". . . by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. . ." Revelation 12:11 (NIV)

(02/17/03) My testimony is always in process. Please be patient as I complete and polish (clean up the typos, spelling, grammar problems, add a little here and there) this testimony. May all the glory be to God, only the mistakes are mine!

Most often, when people give their Christian testimony in public we hear tales of rampant drug use, an unending string of sexual liaisons, or prolonged periods of jail time. None of these apply to my testimony. And while testimonies of these types speak of the power of God to change lives, too often it gives the impression that those who feel they are "good" do not need to know God. If I hear how God changes the heart of a drug dealer, and I have no history of being a drug dealer, then I do not need to know God. This of course is fiction. Romans tells us that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 2:23 NIV). I have also learned that just because someone claims to be a Christian, and that they know God, does not mean they are a Christian. I cannot say I was a Christian before August of 1985. I certainly would not say I was Born-again, in the manner that others talk about a born-again experience, before November of 1986. There is a big difference between the two, at least in my life. At any rate, God began moving in my life a few years before I accepted Him.

I grew up in my grandparent's home and did not know God. Despite giving lip service to God and Jesus Christ when their names were used in vain in my home, I fully assumed we were all atheists. My adopted mother claims to the contrary, but prior to going to church on my own after finishing High School, I had only attended church twice in my life. Don't confuse that with twice a year, Christmas and Easter, the times most Americans feel guilty enough to attend a service. I did grow up in a loving home, or at least it was as loving as World War II generation parents can be. There was always food on the table, plenty of clothes and lots of security. My grandparents had taken me in after my real mom (their daughter) had died when I was five or six years old.  My real father was not well equipped to deal with 4 young children (I'm the oldest) after the loss of his wife. There were some real ugly situations developing before I went to live with my grandparents--too much of which I remember to this day. Eventually my grandparents would adopt me and my sister (my other brother and sister would live for a while with the other grandma and eventually would be reunited with my real dad). Despite all the sacrifice, love and care of my adopted parents, there was little or no opportunity to learn about God and His son Jesus. But in the realm of Grace, God will make a way.

Dale Keiser was my Geography teacher my Freshmen year of High School and my English teacher my Sophomore year. Mr. Keiser was open about his Christian faith in the classroom and shared his Christian point of view regarding events. Most memorable was a lecture regarding Halloween, just before the holiday, and a lecture about the Shroud of Turin. None of Dale Keiser's lectures led me to Christ. Mr. Keiser did not preach, but he did plant seeds.

I had a friend, who lived a couple of doors down my street who was a Jehovah's Witness. During my Junior year of High School, I spent a lot of time with this friend. His father wasted few opportunities to witness. At that point in my life, I did not mind. I did not think about attending even one of their meetings, but I was interested in their literature. Like I do today (sometimes I struggle with it), I had an immense intellectual interest what people believed and why they believed it. Some of what I read about the Jehovah's Witnesses, written by them, confirmed what I had learned before. Some, however, did not fit into place. I took it all in and tried to make sense of things. More things fell into place my Senior year.  

A couple of things happened through the course of my last year of High School (84-85). There was a rise in the incidents of ritual animal killings in the mid-west (or at least a rise in the media reporting) that were linked to Satanist and I met a girl in school who was Christian. The mid-80s, for some reason, was preoccupied with Satanism. In fact, one report that I watched on television said that that time had the greatest interest in Satanism since the early 70s (remember all those Exorcist and Omen movies?). Cat, dogs, goat, sheep, cows and other animals were being found in fields and barns throughout the mid-west. This sparked several docu-programs like the one I mentioned above that tried to explain where all this stuff was coming from, including historical accounts, current events and mythological reasons. In total, I must have viewed five or more such programs. Each of these were on the major networks or cable stations. None of them were from a Christian point of view (at least that I was aware of). At this time, I was not convinced to run to church and accept Christ, but I did know that I did not want to be associated with the Satanist. It was like not knowing which side you wanted to be on, but certainly knowing which side you did not want to be on. I was building a picture that fell into two categories, good and evil. The good was that which was associated with God and the bad was that which was associated with Satan. There was also developing a value system of dos and don'ts. The dos were good and the don'ts were bad. This did not sit completely square with me, however. Life seemed more complicated than this. I would meet someone who I would get very close to. Because of this closeness I found that life was indeed black and white (as I hold to today) but what makes life complicated isn't that fact that life is really complicated, but that people and institutions are hypocritical. It's the refusal to adhere to the principals of things being black and white that makes life complicated. This lesson would be very painful for me, as it still is today, but it would eventually lead me to Christ.

I was not aware of the meaning of the phrase, "missionary dating" until I met my first and only high school girlfriend. Didn't know what "unequally yoked" meant either. I am convinced that it is not a good idea for Christian boys and girls to date non-Christian boys and girls. It's one of those good examples of things needing to be black and white. Of course at the age of 17 none of that seemed important. Before too long I found myself strongly attached to this young lady. Out of consideration for her, her name and all the events of our relationship are best left unpublished but as a result of my relationship with her, and lots of prodding by her mother, I did eventually accept Christ. However, it was only after our relationship came to an end did I truly seek God and knowledge of His son Jesus. To make a long story short (the relationship went on for close to two years), there were many things that happened and lots of things that were said that did not match with what the ideal Christian walk entailed. Of course now, I see that most of the hypocrisy stemmed from the thoughts and actions of immature Christians. But what would one expect from teenage Christians? But a lot of the hypocrisy that I noted at this early stage of my Christian walk also came from supposed mature Christians. To love people with the love of Christ is a difficult thing. And at times, when we might not see the Holy Spirit working in the lives of a new Christian in the way we want to see the Holy Spirit move, we extend the "love" of Jesus, perhaps in a method a bit less than loving. In our desires to see new Christians walk the walk, we impose upon them our views of what a good Christian is suppose to be, sometimes all at once. The Kingdom of God has very little to do with clothing, hair, or jewelry. Jesus was quite clear in stating that we are not to worry about what we eat, drink or wear (Matthew 6:25-34) and that it is not important what goes into the body, but what comes out that makes a person unclean (Matthew 15:10-11). How often have we seen the clean-cut well to do Christian up to their ears in sin, but still live that life of duplicity, going to church, holding places of leadership, etc? But once the young Christian, or the unsaved soul, walks in with blue hair, the old saints rear up to work Spiritual Warfare, to drive all sorts of devils and demons out of them. Or worse, instead of prayer and support, the odd looking fellow is greeted with a sharp tongue. And while I never had the blue hair, I did have long hair and an earring in my left ear (I should point out that this was in 1986, in North Idaho). Praise be to God that I held out against so many "loving" saints of God and pressed on in the knowledge of God. Even today I still encourage unsaved people at work to press on seeking God, no matter how badly Christians in the past have harmed them.

It was August of 1985, and I was about to start college. I was a new child of Christ who struggled with his new found faith. I struggled with things in my life that I knew were wrong, according to the Word of God, and I struggled with things that older Christians told me were wrong, but could not find in the Word of God as being wrong. Those struggles were nothing compared to the storms that were about to hit my life.

In November of 1985 the only real father I had ever known died. That set off a series of events almost proved fatal. I eventually learned that there is a family history of Depression in my family and that I constantly struggle with the problem myself. In late 1985, I wasn't aware that I had a serious problem. What I dealt with after the death of my adopted father was actually the second episode of clinically Depression I had. As an adult, this second episode was more difficult because I was responsible to me. I had to go to school. I had to play some bills. I had to be an adult. More stressful, I had to act like a Christian. My first bout of Depression occurred in my Sophomore year of High School. I was not a Christian then. Several major family problems occurred in a short period of time. School work which came relatively easy to me was difficult. I experienced the worst grades I had ever experienced. It was difficult to get out of bed to go to school. I preferred to stay in my room and read my comic books, rather than deal with people. It was extremely difficult for me not to break out in tears, at every little mishap. Most would say that that is normal teenage life--and that is what many told me at the time. However, this went on for months. My difficulties stretched from my Sophomore year into my Junior year. Then, eventually, without me even really realizing it, the cloud lifted, after about 18 months of emotional Hell. This second round of Depression came after shortly after accepting Christ. As life became a struggle again, I was told by those I went to church with, to just have a little faith and pray my way through. Months passed. I could do no better than low Ds in most of my college classes, despite giving everything my best efforts. I slept a lot, avoided people, made it my classes on time, but avoided everything else. During Spring Break, I hooked up with some High School friends and got more drunk than I had ever gotten drunk before in my life. I kept praying and praying and praying and the clouds did not lift. I started getting angry, and certainly more sinful. After a week of too much booze, I went back to school and finished up the semester, with a GPA of just over 2.0. That might not seem that bad, except that I was used to a GPA a heck of a lot closer to 4.0! Strangely enough, no one noticed that I was having difficulties except my girlfriend at the time. Everyone else thought I was just having some stress, but that that was normal, since my adopted father had passed away only a few months earlier. I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. The clouds still hung around, but I thought I had seen a glimmer of light. I had attended the University of Idaho as an Electrical Engineer student. I hated my classes. It was clear that I didn't want to be an engineer. One Sunday, during my Summer break, a guest speaker at church spoke about the importance of Christian school teachers in the public school system. The only good grades I received that first year of school were my History classes and my English classes. I thought sure God was calling me to teach. I was anxious for the next school year to begin, because I was going to change my major and work towards being a school teacher. A few weeks after that, my girlfriend dumped me. That was very significant, because at the time, I thought I might well have married her. Ahhh, so much for the fancies of a 19/20 year old! To make this portion of the story shorter, I planned to give away several of my possession to friends and family when someone finally noticed that I wasn't doing real well. I had not made the attempt to take my own life, but someone noticed that I was headed in that direction. I started seeing one of the pastors at the church I was attending, prayed and prayed and prayed. Around that time was the 5th and last time I ever drank to get drunk, November of 1986. If I ever had a Born-again experience, that was about the night I had it. I realized that I was not taking my walk seriously and I needed to start acting the way a Christian was supposed to act. I would like to say that the cloud of Depression immediately lifted off of me, but that was not true. Eventually, on its own, the cloud finally lifted, several a couple of months later. The entire time I struggled with that second bout of Depression had been over a year's time--nearly a year and a half. I still had not been made aware of what clinical Depression was, and had not been diagnosed as suffering with it. I still thought it was all natural, just something that happens when too many bad things occurred in a short period of time. After several more months, late Spring of 1987, I met Cheryl, the woman who would eventually become my wife, and life began to get better. By this time I was convinced that I was not going to be an electrical engineer. I thought, after hearing a message from a Youth For Christ special speaker in a Sunday morning service, that  God was calling me to be a school teacher, a minister to the public school system, to maybe be the type of witness to a kid in the same manner that Mr. Keiser was to me. My grades in college returned to normal, as I set out to get a degree in Secondary Education, majoring in both English and History. In a couple years time Cheryl and I were married (May 1989) and we both finished college together. I began my first teaching job at age 23, in November of 1990, my daughter was born just a little over a year after that (January 1992) and a year after that my son was soon on his way (May of 1993) . It was the longest time that I could remember when there were no black clouds hanging around. One could say, and I often did, that I was smack in the middle of doing God's will. Eventually I would come to realize that bad circumstances are not an indication that we are out of God's will. But that would be a few years down the line. My way of thinking, in 1993, was that if things were going well, I was in God's will, and if things went poorly, or God forbid, disastrously, that I was not in God's will and being punished for my sins.

Just after Brad was born, mere hours after in birth, he came down with a serious illness, one that could have killed him, or left him mentally retarded. We knew of the possibilities of him being sick, but like good Christians we prayed, and prayed, and prayed. We had the church pray. They prayed and prayed and prayed. There was no doubt in my mind that Brad would be healed, before being born. He wasn't healed and his sickness caused a lot of bills. He did get better, with a week's worth of medicine, but we owed a lot of money. On top of that, heading into my 4th year of teaching, life was not good. I was not enjoying teaching as I thought I would. There were talks of possible teacher strikes. There were political moves and power plays among the staff, and every parent I had to deal with treated me like I was the source of all that was wrong in public education. Another episode of Depression developed. This time I did make a serious attempt at ending my own life. Here I need to pause a bit. I told Cheryl of my tendencies to become depressed. I still did not know what clinical Depression was. I just thought, especially in the winter time, that I got down a bit and that it could last for a long time. Cheryl had only seen me doing well and thought I had overstated things. Neither Cheryl or I had a clue as to what was coming. I don't remember ever making the decision to kill myself, I just remember wanting the pain and the heaviness to go away. No one knew. Everyone I worked with, all the students, my close friends, and even my wife were completely stunned by my attempt. Some knew that life seemed a bit stressful on me, but no one knew that it took all my energy to maintain my professionalism in the classroom. No one knew it took all my strength just to get up and make it through the day. There were a lot of other issues developing at home, details that don't need to be repeated, but everywhere I turned, things fell apart as I took my anger and frustration out on my family. I prayed and prayed and prayed. Nothing lifted. It had lasted from June to December of 1993 before I finally snapped. It was a Sunday morning. I played the drums in the worship service. Several said I did another excellent job on the drums. I just smiled, tried real hard not to cry. Told my wife I wasn't feeling well. Dropped the kids off at grandma and grandpa's--Cheryl's parents were confused about me bringing the kids over, but were happy to see them. Pulled the car into the garage after I got home, closed the door and played on my drum set (which was in the garage too) as the room filled with car exhaust. I remember, after the third song I played along with on the radio, that I had one horrible headache. I just wanted my head to stop hurting. It's kind of strange, I was trying to end my life, but I wanted to take medicine for my headache. On the way into the bathroom to get some aspirin, something happened. I do not remember thinking about calling 911, but I did. I like to think that God interviewed and spared my life. I don't remember the police man kicking my door in, but I have a vague memory of being lifted into the ambulance. The next thing I remember is Cheryl crying when she came in to see me. I also remember the Raider beating the Bills, in Buffalo, 25-24, with some late heroics by Jeff Hostetler. But I didn't have my glasses, so the TV was very blurry. I also remember one of the only pastors I trusted at that time coming in to see me. I cried, because I thought I had destroyed my testimony. He reassured that I had not. That reassurance didn't comfort me then, but it did later on. The rest of my time in the hospital was humiliating. They took my clothes from me and put me in an outfit that made me feel like a prison inmate, basically a set of teal colored pajamas. It was worse than being a prison inmate, I was the inmate of a psycho ward. It was the lowest moment of my life. I was grilled about possible drug use and drinking problems. I was asked if I ever heard voices my head. And being the smart-aleck that I am I said that I only heard my own voice in my head. Yeah, that went over well with the doctors. I was asked if I had been sexually abused, or if I had sexually abused anyone. And when I answered no to all those questions, some with smart remarks, others without, they asked me again, because they thought that I couldn't have been so depressed, for so long, without the aid of some sort of sin (not their words, but mine). I told them that I withstood all the vices. I just was feeling very heavy and wanted it to end. The upshot of all of that was I was eventually put on medication, paxil. To be honest, the side effects of that drug were as bad as the Depression. I feel that way about all the anti-depressant drugs that I've taken. I vowed never again to take the medications. Of course, minor set backs forced me to take the medication again. If for no other reason than for my family. Now, in a Pentecostal setting, one does not rely on drugs to live a normal life. One depends only on God. So I prayed and prayed and prayed. While I wasn't depressed at thistime, I still needed to take the medications. One part of me accepted the drugs, another parthated the drugs. I was told it would be a life long struggle with Depression, given my history, and the history of the family. All sorts of family things were revealed, over the course of several years that started to make a very cloudy picture a little more clear. I also knew that my favorite cousin, Brad--my son's namesake--killed himself. But no one told me it was part of a family pattern. I don't know exactly when, but I learned that my real mom had committed suicide too.  All those years, many in the family knew of this problem with Depression. No one talked about it. No one bothered to "watch out" for one another either, to look for trends or patterns in behavior. Mental illness runs rampant in my family and no one bothered to admit it until I brought things out in the open. But even knowing of the family history, and my personal difficulties, I still resented my affliction. I was a born-again Christian--I was a Raider fan (no joke--I thought it was weak of me to be on medication and a betray of my Raider fan-ness). I had to stop teaching and I felt guilty about that--after all, I thought God had called me to be a teacher. Eventually, over a year after the suicide attempt, the cloud lifted (summer of 1994 or so). I only took the medication when life got rough--generally only during the winter months.  Family life was good--my relationship with my wife and kids returned to normal, church life was not so bad, and I felt the pull to teach again. Cheryl and I both thought God was directing us to move back to California, to accept a teaching job (August 1995), only a few miles away from where both of us grew up. To shorten this portion down, within a couple of months, my teaching job turned sour as parents started rallying against me. The adjustment from a North Idaho economy to an Northern Californian economy was very stressful and I could feel the toll on me emotionally. I started taking my medicine again, but it didn't work. My new doctor told me to take a higher dosage, and it didn't work. I took more and it didn't work. Worse, not only did I face the old foe Depression, but I started experiencing vertigo and I started seeing and imaging things that were not real. What really scared me was that I knew those things were not real, but I could see and feel them anyway. I was really getting scared. This time however, I was not just content to pray and pray and pray. I checked myself into a Christian mental hospital (March 1994), under my own power and began to get serious about fighting this problem I have with Depression. I currently do not take medication, but I did during the first couple of months after September 11th, and I have some on hand, just in case. I no longer teach, but I still get the yearning, from time to time--I think I pretty much need to hear the audible voice of God before I pick up another piece of chalk. . I watch my lifestyle and constantly take measure of how much stress I am enduring and I adjust my life according. I watch my sleep patterns a lot. I watch all the things that can build up and can knock me off balance. I don't want to go back to taking medication, but I also know that my family has to come before my pride and ego, so it is handy if life gets too difficult. There are two other very import discoveries after all of this--my faith in God, through His son Jesus, is more important to me than ever before. Before, I was so angry at God because He did not deliver me from my affliction. But I have come to learn that His grace is sufficient for me! While the struggle did not disappear in a moment, the struggle has grown easier--because of His work in my life. He has delivered me, to this moment. I learned in that Christian hospital that God's ways are not my ways, and that I cannot ever tell God want to do--even if I disguise it as a good Christian prayer. God is God, and I am not--that's good news, it really is. Secondly, and nearly as important, my wife is easily my best friend in all the world. We are a normal Christian couple, married nearly 14 years at the time I am writing this (February 2003), who have the normal set of difficulties. Not for a moment do I wish I had someone else close by. Her and I have virtually walked to Hell together, and God has seen us through. Since April of 1994 I've been working at Agilent Technologies, both as an assembler of microelectronic circuits and as an electronic technician (June 2000), testing those same type of circuits. I have had a few run-ins with my old foe Depression, though nothing remotely on the scale of the 1993 episode, or even the difficulties I had in 1995. At most, they have lasted only a couple of months.

. . . and that is my testimony to the power and love of God, through Jesus Christ, in my life!