip where she came to me in the pool, and I--because I thought she was Holy and that I was a monster--dived under the water and did not come up until I was at the complete opposite end if the pool...

I guess the reason I am telling about how I was with girls is because I saw these specific girls as HOLY and I ALWAYS kept myself away from them even as I admired them deeply...the corny cliche of feeling I wanted to be Holy always occured when I was around them...but as I felt myself to be a monster, I kept myself far from them--and I stayed profane, instead of trusting God and developing myself...

God bless
this is all for tonight
tony

Actually, i never read the whole story... it is all because of the curiosity i open this thread...

but i think it is a good story...

I remember three other things that seem significant that I left out...so I will write this before continuing...I hope this helps someone...

One, I was told by the devil that I was utterly ugly through and through from a young age...and as I could see how spiritually ugly I was, I believed the lie...and this also contributed to me seeing myself as physically ugly as well...

Two, I actually did have a relationship with the first girl I ever saw as holy/loved: Candaise (when I was young I always thought her name was Kansas--after hearing of the state, and wondering why she was named after the state)...it was 1st to 2nd grade and I would color with her and draw her images of caricatured hearts of us holding hands on swings and silly, beautful things like that...but there was a school dance that I went to that I was late to, and she danced with some other guy that made me feel I was nothing to her...then one day, as we were frolicking as usual in the back of my neighbor's yard, under a tree...I remember her telling me to wait there and she would give me something...she made me promise to wait there under the tree...as her angry dad called her home....I waited there forever, my family came and left, and I told them she told me to wait there...I could almost see her house from there, and I watched as it looked like and was her family packing up and moving...even after the house looked completely empty, I sat there because of my promise...but she was never to return...unless she did some other time I know not of...

Thirdly, kind of strange to say, but the sensual side of me opened me up to being the prey of Satan in my sleep...I was raped in my dreams starting in middle school...and this persisted strongly until the day I turned to the Lord...makes me feel more like a whore than a virgin...I also became demonically fascinated with magazines with naked women in them in middle school as they let the sensual side of me be warped without seemingly hurting any girl that I could see...

Oh yeah, and I started cursing like most rebellious middle schoolers...and this continued throughout high school and college...
but I was a strange curser, I was thinking yesterday I do not believe I ever cursed out or even at anyone, or around anyone really particularly badly, but always when I was on my own I became 'as bad as a sailor' (as the saying goes) in my dialogue with God...not cursing at God, just mad about everything...

Hate was a powerful force to me in high school for some reason--though I did not specifically hate anyone, I began to hate the world in general...I remember going to Winter Celebration (a Lutheran church camp) I remember always having middle fingers up inside my jacket, not directed at anybody--as I hated no one and no one there...but I was just fierous at something I cannot explain...perhaps at God for seeming to make me the way I was...I got into alternative music, and started liking Korn and Limp Bizkit and Tool and various other bands that completely warped who I was...this was seen most poignantly in what I wrote...I became so bad that I was cursing almost every other word, sometimes every word in the poems I would write...

For my senior project in high school, I felt God calling me to write on experiences in all of the churches in Gloucester...but as I was shy I did it on the philosophical subject "of how to be a better person" instead...

I remember always wanting to show this girl April how I thought she was really cool, but I was too afraid of myself to ever express it...as I was too afraid of who I thought I was...

High school ends...enters college...

[The adidas jacket was soooo long that I could move my whole hands inside the sleeves--and I did not ever stick my middle finger up at anyone at Winter Celebration I believe--I am unsure if I have EVER actually stuck up my middle finger at anyone ever in my whole life--I remember hearing people that said they did and it always seemed strange to me to do that]

A little baffled about how to go on...things go down pretty low from here until my 'super senior (3rd senior year)' in college...

But as I have been honest so far, I might as well continue...When I turned 18 my morbid fascination with looking at naked women, reached an obsession...as I was too cowardly to approach those I thought were holy, and did not want to profane anyone...I found consolation for the monstrous side of me by being 'stunned dumb' by them either in rated R movies or magazines or whatever...The gateway drugs for me were that I bought like a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and some profane Stuff magazine...this was actually while I was still in high school...and watched some pretty sketchy rated R movies...

As April left for college with me always being too cowardly to approach her, I went from desperate to pathetic...

My mom actually filled out the college application for me like a week or maybe a little more before classes were set to begin in fall 2000...and I got accepted, not knowing what else to do, I went to college.

I could not find a girl to fulfill my desire for an image of holiness...so I became more and more obsessed with looking at naked/skantily claud women in movies or in magazines...even sometimes the girls on campus...

I remember my mind set then it was something like: God does not care; he is not making a way for me; everything is frivolous; nobody here cares...and I knew he hated when I sought to look at naked women, so I would go and do it because I wanted God to feel how much I was hurting because I felt like he abandoned me in soooo many situations...the basic thoughts of someone who begins to live and believe the lies of the enemy....

I never enjoyed or watched people having sex in movies, but I always was just obsessed with my need to look at women's breasts...I think I was deceived by the fact that "what is wrong with looking at a women's body?"

Sinking lower and lower...

Until the incredible day happened, that though it did NOT pull me completely out of the mire of my past, it made a crack in my closed door.

While in the confines of sin and darkness, the week before my final exams in my freshman year, I was callously going about blind as usual...I was sitting in class early one day, and I felt God tell me to get up and go out of the class...so I went thinking to go to the restroom...

But then the most amazing thing happened...I did not see what I had seen in any girl I had ever seen; I mean I did not see either holiness or sexual intrigue...but I saw the Lord even as I saw her...or maybe I should say I saw the Lord instead of her...it is hard for me to explain what I saw...it even seemed somewhat like I physically saw God around her or something similiar...words fail me here...and in an instant my darkness fled--and I truly saw light...and the thought in my head was, "What just happened?" A feeling of shock...before turning away.

The moment quickly passed, I went to the restroom and then back to class; thinking myself too shy for anything more to come out of that moment...I sat there perplexed...thinking "what the mess have I been doing, I have ruined myself!"

After class, I went to the old library, and sat down on a seat directly catty cornered to a couch and started to read the unabridged version of "Les Miserables" (The Miserable) by Victor Hugo...

Unfortunately for my shy soul, she came and was audacious enough to sit on the couch near me, while having a conversation with some guy about 'rather or not it is just grounds for dumping a girl if she becomes chubby." While she looked at me as if she wanted a response from me, I was too shy to speak...their conversation ends...he leaves...she turns and asks me what I think? I dive into the book more afraid than any rabbit has ever been from a pack of chasing dogs...but I see that she was talking to me unfortunately, fortunately (I was shy so I did not want to talk to her, but at the same time more than anything I did)...I dump the craziness of my life on her in about 2 and a half hours??? Maybe more; we then go to an ICOC bible study together after she invites me to it (ICOC=International Church of Christ)...

I am reminded of Roosevelt saying "Speak softly and carry a big stick." Which at this time I did the complete opposite...I spoke loudly and carryed a twig...at the Bible study, I was loud about what I believed various scriptures meant; but my life was as paper thin as a kite...though flying high, without any depth whatsoever...

Anyway, I thought she was actually going to be a sister towards me as the Bible says...but after discovering what-I-thought was proof that she didn't care...I feel back into debachery...I do not BELIEVE I forgot her name over that summer alone...but I did.

The Lord works in mysterious ways though...and next semester, she sat right next to me in the front of Biology...You have to know that I was the crazy college kid...I roller bladed to class, sometimes I even brought a street hockey stick and ball and shot at a crate I brought for a goal...really crazy...I mean I would skate inside the buildings even and nobody ever said anything to me for some reason...

She remembered my name but I forgot hers for some strange reason when she asked me...

Anywho, the thought of the Lord blessing me with her sitting beside me was enough to keep me from wanting to sin whatsoever, and I gave up everything for the sake of this 'holiness' that I saw in her...to give all for love is to give nothing--for what can compare with finding the love of God?

But as she seemed to want to stay shallow or superficial towards me...I gave up on her and the Lord and went back into debachaury; thinking "What sort of a blessing was that? A gift of a Rose with a thousand thorns, I suppose..."

I was callous and awkward; and I think that led her to not really become deep friends with me...though we would always have profound conversations whenever we talked about anything or saw each other...I needed spiritual help, and I needed/wanted her to help me...as I felt the Lord tell me she either could or would...

I eventually gained the courage to start going to her church, after I saw a flier in a Chik-Fil-A on sermons on Shattered Dreams...and if there were a dream that was shattered, it was the catastrophe of my life.

She was not there that sunday, but I spiritually saw something different than I had seen at other churches I had been going to...

The churches I attended in college...I had an atheist philosophy professor that gave us an assignment to go around to two different churches, in hopes that he would persuade us that Christ's church is not uniform...and all of them are based on 'whims'--he was probably the most liberal person I have ever met...Anyway, I took the challenge and went to a Methodist church and an African American (all black) church...but then I got addicted to it...as the Lutheran church felt just spiritually draining, I started popping up in ever church I could find...and seeing what I could see...that strange guy that nobody knows that sat next to you one sunday could have been me...lol...One of the deepest conversations I had with someone at a church was someone that told me quite frankly that "The Bible is a love letter" it has stuck by me, and perhaps it has helped form my understanding of it--and God...

I was STILL afraid of her...even when I went there, and she welcomed and introduced me to various people...I was like the proverb "The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion..." I was like the first part of that proverb...I would attend church, and then unless she stopped me in my dash for the door, I would leave, running away from what I wanted, love, and God...but she often did stop me and asked me to go to a bag lunch that the church would have or to a Bible study, or to do various other things...I tell you, this dilemma when truly felt by the repentant past sinner is liked being burned in a furnace...I would have done anything to stay, but I was always seized by a desire to flee before the righteous...

I became the silly chap in front of church that clicks the power point slides for songs and the sermon and everything else...which was quite the courage for me...the projector was in front of all the seats by itself...I had to sit by myself in the very front...and click these slides...and I like to sleep, so I was always quite languid in the morning...the slow slide projector clicker was me several sundays.

She transferred her junior? year to the college my younger brother was going to be at his freshman year...and as no one at the church seemed to take me under their belt, is this an excuse?--I hope not, I should have been faithful either way--, I continued to listen to my alternative music and my debauchery continued though I began fighting it like never before...if I bought some profane movie, I would always break it and hate myself for it for ever long...but I kept doing it...

Long before the Lord took my debauchery from me, I began to listen to him...Especially over these next few months...

My most prized possession was my cd collection, I had over 200 alternative cds (carefully selected) that I had bought most new...and I felt the Lord tell me to throw them away...as so they could not corrupt anybody else's life...I was reluctant at first...took a few cd's out of my binder, and threw 97% of them away at one time...I kept some Christian cds I had bought recently, and two thrid eye blind cds, and I think that was it...

But after that I felt the Lord tell me to get rid of all, even as he told the Israelites to completely clear the land and leave nothing...and here I was with these idols...I took the third eye blind cds and broke the first...a week or so later...I broke the other cd...Then I was a Christian music singer in my car, but the Lord was like "I said everything" and he convicted me that I did not mean what I sang...so out went the Christian cds as well...

Then I would still flip on my cd player--now turned into just a radio basicly, and I would listen to crap still...or sometimes Christian music, but I was always singing or listening very shallowly...

And then God gave me the craziest thought--"Why don't you throw the cd player/radio face out the window?" I know that sounds wrong and I was quick to answer back to God, "It is wrong to litter." The only answer I was given is "You will listen or you won't." I took the radio face, put it in its hard plastic case, and tossed it out the window of my car...never to be seen again, somewhere on the side of interstate 64 still perhaps...

The church spiritually trusted me for some reason, I could not understand and yet saw the reason as profound...I knew it was faith in God...I was actually asked to drive a van full of kids to an "Acquire the Fire" celebration...that was pretty incredible, I showed up an oblivious college kid was given the keys to some awesome woman's van, and was trusted with the lives of sooo many kids...obviously they did not know how bad of a driver I had been in the past...but I was meticulously careful with them, and what do you know? I saw her there...

I had my first tattoo by then actually, I was reading CS Lewis's "Until we have faces"...and the scene were the two princesses had their heads shaved for their dead step mother...and everyone crying for the beautiiful girl's hair, but not caring about the other girl's hair, was a profound message...how this world only cares about appeareances, and how something can mean everything to you, and this world can treat it as nothing...

So I had a vision when I was sleeping or waking I don't know, but I thought of medusa praying to the cross...and a lot of other symbols as well...I eventually got it on my back...that happened that summer shortly after begining to attend that church...it says a lot to me besides that though...like who cares about the ugly? the physically beautiful is all this world cares for...but the tattoo artist drew medusa beautiful, so I thought/prayed about it for hours in the tattoo parlor, before coming to understand that I was afraid like the poet Rainer Maria Rilke of the beautiful...and I had never been afraid of the ugly, as I had never really considered anybody 'ugly.'

The conference ends with little impact on my heart, except I danced to the Christian music, which shows somewhat that I was becoming spiritually more free...

So back to my life, I am still held in "the chords of death entangled me, the torrents of destruction [still] overwhelm[ing] me" Psalm 19.

I do not know why I keep misquoting psalms--it is psalm 18 and not 19; I should know that as I memorized both, and 18 is one of the longest psalms I know...and the kids name was Mike in high school...I have way too many grammar and spelling mistakes to site them all so have grace there, and hopefully they are not too distracting to falling asleep.

At least two spiritual moments confounded me at this time, perhaps three, but the third I cannot remember right now...

One, an atheist professor that mocked Christianity--and though I tried to stand up for my faith--I just felt frail before him.
Two, there was a time where a philosophy teacher asked for what we loved, and my heart yearned to say "The Lord Jesus Christ" amongst the trivial things everyone else was naming...but my tongue would not let me because of how I lived...I know not how else to explain it...I think I even raised my hand but then quickly withdrew it...as I felt a pang in my heart for the mess I was.
The third was just a moment that hit me when I said "Jesus Christ" and felt HOW I said it...I said it as if I did not care, as you would say monopoly or math or just some thing you think is dull or far from you...and though I did not care, it hurt me deeply that I did not care...and the Lord let me see this...it was like I was wounded by how I then saw and was towards the Lord...it felt as if an arrow had peierced my small heart.

Anyway, I was still watching profane things, then breaking them, then buying them, then breaking them; and cheating in at least one class...those were the most poignant battles with sin in my life.

My first senior year, dumfounded on what to do for a senior thesis, I prayed about it and was given "Knowledge is empty without moral obligations." I had a "deconstructionalist" teacher for this class--this is like the athiest against atheists...they just think everything in our minds and thoughts can be broken down into a meaningless substance, and after the structure we have made is broken down, then what? You kind of build whatever you want...but reason plays a role even as it breaks things down...This is a vast oversimplification probably...But anyway, he could not understand how I write (who does?) and he always took what people said and translated them into some statement that made sense to his deconstructionalist view and then made the students write on that...which is impossible to do with what I believe.

I write freely when I write...and perhaps he would have been more kind to me if he saw that I had (after once believing that Faith should only operate without the bounds of Reason alone with Immanuel Kant) gave up on reason altogether...I actually remember having the thought that humans only come up with reasons in order to get out of what they should do, and no matter how small a reason can be thought of, if God says so then it should be so...so I lived some of college in this haze of abandoning reason altogether...but then I took up logic, but in a much different way, I believed that whatever God wills is and is the best way, and the only real smart way to look at life--is to try and "THOROUGHLY DESCRIBE" why you see something the way you do...Kind of like the way you can look at something and describe its features, even so, with your beliefs, you can examine them and not exactly give reasons for them, but show certain other things you believe and suggest that the other beliefs kind of demand the conclusion asked for...

Anyway, he says nothing I write makes sense...I refuse to deconstruct my faith...and still in the bounds of sin--I had felt that I had to leave sin to graduate--I intentionally failed my first class ever...

I met another girl Sarah during this semester that seemed to know God, and she gave me the thought that "Your childish faith in God is rediculuos and elementary, give up on God and just be who you are--with me." I call these bribes usually that Christians can either accept and become dark, or reject and see how far the rabbit hole goes...

I had written the girl that reminded me of the LORD a 4 page letter of maxims (short sayings--I was inspired by the beautiful letter than Marius writes Cosette in Les Miserables) a few months after I sat next to her in Biology, and this became dear to me...like a high school dork possibly...but it was written like nothing I had written before...it lived in the glove department of my car...for years...and I always had romantic dreams of giving it to her...yes, perhaps like Napaleon Dynamite...but it was written better than his drawing was drawn...

But now, caught in clouds and disillusion, I tore the letter up into a hundred pieces...and was trying to trade heaven and the Lord for a secular life--where someone actually physically seemed to care about me.

Sarah gave me "The little Prince" for my birthday...I read it religously once a day for a month and then once a week for months after that...trying to absorb the wisdom of a children's book...

Sarah believed in the LORD, but she also believed in living rashly and in sin...She spiritually told me how she could spiritually see God and she seemed to care; so I began to trust her or want to trust her, but then she always reacted to me very shallowly....so crippled, I limped on.

And as she ardently portrayed to me I was nothing to her again and again...dumfounded I looked up to the stars in perplexity about what to do with my life...I actually skipped a semester of school due to the tangles of knowing her...

I forget to say that I for some reason could not throw away that letter after I tore it up...I kept it...was it those mysterious words that I wrote at the end of it that said "If I ever give this to her, I will know I have attained a different life." I do not know...It stayed in an envelope in a couple hundred pieces in my glove department box...

I try to pass senior seminar again by rewording the same thesis as something the 'deconstrutionalists' professor would understand, but more complicated: "Creative potential must be regulated my moral confines" I was basically arguing against a clear picture of the world being one of Nietszche's OVerman--as I was saying we must live within some moral confine to understand our place in society, and with God, and many other things...

Anyway, he quickly fails me again...

The girl who reminded me first of the Lord graduates college...and then spiritually seemed to care again...these are the scariest people I have met---most of the time as blithe to use as the grass they walk on, but then sporadically there are moments when they seem to show they cared all along...very perplexing...

Anyway, by the next semester of college, I was taking the class for the third time--you can only take classes three time at Christopher Newport...and as usual--as the professor had a monopoly on who graduated...I had to take it with him...

By now I was completely fed up with myself, with life, with people not caring, and with God...

I actually gave him a thesis he liked..."There are no moral obligations against suicide."...My basic plan was to write the paper and end my life as the perfect ending to my nonsense life story...

But what stopped me is I began going to a young adults meeting with 'her'--and I saw (rather wrongly or rightly, but I have to say I believe whole heartedly rightly) she was beginning to become dark...aka fall into sin...

ANd that was one thing I could not stand or let happen...I meant nothing to anyone that I could see in my life...but I could not bare to see her become profane...soooo...

The Lord told me the particualr night I was struggling with this dilemma, "How can you help her out of a pit you yourself are sooo deep in?" A combination of scripture about the blind leading the blind into a pit; and looking at a speck in someones eyes when you have a log in your own eye--or in my case thousands of logs...

It was not exactly for her, because I did not like how she was or was becoming whatsoever...but I felt the Lord less and less when I was around her, and as I said when I looked into her eyes I saw they were spiritually clouded over...

Sooo, I vowed to the Lord that I would never intentionally sin again. And also that I would do whatever He showed me and give whatever words He gave me for her...to stop her from falling into darkness.

Vows to God should be made with caution...but also if its something you would truly die for, with sincerity and expectation...if you are willing to wait, watch, and listen...

God filled my heart with love...

And that very night several things were taken from me...

1-the desire to look at naked women, and yes I did masterbate from the time I was 18 to 23 and a half...but this was also taken from me, immediately.
2-cursing, I do not believe I have cursed since that day...in all honesty, even once.
3-a profane outlook on life.

I told the professor that I could not write on suicide anymore--as the paper was a lie...but he insisted...I felt God tell me not too...But as the professor insisted I rechecked the morbid books on suicide out, and read a little, felt sketchy, returned them back in...and was content to fail the class, yet again, and possibly switch majors or even fail out of college completely rather than write something I believed would lead others into sin--possibly even suicide, as sometimes I have a convincing way with words, even back then when it was trying to suggest that suicide was available to anyone who had the courage to do it...that thought made me sick after that night...

Next semester I met with a counselor about changing majors, but she said I only had one class? I told her what happened with that awful class three times in a row...she said she could make a way for me to take it a fourth? time with a different teacher, by then I was sooooo sick of philosophy that it made me want to puke just thinking about taking a class, much less writing a 20 page paper on some man-made philosophy...but she insisted, I got signatures from the dean...and used the same paper I wrote the first time with very little editing and passed the class with a B...

Check ya PM.......

I have tried picking up from here a few different ways...and am still perplexed...

Let me write about what I went through just around getting saved from darkness, and just before my last semester of school...

I somewhat feel the need to elucidate how great was the darkness that was my life that I lived, as the Lord said "If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!" The darkness was great indeed...

But I will move on to that night I got saved...I had a discussion today with a young adults pastor that does not think that a guy should ever talk to a girl for any reason without first talking to the father...but as the motive for my actions was not wanting to date/marry her, I still must say I see no wrong in what I did...as Jesus said, if you had an animal that fell into a hole on the sabbath would you not take it out immediately....and why should I not have spiritually done everything the Lord showed me to pull a person out of a pit???

Anyway, to be honest, she did not repond for a few days...so the morbid part of me convinced me God didn't care, so I email some sensual girl in my english class in college a letter telling her how beautiful I thought she was...but then 'she' --the girl who reminded me of God--emailed me back and then I repented of the letter and sent this other girl an apologetic letter immediately...thats something strange to confess but true...after I turned to the Lord, I almost immediately fell back, due to lack of faith and feeling God did not care...hmmm...very bad but its the truth...

The Lord gave me amazing things to write things I have never written before...and I gave them straight to her...Either good or bad, rebuke or encouragement...and they always ended in much frustration and perplexity at how she responded to me...

I wanted to be baptized then, as I felt courage to leave darkness and accept Christ as my Savior, but for some reason, it was always pushed back at that church...

Enters just before my last semester...I was undiscipled by anyone as I could find no one who really cared enough and saw enough to mentor me...so I took the Lord as my mentor, my dread warrior...

...and as persecutions started pouring in everywhere, like a storm beating on my nearly founded house, I was confused yet more...I felt Satan telling me to go back into sin and darkness as there was no place for me in righteousness, but I could not let that happen...

At this time I called the pastor and asked him about tattoos as I thought that I should have asked about the former tatto but was too shy to...as I read the verse from Leveticus a few months after I got my first tattoo...and I was unsure if they were unbiblical or not...He tells me they were outlawed because they had to do with the worship of another god in the old testament...and that we are not bound by that law anymore...then he says I can get one...

Right now, I was heavily into Catholic saints--who like to degrade themselves on purpose before others a lot of the time...so I thought about getting a tattoo that would make everyone mad at me...something like:

Poor
Miserable
Wretch
Son of Charles

on the inside of my right wrist just like that...[Charles is my physical father's name but also someone was taught was evil] but the pastor told me to look forward instead of behind, so I went and got the following instead:

Pure
Loving
Perfect
Son of God

on the inside of my left wrist...Quite a difference...lol...only the pure see God...it is only in loving that we feel Him...and He is Perfect to everyone...

Then I thought the tattoo on my back was not finished...as Medusa cannot reach Christ ever...as someone who still has snakes (live sins in their lives cannot truly pray to God freely unless God frees them from their lusts/sins)...so I wanted the sword of truth cutting the heart that surrounded Medusa praying...and the Medusa's face looking out on the side of the heart, with the snakes cut out (by the sword of truth)...and then a sunflower with six fallen petals, and one still attached on the other side of the heart, and another sunflower full behind the cross...

The sword hilt went too high and was on my neck...so I was like...I do not want to be ostracised for this...so I asked the tattoo parlor to try drawing in smaller, or the sword hily on the bottem with just a bit of the blade coming through the top...

But then God told me.."Will you always be afraid of being persecuted for me?" People think nothing of faith that you cannot see, but when they actually can see what you believe in...then they mock...or ostracize...or scorn you...

So I said nevermind...it will be fine the what it is...and I finished the story; though it is just line work, as I see little need for coloring it in...as everyone can see what it means as it is...

The pain from getting tattooed then...was like me testifying that I would rather have everything taken from me and feel the deepest pain than EVER go back where I was...even if nobody but the Lord cares that I left sin and darkness behind.

My last semester...

i have reading this boring story sorry for you are saying not too. ok you is needing deliverance my brother praising God. you can be healed from your head in thinking wicked thoughts of women. will pray for all your evilness amen

I actually think i fell asleep somewhere in the middle of this story, from what i did catch though, you have sex problems. I'll pray for you dude

People are commenting on like the first few posts...lol...instead of reading the waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long story...but its not even done yet...lol...

SO I found myself in my last semester of school, taking classes as "independent studies", and confounded by wanting to be baptised in the baptist church I was at...but it always not feeling right and getting delayed...but I needed to be baptized...

God put it into my heart to start a Bible study community through emails...a really simple idea...Read a chapter of Mathew twice a day, comment on anything God shows you, show like three verses and what you saw...and anything else the Lord has shown you in your life or whatever you feel called to write...so even people I did not know I would go up if I felt called get their email after some imploring...and then they would get emails from me, and like 1 other person was faithful to it...

Around this time I was given courage, I think I have a RIGHT as a Christian to approach anybody who is Christian or who is holding a Bible even if they are not Christian--...and seek the Lord with...kind of strange but true...

Well....one day on campus, I noticed some guy with a Bible on a couch seeming to study the Word...so I plop down right next to him...and was like so you have a Bible...are you a Christian??? He explains how he is involved in the International Church of Christ (ICOC) and that if I wanted I could attend a discipleship meeting for believers that was occuring shortly...I agreed as I wanted to seek the Lord more poignantly...I go to the meeting that spiritually seemed a little strange to me...but when I would get these feelings, I know not what they meant then--for either I was too thick or blinded by past sin and it was a reaction based on that; or the situation was just wrong...

Anyway, they are BIG into personal Bible studies...So I get an 'older brother' Caleb to mentor me one on one....

The studies were pretty elementary...you know you are a sinner...You see what Christ did...stuff like that...but extensively pulling a lot of scripture together...so I learned a lot then...

Anyway, at the baptist church I attended on sundays and a young adults meeting, things started seeming off...spiritually I would just get a really, really bad vibe...like God was warning me about something...

They believed you receive the Holy Spirit at water baptism...which I think a lot of you may disagree with...

So after about a dozen of these studies, I go to a devo on friday night (good friday)...and was baptized on a beach in Hampton Virginia..as I NEEDED to be baptized--that is what I felt the Lord telling me, and if they would do it then great!

Anyway, I was baptized one lesson early seemingly...as the last personal discipleship with Caleb was on how the ICOC is the only true body of Christ...something I was reluctant and never accepted...

I was ostracized by them by my failure to only attend their church...I was told by Caleb that we could not have a Christian brotherly connection since I would not leave ALL other churches behind for the ONE true church...

This caused me much pain then...and as the church I was at was hurting me...I know not what gave me the faith not to just walk away and believe in the ICOC...but I didn't...possibly it was a belief that spiritually I would not walk away from those I loved without spiritually fighting for them...

Near the end of the semester, I was behind in turning almost every paper in for like two classes, as I felt languid in my faith and did not know what to write about anymore...the classes were this senior seminar and "Hebrew Bible."

I felt the Lord tell me to give everything I cared about away...this included the torn letter...I thought about just walking to the end of the yorktown pier and letting its fragments like petals fall to dissolve in the york river...I thought about throwing it away like it was nothing...I could not bring myself to do it...
I do not want to go into specifics--even though they are aaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwweeeeesome..--but I gave the letter to her dad to give to her...
Shortly after, I was given enough words to write to finish these ever-long papers professors always want you to write...why can't you just write a paragraph or however much is needed to elucidate clearly your view???
Following this was a strange time where I went to the baptist/nondenominational contemporary church...and also started going to a Catholic church...as my biological father wanted me to be brought up Catholic and not secular...this was revealed to me by my mother against her will, because she was mad at me...
So weekly I would go to a catholic service and the baptist service...maybe this is what has caused soooo much confusion in my life???
Man I write waaaaaay too much...And the stories not even over yet.....

The ICOC church believes you receive the Holy Spirit at baptism...not the baptist church, I wrote unclear on that...at the baptist church things just didn't seem right...

Youu is having a big story much reading soon will be finished yes?

i wish my name was caleb

Dreams have symbolism things aren't always what they seem. You thought yourself as a monster because the sins of your dad, remember you are not him and everyone is different just because he did something it doesn't mean you will too. YOu are an individial created by God. I want you to tell me more about your dream how the animals acted how you felt etc.

To tell you the truth, I was also struggling with the ICOC being the only true 'legitimate' Christian church...so I would pop up at their church like the 2 times that I did during this period I believe...plus Caleb like would not let me leave a meeting I had with him...until I said I would go to church the next day...that shows some amount of caring even if he was wrong...

So all these thoughts spinning around my head...and that ultimate thought that spiritually overcomes and persuades anyone 'who are the people that TRULY care?' IF someone is a Christian and you convince them of this, it is INFINITELY hard for them to leave you.

I struggled with this on all sides...in the non-denominational/baptist church, there seemed to be times where people really showed I mattered but then other times where it was poignantly felt that I was nothing whatsoever...for example, with this 'girl who reminded me of the Lord', I would feel even in my soul at certain moments that spiritually things were right where I was at, at this church...mostly in how I felt the Lord when we would pray together and how she really seemed to react to me like a genuine sister...but then, most of the time, I was caught in a whirlpool, drowning, treading water as fast as my legs would beat it...and it always seemed like I was loosing...the water always kept rising...and everyone in the church just looked on on the shore as oblivious lifeguards..perhaps chewing gum or spinning their hair...

Perhaps that also contributes to my reaching out to both the ICOC and the Catholic church...distrust of what was spiritually happening at the Baptist/non-denom that I was at...

Anyway, my mind felt like a swamp during this time...I would sometimes throw a sporadic church into the mix and go to three churches a sunday morning...I think the third was usually just so I could understand the thoughts I was struggling with at the other three...(I would only go to the Catholic and baptist church regularly, as I said I struggled with the ICOC but did not attend there but 2 or 3 times)...sometimes 2 catholic churches and the baptist church...

So, where could I find true fellowship? Thats the question that constantly attacked me as I dwindled my life doddeling..and also, where does the Lord want me? I felt for some reason that perhaps I should stay at the Baptist church--even though nothing spiritually seemed right when I was there--and now, not because I was wicked, but because I truly sought the Lord...but always when I went there I got such a bad spiritual VIBE that it made my stomach sick...and then there were the people in the church that treated me with contempt that made me feel even worse than just this general vibe...

That summer, I focused on trying to get my walk right with Christ...specifically in this young adults group called 'kairos'.

I want to do a few additions that already occurred within this story before continuing...this post will be on spiritual dreams I have experienced in my life that seemed more real then life..

The first one was strange and hard to describe as I was not in the dream but something deep in my soul was being affected by it...I was also looking at it from like the sky down unto a somewhat ancient floor--the type that you would imagine people like Joseph experiencing in Egypt, one with like an intricately carved surface, and also bold and profound like the pyramids.

On this surface, there were two snakes that kept weaving in and out of each other, and as they did so, my whole being was convulsed...and thats all of the first dream...it affected me so much that I even went to my New Testament/Old Testament professor in college (not knowing who to go to at the time) and asked him about it...

The other two are much more prfound and literally meaningful.

The first one I remember was I was within a church...and everyone was mourning for Jesus crucified...and the faces of the people were extraodinary, more life than I have ever seen on anyone's face ever, and the faces were more beautiful, profound, and wholesome than I have ever seen. I too was there, but I couldn't weep.

They began passing around a chalice where these people were letting their tears fall into the chalice. The cup came to me, and though I tried to cry, tears did not come to my stubborn heart, as the chalice passed me, my tears fell to the ground so intensely magnified in the dream that I was watching them and it seemed like a painting....If I could draw, I would draw those people, and that moment...as it stirred and broke my heart.

Third, this is a strange dream that causes me to not believe that people will be saved from persecutions in the future...this scene was also picturesque...I was in a field and crucifed with countless others on stakes, more rows and columns then I could possibly count...they seemed to go on for miles. Single poles hands nailed with a single nail above the head of everyone, and the feet nailed to the sides of the stake...It hurt more than I can describe, what is known as unbearable to another level...and yet I remember knowing that I was finally right with the Lord...and that all the murkiness of my life and thoughts were vanished, and I truly saw who God is in a profound and peaceful way, even as the chaos of the pain rivoted through my body.

I think I even smiled and found joy as I groaned in pain.

I guess I will continue to fill in inserts as I continue the story, where they seem necessary...or if I feel compelled to...

I have had difficulties of from what angle I should continue this story...and I have decided now that the best--though it may get embarassing for me (though I believed it was awesome)--was to approach two things, one, how my relationship or lack thereof with this girl who reminded me of Christ played out (many posts), and two, ( later post)how my relationship with the non-denomination church and other churches played out...and where I was at with Christ in all of it...

I know some would say situations and people don't matter "so long as you follow Christ"--the person that said this has never lived and felt hurt and pain, for it matters much though you still are called to follow Christ through the suffering.

So 'this girl' and I were acquintences and yet deeply more...though 'the relationship' was always felt like a drought.

Like someone wishing someone else "good luck" when they leave a church, and letting them suffer/persevere through a week of life without help....those people you feel like screaming at--Don't you know you are suppose to be my brother/sister and be there for me!!! And yet you really don't usually care whatsoever.
And instead of trusting in their shaky faith, you don't know where else to turn but to also form sketchy/relationships-not-based-on-Christ and become shallow like they are to you, and wonder why our Christian lives feel so empty...and you begin to become shallow, and then you revolt, but don't know who to go to.

I later commented even to her father, the pastor of the church, in front of her that there is a paralysing mystery in this world...Jesus was sent to the Jews, but mainly, they were stubborn and rejected him...Almost all the prophets were called to give a message that the Lord had already told the prophets that the people they preached to would not repent...and yet they are called to preach...

And even so, I believe often in this life, the people that matter the most, that the LORD wants you to grow and persevere with, will become as the Old Testament says, Ostriches with their heads in the ground...not listening to you...You can cut some of them to the heart like Peter did, and many of them will just retreat from the wound and you,not discovering the depth of a full Christian life.

What I am saying in summary is that, yes God has specific people that you are suppose to meet in your life...but don't be suprised if they reject you just as Christ was rejected by the Jews...and so perhaps, you too will have to take mercy on gentiles that perhaps were not in the 'orginal plan' but all the same will receive your message unlike the orginal 'ostrich'.

Because we all have two paths before us...yes it is the choice between life and death...but I want to further illustrate this point, it is a choice between 'interacting within the soul's deeper and deepest realms, or retreating, drawing back from this and choosing to live a life where the soul's depths are never plunged into, but instead, shallow relationships are managed and formed, perhaps well, but NOT in Christ. It is the difference between a life of full of meaning and a life of emptiness; a life of elaboration of your soul or a life of rashness.

Anyway, I emailed her a letter that had a poem about the torn letter which I still know because its in rhyme and actually is one of the better poems God has EVER given me...so here it is...

When in the waning hours I reposed,
I fell apart and thought of Rose;
of all the yearnings I have known,
no other has left me so torn.

A letter I feigned to write,
on love's cue with foggy sight,
when thoughts deserted, I prayed a prayer:
if words would come, I would lend my ear.

But as oaths are easier said than swallowed,
I found it hard to find fortitude and follow.

For what can be known of a girl from a glance,
what can be known of a spell but a trance,
the beautiful words glimmered and faded,
left my heart sore and mind unbraided.

For how am I to understand the moments that passed,
for all these things I have failed to grasp.

Not a love poem but instead a poem that should have shown her and moved her (because these words were for her from God--I have never written like that before or since) in WHATEVER way the Lord willed...I also told her the letter the poem was about was hers as I truly DID NOT WANT to have this thing that mattered more to me than any other possession I had, because it reminded me of God when I read it...and just watch it waste away...it was the same with a girl named April I bought flowers for on Valentines day, but instead of having the gusto to give them to her, I watched the flowers writher in my car...as my courage failed me.

As I wrote before, she tarrys and two days later responds with an egnigma of email even more than mine was...She says it "moved her deeply" but also "I flatter her" which is not at all what I believed the words should have done...so I was confused and angry that she would think that I would try and flatter her..., wondering if what she wrote meant we would move past the shallow waters everyone in this world seems to enjoy swimming in and pretending its more--and that we would actually be siblings to each other in Christ...which is not something shallow like most churches would show, but as I have said before, Brothers and Sisters in Christ have the deepest connection possible, for their relationship is hidden in, with, and through Christ himself. --I honestly testify that I wanted nothing more and more importantly nothing less than this...perhaps this is why I think this specific egnigma in my life worth elaborating in this testimony...then again, I also think it a decent starting point with non-believers to contemplate what they perceive as love in their life, so that from there I can try and illustrate God's all encompassing love, and the fathomless love that Christians share between each other.

Anyway, she puzzles me even now, as it is still hard for me "to grasp" or understand the moments between us, deep or shallow I have no clue.

Before this, on the day before she and my younger brother were to leave me for UVA, we both went to a believer's baptism at a YMCA...it was awesome, and yet I sat by myself because at first I did not seeing her, and worshiped alone...something I believe is essential for any believer anyway, to actually draw apart from others you know perhaps and just truly seek to worship him with all of your heart, strength, mind and soul...

Anyway, I remember how when they told people to go to the back for communion when they felt ready, I waited and prayed, ever long, and she waited until after I went to go...

We hugged that night near her car, and then she just left--into the great beyond as if she did not care if I sank or swam either way.

I write this experience because somthing spiritul both happened and did not happen then, I felt the importance of the moment and also the empties afterward..
.
Strange thing about the letter, if you are going to allow God to use you to write something for someone--or even if you just write something for someone--you better have the pluck to give it to them...as the proverb says "better is open rebuke than hidden love"--because hidden love tears people apart and causes people to live shallow lives of apathy...