Dan's Testimony
I was born in 1968, the youngest of three. I had one brother and I have one sister. I remember when I was vey small, going to church on Sunday with my family and having prayer at the table. I remember riding in the truck with my dad to go feed the cows and the horses. He was always singing "One day at a time, sweet Jesus." I also remember there was a lot of turmoil in our home; fighting, yelling, arguments, and physical fights. At age 6, I watched my mother jump on my father's back and bury an ice pick in it. My siblings and I shared a room. I'll never forget the night I heard the gunshot go off in mother and father's room. Mother had made another attempt on my dad's life. I remember bearing witness to mother's adultery while my father was at work. Many incidents like this happened when I was a small child. Then one day, at age 7, my father just left; left us there with my mother. As you can see, our home was very unstable. Mother did not serve God and she had given her life over to many demonic influences. This is the home my siblings and I had to grow up in. Mother was married several times after dad left, but the same problems persisted and she made similar attempts on their lives. At age 16, it was legal for me to leave home. I had tried many times before but the sheriff had always brought me back. I wanted to get away from the abuse and atmosphere I was living in. So I dropped out of high school and was working two full time jobs. Before this time, at age 15, I was already smoking a carton of cigarettes a week, addicted to marijuana and drinking alcohol. I remember that right before I quite high school, one of my best friends committed suicide. He wrote a letter that was laying next to his bed that simply said, "I wish my mom and dad would stop fighting." So here I am, age 16, on my own, working, drinking and addicted to drugs, with many problems of my own; coming out of a home where my mother was wrapped up in all kinds of evil and my father had given up and left.
Over the next 8 years, I lived a life of drugs, alcohol and promiscuity. At age 19, I remember walking home one evening and I became very depressed. I lay in my bed for more than two days. During this time I was so oppressed and heavy with the things I had done in my life and the things I had come through, I didn't understand what was happening, but I could see spirits in the room with me. As I warred in my spirit, I remember lying down on the floor and praying, "God would you please stop this." As I lay there, I fell asleep. I woke up the next day and I felt like everything was going to be ok. I got up and went about business as usual.
Through the years I found myself in many difficult situations and there were several times when the enemy had tried to take my life. I remember one time, I was in the middle of a drug deal that went bad and was staring down the barrel of a .44. The man that was pointing the weapon at my forehead was a very rough character. But something happened that night, something very different. I knew that it was the presence of God that spared me and saved me from the situation I was in. You see, when I was 10, the youth pastor came by my home and invited my brother and I to VBS at the church near our home. Mom told us we could not go. Well, my brother and I, being as ornery as we were, would sneak out in the evenings to go. She though we were just out playing. That Wednesday night of VBS the message was given and my older brother and I went forward, confessed our sins and received Jesus as our Savior. The very next night we were baptized. So even though I was living a life of sin, I also knew everything I was doing was wrong.
At age 22, the Lord brought my father back into my life. I hadn't seen him since I was 7. I met with him and my step-mother and we talked about a lot of things and talked about the past; a restoration of our relationship had begun. It was a short visit for they had traveled from Oregon to North Carolina to see me. In 1991, at age 23, I had been working as a grocery manager for more than two years. I was living with a woman out of wedlock in a small mobile home in the country. Because I was in management, I worked a lot of long hours. One day I came home after working a twelve hour shift, I was really tired and was the only one at home. I lay on the couch and fell asleep. I had a dream. The dream was of me leaving and getting out of the situation I was in. I could see myself moving and I had been set free. I woke up and the presence of God was there with me in that room. I fell to my knees and cried out to God to forgive me for all I had done. The Holy Spirit ministered to me and when I got up from my knees, I knew that I was a new man. I took all the pot in the house and flushed it down the toilet. I threw my cigarettes in the garbage and dumped the alcohol down the drain. I have never wanted it since. God had delivered me in an instant!! I gathered my belongings and put them in the separate bedroom. When my girl friend came home I told her what had happened. I told her I was also going into work that next day and giving my two weeks notice and was leaving for Oregon. I also told her we could no longer share the same bedroom together and she just didn't understand. The next day, I put in my notice at work. Before the end of the work day, I had four different offers of promotion and prestige within the company, if I would just stay. As I looked each person in the eye, on up to the corporate manager, I said, "You don't understand. I am not the man I once was. I am leaving and I am moving to Oregon and I am leaving in two weeks or less." Because of the lifestyle I was living, there was no money and after taking my final paycheck to pay off a dental bill, I decided to sell my car to buy my bus ticket. Understand this, I was driving a 1981 Toyota Corolla. It had "maypop" tires, tires that are so badly worn they may pop at any time. I was using the emergency brake to stop at the red light. It sounded like a tractor going down the road because 6 months earlier the catalytic convertor had plugged up and I had sawed off the exhaust up to the header. The car was not worth $200 dollars. I put an ad in the paper explaining everything wrong with the car and was asking $200 for the car. The first day the ad came out, my answering machine was full of messages from people calling about the car. The first guy that came out gave me cash money and drove the car away. I looked up in the heavens, with tears in my eyes and said, "Lord, I guess you want me to get to Oregon."
It was a five day bus ride to get there. My second day on the bus, a lady sat down beside me who had just graduated from Bible college and she was on her way home. I told her what the Lord had done for me and she spent the next two days talking to me about the Lord and reading to me from the Bible. There was a youth pastor in the seat behind me and he was ministering to me also. A teenage girl had gotten on the bus, who was pregnant, and her seat was next to the youth pastor. While on the bus trip, she shared with him that she had run away from home with her boyfriend a couple years prior. When she got pregnant, he left her. She was on her way home to mom and dad. The youth pastor led her to Christ and she got saved on the bus. Once you make a choice in your heart to get serious about God, God will get serious about you. Once you make a choice to receive the fullness of His forgiveness, you can learn to forgive yourself.