Until this year, 18 was the worst year of my life and yet also the best year ever.
I lost the last three members of my family, my mother (heart attack), youngest sister (kidnapped) and last brother (a hail of bullets he earned). I exploded internally. If life was senseless, if it was random, it it had no meaning - well I was going to do everything I wanted to!
And I did, no nothing fancy like sinning my soul out! But, for six weeks I did it all - climbing with no ropes, skiing glaciers, sightseeing the grand west, car racing, every dangerous thing you can think of. And if I died, awesome! I was going to go out with a laugh on my lips! Then at six weeks of this riotous living, I was so busted up it took me a few years to recover physically, and I was forced to read the New Testament just out of plain boredom. One of the ladies whom helped care for me was a Christian, noted my reading material and conversation was natural. Three months later, Chip is now a Christian.
Not because of her, or anything she said, other than to point out miracles I had seen and never recognized.
Where did God come in? He kept my hide together through some pretty hair raising events in those six weeks! He protected others around me, from me and my self destruction. And when that monster crash came, leaving my car a pile of wreckage and me getting to know my bones by sight, He helped me heal slow enough to learn to come to Him. He kept the possible bone infections away (we American Indians are not noted for our immune systems). By the laws of physics I should have died many times over during that month and a half. By God's law, He wanted me and He did what it took for me to become His.
No, I still pull some pretty stupid stunts, but God is still being generous with me (hey, Chip where is your face mask? ah I don't need it today, I am on a break line... yeah, cough, cough, cough.....turn blue.....).