'A' Testimony - An Excerpt from Memoirs of a Runaway

   Like most stories I tell, I like to start with an explanation: The title of this blog says 'A' Testimony' because God was not done working on me (it's all in the book)! 

   By the time I got to Nebraska, I was exhausted and stressed. I had been hitching for twelve days, and the only thing I had in my system was coffee and a ham sandwich that someone bought me. I thought about staying somewhere for a short time to get food stamps, but when you don’t have a place to live and, thus, don’t have an address, you aren’t eligible, and so I continued on my way home.
   A man named Joe picked me up and asked me if I wanted to get high. I told him yes but thought to myself that it would surely kill me. He pulled out what he described as “really good sensimilla.” We stopped and smoked together and everything in my life seemed to become clearer. I knew that I had nowhere to go; I doubted I was wanted at home, and I had no future. This was it. I had hit bottom. I made small talk, but I kept these thoughts inside. Joe sensed my desperation and said, “Hey, if you’d like, I have pounds of this at home if you want to take some with you.” Yet another person was giving me something for nothing. Of course I said yes, as I was a taker. I’d be able to sell it for food or use it for my own habit. We drove quite a distance before we reached his house. He was very generous and very kind. He drove me back to the freeway and asked me if I was going to be okay. I answered that I would be fine, and he dropped me off.    A few minutes after Joe dropped me off, it began to rain. Perfect, I thought. I wanted to suffer. I stood there for hours and was soaked to the bone. Finally, I decided to try to find someplace to get warm, but there were only a couple of gas stations in the area, and they were closed. There was a bridge a short distance away, and I decided to stay under it till the rain passed. I started to cry. I could not stop, and I could not regain control of myself. Every time I thought I might have hit bottom, I found a new level to sink to. I cried, and then I began praying. I gave the most heartfelt prayer I had ever said. I asked God to forgive me for what I was about to do, but I couldn’t live anymore. It was too painful. I took a knife out of my bag and stabbed myself on the wrist. I started to pull on the blade to end my life…and I stopped. An overwhelming sensation came over me, a force that I had never felt before. I stood up and took a sock out of my backpack and wrapped it around my wrist. Newfound energy had surged through me, and I walked down to the road. I didn’t even put my thumb out, and someone pulled over. This is a miracle, I thought to myself. The man who pulled over was in a Volkswagen station wagon, and he looked like the pictures and statues I had seen of Jesus. I jumped in his car. The first words he said to me were, “Have you confessed your sins to Jesus?”
   I panicked a little and responded, “I went to church with my mom all growing up, and I know a little about the story of Jesus, but I don’t know what to say.”
   “I can help you,” he replied. He said the Lord’s Prayer, and he asked me to pray and recite with him. “Say, Lord, I ask that you forgive me of my sins and come into my heart and be my lord and savior.”
   I bowed my head and peeked out of my eye to see if he was watching me. I recited that verse. He continued to talk to me, but I was feeling uncomfortable and staring at my wrist. I thought that God must have been looking after me. I didn’t feel tired, or hungry, nor was I feeling the anxiety or the depression I had been feeling earlier. We did not ride a long way together, but I was realizing how rough of a night it had been. The sun was beginning to rise, and I still had not been to sleep. As he pulled off the interstate to drop me off, he said, “Do not worry; everything is going to be fine. You are going to be fine.”
   As I walked down the ramp, I was very concerned about getting a ride. I started to think about all that I had been through and what I must have put my family through. It seemed as if the walk down that ramp was the longest walk of my life. I was filled with thoughts and emotions I had never felt before. As I was about to slip into despair again, an elderly couple pulled over and asked if they could give me a ride. Of course I obliged and gave them my thanks. They made very little small talk and then said something that just floored me. The gentleman said, “Do you know how to live with Jesus in your life?”
   I turned around and looked out the back window as if the last driver would be there making sure that these people continued his message. I replied, humbly, “I’m not sure.” It had only been a few years that I had been out on my own, but it felt like a lifetime. I added, “I have lived so long like I have, I don’t know if I know how to change.”
   The driver explained that Jesus died for us so that we may be forgiven and so that we could live an abundant life. I did know that, I’d heard the stories, but how did they know that I needed to hear that right then? As if in an epiphany, I realized that this was supposed to happen to me. I’d felt bits and pieces of this before, but this time I knew that God was really watching over me. Me. After what I’ve done, I wondered why He would even care at all about me.
   The couple talked with me for quite a while and helped to put me at ease. I felt like everything they said was just for me, and I felt truly blessed. They went on to say that they had gone way past their exit but that they felt as if I needed them. They asked if they could give me some money, and I expressed gratitude to them and asked them to continue to pray for me.
   They let me off at the next exit, and a van quickly pulled over and the driver said, “Come on in. Where are you headed?”
   “Back to Illinois,” I answered.
​   “Well, we’re headed back home to Davenport, so we’ll take you that far.” There was religious music playing on the radio, and I heard Jesus’ name in the lyrics. I actually felt nervous, like I could disappoint God by what I was going to do or say next. I knew that He was with me. I had felt it many times in the past, but I let the feelings pass quickly. God was not letting that happen this time.
   The driver’s wife continued, “We just got done with a gig and wanted to head back before we went out on the road again.”
   “Do you like Christian music?” another one of the riders asked.
   “I don’t know that I’ve heard a whole lot, but I like what’s playing on the radio,” I responded.
   After a smile, the rider said, “That’s us. We just recorded that, thank you.”
   “Wow, it sounds like the good old rock and roll I listen to all the time. I really like this.” I remember talking for a little while longer, and my next memory was of waking up. “Man, I’m really sorry. I haven’t slept in a really long time.”
   The four gentlemen and the one lady in the van looked at me with comforting eyes and sympathetic smiles. The woman asked, “You poor guy, when was the last time you ate?”
   I couldn’t even believe that she just asked me that. Why would she know or care? My eyes began to tear as I honestly could not remember. I told them what had happened, and I saw them looking at me with more concern than I ever remember from another human being. The moment I quit telling my story, the tone began to change as if they knew exactly what to say and do next. They looked at each other knowingly, and without a word, they pulled off the interstate and went right to a restaurant. One of the men sat down next to me and said, “We’re going to take care of you, don’t worry.” I began to weep, and the woman took my hand and sat down beside me as well.
   Without confiding in each other, they all began to talk to me about how much better my life would be if I lived with Christ in my life. I was overwhelmed and flattered that they took such an interest in me. I never had felt so much at peace and more comforted in my entire life.
   They took me home with them, fed me again, and made sure I had a good night’s sleep. The next day, they brought me to the Greyhound station where they bought my bus ticket and sent me home. 
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