The Prodigal Son 11/11/2026
God thundereth marvellously with his voice; great things doeth he, which we cannot comprehend. For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth; likewise, to the small rain, and to the great rain of his strength.
This is something I do not enjoy doing which is writing first person and a personal event which has been hidden for decades. It is more a story of a Prodigal Son and my return to Christ which was the best thing to happen in my life. It is the fact that I am a felon who cannot own a gun and, in most states, do not have the Right to vote which are absolutely deserved for my crime. I owe this to the readers.
I was first saved by Billy Graham but do not really consider it a true Salvation or rebirth since I was more pressured to become saved like my brother and sister than my own decision. Sometimes you need to fall off your pedestal to find your knees.
When I was fifteen, I began smoking tobacco and pot at one of my church campouts with their version of the Boy Scouts. I turned away from God and became an atheist and Communist going with the late 60’s and 70’s following that hippy lifestyle in Eugene. I was into drugs and a smalltime dealer of pot while working odd jobs at gas stations and canneries around Oregon. Even then I did not understand I was a capitalist and so were my fellow dealers.
When I was 25 my mom died of cancer after an 18-month struggle and a month to the day later my father died of a heart attack. It was the most devastating thing that had ever happened to me since even though I was a rebel he was the closest person in my life and thanks be to God we had a great reconciliation days before he died.
Being the only one left in the family in Eugene I became the acting person who had to take care of the will and help selling their property. Like many parent deaths there were lots of things that had to be dealt with including having to back someone down with a threat of taking the discussion into the front yard. A very ugly time in my drug and alcohol filled life.
I had never gotten into the hard drugs although my friends had but began using cocaine after they died and suddenly having extra dollars. I became a connection for a couple of people who were buying larger quantities of cocaine and that is where most of my use came from with their thank you lines.
One of their guys said he had a guy wanting a half a pound and he arranged everything, so I had him bring the guy to my apartment and make the transaction happen. It was a large amount of money so the go between was upstairs while we met downstairs.
When I answered the door, I was met with around 10 guys with guns and thought it was a robbery and thought we were going to die. It turned out it was cops who were running a sting and basically a training exercise from some Portland undercover cops who happened to be at a bar with my friend, and he set the deal up with them.
My best friend’s dad bailed me out and he became my adopted father for the rest of his life and found myself on my knees in my back yard after I was let out. I found Christ that day and was born again saying the sinner’s prayer actually saying Jesus I cannot drive this car will you please take the wheel. That was the end of my drug habit and did not need or want them again although I knew I needed to get out of Eugene and the circle I was with. I soon found a job selling Medicare Supplements in Roseburg and the South Coast for a small company. Tough job but got me out of Eugene.
A couple of months later while waiting for trial I moved to Coquille to get away from the temptation of starting smoking pot again although most of my friends abandoned me at that time anyway. I wasn’t as good a friend when I didn’t have free drugs to give out.
God is so good. My house in Coquille was miraculously a block away from my best friend’s dad who bailed me out and would see himhim every couple of months and talk about life. We would have a beer on my porch when he came down to his property, and he would tell me stories about his time on the USS Enterprise in WWII. Incredible stories about the most amazing ship in the war. I read about WWII and became more and more Conservative while he basically adopted me as his son, a truly great man much like my father another WWII navy hero.
They kept delaying my trial I think to see if I would return to dealing or dope, but I met another man who really changed my life was while I was working for Mutual of Omaha, I was talking to an old guy up in the pucker-wakoozies with about 3 teeth on the porch of his small shack about a Medicare Supplement which I knew he could not afford.
As we were talking the subject of mistakes in life came up and I told him I made a really big mistake. He told me, we all make mistakes and some are bigger than others and he had made plenty, but what matters is if you learn from those mistakes. That changed my life and even though I may never forgive myself of that mistake and know Jesus has, I learned from it and likely died without it.
Three years after my arrest I had my trial and pled guilty which I was looking at 10 years in prison or at least a couple, I retold that story to the judge and told him I learned from that mistake. The judge agreed with me and said most people will disagree with not putting you in jail but would have 3 years’ probation which I knew would be easy as my life was completely changed.
This is my confession to everyone who reads this Daily Bray of something I had to reveal even though it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me since it kept me from a life of drugs or death. After six months of sobriety from drugs and my brain began working again remembering names and numbers lost in the fog, I was ticked off how I wasted 10 years of my life and found new friends who don’t do drugs and alcohol and enjoy this drug free mind.
Do I still make mistakes and have other sins? Of course, but God for whatever reason found a way to knock me off my pedestal so I could find my knees and have one of the most incredible lives a man could ever hope for following him through miraculous adventures knowing his guidance would always be there. He blessed me with a wonderful wife and son and a drug and alcohol-free life.
Pray for my walk
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