There is often a dark cloud over my blogs. A heavy presence and not often a happy ending. And that’s how it is sometimes. Sometimes we need to see the dark…for a long time…until we can see the light..what ever that light may be.
Let me introduce you to Dale. Dale has seen the dark side and felt its touch. But he has also seen the bright side and felt the heat. I know many young people (and not so young people) think that its to late for them t change. They are wrong..
No one is ever past saving
“Start children off on the way they should go and even when they are old they will not turn from it”.
Proverbs 22:6 .
When I am asked to tell my story I never know where to begin. So because I am a ‘Born Again’ Christian I will start from the time I met God.
I won’t go into all the spiritual and supernatural details because that is a story in itself and is a book in the writing process.
To put it briefly ,in 2003 I was knocked down by a double decker bus while on the way to work as a carpenter in Birmingham city centre. The first I knew about it was when I woke up in hospital six weeks later after being on a life support system for one week and then in an induced coma for five weeks while my head healed after an operation. The operation was to remove a Subdural hematoma (blood clot on the brain) this was done by opening my scull ,which was fractured , to relieve pressure on the brain. At some point during this time, I had what I can only describe as an out of body near death experience. This led me to knowing Jesus, while he taught me and delivered me from demons. He showed me my past, and told me where I had gone wrong (this took quite a while) and how to renew my thinking and mind-set.
When I was two years old my parents moved to South Africa and I started school in a rough part of
Johannesburg where some of the Afrikaners hated the English. I had to dodge stone’s on the way to school and I spent my playtimes avoiding the kids that used to beat me up. At the end of playtime I would always run back to the class room and the teacher would always tell me off and smack me with a ruler on the hands or on the legs, because we wore shorts. This same teacher used to lift me out of the chair by the ear if I was caught doing wrong. I never learned to be good because I didn’t want to be good for someone like that, so I just learned to be crafty and tried not to get caught. I failed my first year in infants and had to repeat the year again which didn’t help the bullying. At the age of seven I left South Africa with a dislike for school, teachers, authority and Afrikaner’s.
My family moved to Rhodesia where I spent three happy years as British in a British colony but at the age of ten we returned back to England. Our relatives welcomed us home, there were even British flags lining the streets, wow! what a country. It may have been the Queens Silver Jubilee but it still felt like I was welcomed home where I belonged. Well, I thought I belonged, but I spoke with a funny accent and I struggled with school work – I was just a stupid African. The black kids befriended me until they realised I was a racist bigot. They knew that before me, I didn’t know that until they punched me !
By the age of 15 I tried several sports and social groups but didn’t seem to fit anywhere, because no matter where you go your past follows you. I finally found solitude and escapism in dark heavy Rock music. One day I was listening to a song about the devil who I thought was ‘cool ‘so I wrote 666 on the palm of my hand. I immediately had some kind of epileptic fit which threw me off the bed. When I recovered I washed my hand straight away.
A child/teenager will go from one dark place to another trying to escape their suffering but they will just find new suffering and the old suffering will follow as well.
After that day my mood got darker, I wore a German SS ring and iron cross and was trying satanic rituals at school I started smoking cigarettes and cannabis, As years went on I became more interested in crime, drugs and witchcraft, my heroes were as such and I read morbid books about violence, war crimes and anything depressing. If you want to change your mood it’s easier to lower it than it is to lift it.
After getting married, my wife got me into reggae music and along with Jamaican weed I went from white racist to white ‘Raster’, well almost, but certainly had lots of Rastafarian friend’s.
As I grew older and had children I became more responsible but still had this darkness inside me but at the age of 40,and accepting Jesus into my life as Lord and Saviour, Jesus started to deliver me from the demons of drug addiction and dishonesty. I also found out that I am partly dyslexic, wow that explains a lot, I wish I had known that when I was a boy.
Now I look up to new heroes, people like Fiona-Grace Fearon and Kendra Houseman who rescue teenagers from the gates of hell and people like my wife Kerry and her friend Dawn Franks who mentor young girls and teach them to walk in the light instead of the darkness ( Proverbs 22:6).
We need to show our youth new heroes to aspire to. Not celebrities who love money and live a life our youngsters can only dream of. But show them people who will make sacrifices and battle to overcome the sufferings of others with the only reward of seeing a difference in their lives
I have my own carpentry business now which puts me in a position to help others and to encourage those who show love and care to carry on pushing forward to change lives.
No one is ever past saving. I know because I’ve seen miracles – I am saved !
You can join the Out of the Shadows Facebook page Here
Comments