Why I Joined

I was a herion addict and very unstable at this young age.An friend became a Christian and drug free. I envied his new freedom and faith. So I asked Jesus to show himself and he did. At least I thought he did. I saw visions in the sky and heard voices telling me I wasn't alone.

Why I Left

After a 24 year journey with Jesus and a marriage and five children i could do this church shit anymore. I felt like a man smashing his head against a wall. So I stopped, left my wife and found someone that is really my soul mate.

Story

I was a lonely 16 years old who was recovering from two years of heroin addiction. I was a heavy drug user. I was also very sexually active at a very young age. I was into crime and living in the street. This lifestyle was killing me and I was very afraid and depressed. I was hearing voices to kill myself and at the same time reading and thinking about life and it's purpose. I had a friend who became a Christian and left the drug life. He left the city and moved in with a family who lived outside of St. Louis. The smith family. They were part of a Church called Grace and Peace. The Pastor, Egon Middleton, years later would commit suicide by putting a plastic bag over his head and killing himself because he was a homosexual, probably had AIDS. This was in the Mid 80's.

Anyway I too became a Christian and saw visions and heard God's voice that I was no longer alone. I believed it. I immediately stopped everything. No drugs, no women, no smoking of cigarettes. I even went back home to live under the authority of my parents. This was a huge move since I hated them for a long time. They gave me permission to go to St. Louis with Mike Joyce and live with this wonderful family called the Smiths. They were very involved in the church.

I went back to school and was working on my high school diploma at Logos School in St. Louis. It was a great school and I flourished there. I was actually teaching a course on Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying". Then I got very sick. I had developed Ulcerative Colitis. I was extremely sick and almost died. This was the beginning of the end of my faith. I couldn't understand why God could allow me to suffer months of agony and pain. I had lost 100 pounds and almost died in the hospital. I eventually was operated on and received an ileostomy, which I still have to this day. I recovered and eventually married. As my first wife said later when we divoiced because she was the first woman to say yes to me.

At this time I went back to the Bronx and was part of the Household of Faith. A small mission church reaching out to the natives of New York. I was one of those natives. I became a full time Christian worker and ministered to men with drug and alcohol problems at Hope Christian Center. We even worked with AIDS patients who were dying during the mid 80’s when AIDS was coming to the attention of Americans.

After four kids and home schooling, I couldn’t take it any longer. I took my family and left the city. God had failed me. This great Savior who rescued me from the hell of drugs and loneliness failed to keep me safe and happy. I hated this failure and the Job crap wasn’t keeping me. Eventually I turned 40 and my mom was going to send my wife and me to Europe for my 40th. I didn’t want to go with this woman who I no longer loved. It was God who kept me in this failing marriage. I had five kids, how could I leave. How could I abandon them? But I was miserable. I hated every day and grew to be a very angry man. So I went to the gym, ran, did marshal arts and drank every weekend. Until one day I found a co-worker, ten years my junior who was in the same situation I was. Married, unhappy and looking for happiness. We found each other. Fuck God and the marriage. I left the church, was put out—excommunicated. But I never left my children. I support them and their fucking mother. I remarried and have never been happier.

But Jesus fucked me. I have Hep C. probably from the blood transfusions back when I was ill in the early seventies when the Read Cross paid drug addicts to give blood.

Truth is I think Jesus is real. I think He really saved me. But after some the shit I went through and the way Christianity is in this country I rather live in hell then bend the knee to him Fuck him. And you can quote me.

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