From Lost to Found

 

From Lost to Found: My Journey to God's Unconditional Love

Introduction 

I've been under attack from an enemy since I was born, an enemy who has been trying to snuff out the light for a long time. This is my story: a chronicle of my life and all the strange things I've experienced up until this point.

I can see you, reader... I know you. We are the same, thrown into the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland, surrounded by mystery, wondrous things, terrible things – things that seem like a dream, foggy and indistinct. Things unspeakable...

Chapter 1: The Echo of Emptiness: My Early World

I've never felt much direction or purpose in my life. For the most part, I've been like a leaf blowing in different winds. There hasn't been a real desire for a career path or much of an endgame plan at all. At best, I could usually just muster up enough energy to make it through the day.

I've always heard people talking about their 401k and retirement plans. I've seen people chase after money, fame, and success, chase after stability and security, start families, and raise kids who would one day take care of their parents when they're old.

I've never taken an interest in any of this. For me, it's just too boring. I don't know how I came to the conclusion that any of that didn't apply to me, but somehow I've always blocked it all out and just focused on the now.

I've always wondered, what's the point? What's the purpose of making money or having a successful career if I'm just going to die anyway? What's the point of helping anyone if we are all just going to die and be forgotten? What's the purpose of being remembered here on this planet if I'm dead and gone? What the f*ck do I care? Will I even be able to care after I'm gone?

Honestly, I'm shocked that I've made it this far! Even now I ask... what's keeping me going? Why am I putting up with all this pain every day? Is it even worth it? So many times I've felt like ending it, closing the book, laying it all to rest. Maybe that would bring me peace.

But what if it doesn't? What if I find myself in an even greater hell than what I'm currently experiencing? This has been the maze I've lived in for most of my life, keeping it a secret for the most part, as most of the people around just seemed generally... "too normal."

So, this is where I've found myself after all this time. I'm currently 34, and almost every crutch, every form of pleasure, everything that used to get me by, is slowly starting to feel like death. Everything I used to enjoy doing is fading into a boring, life-sucking, completely pointless activity—and I mean everything: eating, drinking, socializing, personal hobbies, work, drugs, even just surviving in general!

I know that last statement must sound pretty bleak and depressing, but there is hope. Somewhere deep down in my core is a tiny light, sparkling and reminding me of this all the time. That's what I return to when everything else fails. That's what's keeping me on this planet. That's what saves me.

To explain this more completely I'll start from the beginning. My birth mother's name was Gwen. She would give birth to two children: my older brother, Benjamin, and me. He was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, and I with undeveloped lungs, due to her addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, and drugs.

Years before I was born, she left Benjamin on the steps of a church in the middle of the night, leading to his adoption by the pastoral leaders. Then, she kept me in her custody for about eight months while living with her parents, Ray and Jerry, trying to sell me for adoption.

My great-aunt Brenda (whom I'll refer to as Mom from here on), among other buyers, was attempting to adopt me simultaneously. My mom couldn't afford the steep price they were asking but desperately wanted me. I was almost adopted by a band, but their manager said it would be bad PR to adopt from such an unfit mother.

The time I lived with Gwen put a lot of stress on the household. Her strange quirks and abusive style of mothering included dressing me in all black, sometimes women's clothing, painting my fingernails black, and leaving me in odd places when she was gone.

Jerry and Ray would find me under a pile of clothes in the closet or wrapped in the dryer, unable to properly breathe, when she wanted a break. From what I was told, I was treated like a plaything rather than loved as a son. She would dress me up in whatever fantasy she had envisioned and then toss me aside like a toy when she'd had enough.

Gwen was a very secretive woman, and I still don't know who my real father was. I've never even gotten to see a picture of him. I was told from family speculation that it was either a random one-night stand or something much... more bizarre.

Rumor has it that Gwen was a little too close to Ray, to the point where it would weird you out if you catch my drift. I'll let you be the judge on that matter.

Chapter 2: A World Apart: Childhood as an Outlier

Gwen was also known to be a witch, dabbling in the darker arts. I can remember having night terrors about a witch creeping into my room when I was little. It was the green one from The Wizard of Oz. My childhood was full of this kind of terrifying imagery, causing me to sleep in the bed with my mom until I was about 13 years old.

One of the two times I visited her as a child, I was warned by Mom not to take anything she would try to give me, which, of course, I didn't heed. She ended up giving me this onyx stone that I hid in my bag.

This stone was special to me because it was the only thing I had from her at this point, and I deemed it innocent. But for the following week after returning home with it, I experienced bouts of sleepwalking.

Mom would find me at the door late at night trying to get outside. When she'd wake me up, I'd tell her there was a group of witches chanting and calling to me to come out. 

After a night where I almost got the door open, I told her about the rock, which she immediately threw in the middle of the pond out back, and it never happened again in that manner.

When I was old enough to hear it, Mom would tell me about the night before she adopted me. God sent her a dream where he showed her a mirror. In the reflection, her mother was weeping because Gwen had killed me; she had sacrificed me to the devil.

The morning following this dream, during breakfast, she got a call from Jerry saying, "Come get this child. I can't take it anymore." Mom was on a plane and had me by the end of the day, praying over me in a hotel. She recalls that experience as very liberating and intense spiritually.

I lived with my mom, my sister Jennifer, and my stepfather Tim for a few years in Massachusetts. I don't recall much from this time, except my first memory: cutting into a huge inflatable dinosaur with a kitchen knife in the basement.

My mother and Tim split up, and the three of us moved to the Carolinas. My sister branched out on her own and got married. I must have been close to ten years old when I started recalling the fact that Tim had raped me. Years later, under a session of hypnosis, my sister would have the same repressed memories surface.

This would, of course, devastate my mom, as she had no idea. They had split for other reasons. This really put a lot of stress on the family, and everything sort of just got weird. I believe she tried to take some sort of legal action, but somehow he avoided any consequences.

To be honest with you, it's all kind of a blur. The only memories that really stuck were kind of dark. I remember constantly feeling like a black sheep. The former dark activity continued all throughout my teens.

Outside my immediate family, I was treated like the son of a witch. It was like they were scared of me. I was just a kid, so this really didn't make sense to me. Family members would come spend the night, and I'd freak them out by sleepwalking and many other weird quirks. I've had family members leave my house and never come back to spend the night because of stuff like that.

I became very isolated and quiet around them. My thought life filled with strange imaginations and fantasies that I kept to myself. I really became a stranger to anyone who got close to me, except for friendly peers, and that never lasted long.

Even my connection to my brother whom i loved very dearly was restricted due to his... condition. He would reach out over the phone or online at times then ghost me for long periods of time. I got to visit him once and wept deeply when it was time to leave. I really always enjoyed his company. 

Chapter 3: Drifting Through Distraction: The World's Allure and Disappointment

I've had so many unexplainable experiences. I remember lying on my bed when I was six years old. With my eyes closed, I saw Mario behind my eyelids. I could hear the theme music and watched him jumping up and breaking the blocks.

All of a sudden, the music would slow, and this sensastion of time slowing down would occur. Everything would become blocky and dull. I would open my eyes and feel like the whole world was moving in slow motion.

Then I would watch my dream catcher and command it to spin to the right with my mind, then to the left. Then, just to make sure I was really capable of this, I would stop it with my mind and then make it continue spinning to the left, which is impossible, of course. It would obey my thoughts none the less. 

These weird experiences would last into my teens. I had an imaginary friend for many years named "JC" or something like that. I would play many games with him and have many competitions that he would always let me win for some reason.

So as you can see I was an incredibly imaginative kid, always living in grand fantasies. Looking back at it now, it was amazing or incredibly dangerous, depending on the fantasy. But I just remember always being so isolated and living in my head every day.

I made a few attempts at running away but was always stopped by some divine appointment. The first time, I remember a mother and her children pulled over and tried to question me on the side of the road. They believed my lie about being on the way to school and left.

Little did they know, I had a bag full of crackers, a few dollars, and my entire knife collection. I saw a cop eyeing me a couple of miles later, which prompted me to go back home before I got in serious trouble. It's a funny story looking back.

When I was 15 years old, I got my first computer, where I would play many games online for the first time. This would absolutely consume me for years to come.

I remember missing so much school because of this. Everything in my academics plummeted. I stopped going to school and generally caring about anything else. I had found my escape.

I would go on to become famous on a particular game, earning me the respect and admiration of many fellow players but leaving me empty and full of regret for some of the choices I made to attain that status. I had begun to lie, cheat, and use my friends to amass more power and fame. 

Speaking of escape, I became obsessed with death around this age, wondering what came after. I watched movies like The Matrix and fantasized about how I could escape this world and move on to something more stunning.

One day I remember confiding in an online friend that I was going to end my life. I had it all planned out and was pretty serious in my heart about it. I told her that I was going to find the highest building and jump off it, as I had seen somebody exit the Matrix in one of the animated films.

I am drawing an absolute blank on what made me change my mind but I ultimately didn't go through with it. These extreme fantasies and delusions would continue for years to come.

I still had an incredibly hard time fitting in anywhere in my mid to late teens. Other than a few outcast friends I would just sort of hop from group to group never finding a true home. I always remember thinking how perfectly everyone seemed to fit into place. 

They had their own unique style and group of friends. They all shared similar interests and spent time out of school together. The only thing my friends and I had in common was the fact that we really weren't accepted anywhere. 

Chapter 4: The Deepening Shadows: When Things Got Dark

When I was about 18 years old, I lived with my mom and my stepfather, Mike. This was a very stressful time financially and emotionally for the family. I started smoking cigarettes after running away again one day, which soon led to weed, and then pills, and eventually hallucinogens. I had found a stronger escape.

I failed my senior year of high school twice in a row due to missed days. At this time, my mom suggested I just get my GED, which I did in a matter of two weeks. I remember thinking how silly that was – I had struggled so much in highschool when I could have just gone and gotten this certification in two weeks.

This is when I left home and started hopping from house to house, friend to friend. Mike relapsed into an old meth addiction and cheated on my mom, which caused them to split. Then, he died in a sudden car accident.

The next ten years of my life would become a blur of sex, drugs, and alcohol, which would almost take my life a few times. I saw friends have seizures and got to that point myself a few times. We are all extremely lucky that nobody ever died.

I fell in love a few times and had a few relationships, but always cheated and hurt them. 

Everywhere I went, I can just remember causing people a lot of pain. I was either going to push drugs on you or break your heart. One way or the other, I became bad company and started to feel worthless, losing my passion for anything healthy.

When I was in my early twenties, I lived with a girlfriend named Allison and her mom for about four years. This was my first real encounter with a spiritual attack.

Almost immediately into our relationship, I started to have more mental issues than ever before.

 I began to experience these horrible intrusive thoughts and impulses to do terrible things. I started to feel like I didn't know myself and began questioning what I was capable of for the very first time. 

I had to rely on the help of my mother during one serious episode where I almost called the cops on myself. I woke up in the middle of the night with the most explicit thoughts of hurting Allison running through my head like a projector.

I was so disturbed by this that I remember getting up and leaving the room, phone in hand, debating whether to call the police. I sat on the couch in the dark like a warrior in the middle of battle.

I would swing my sword, thinking I never wanted to hurt anyone, and certainly not commit any of the actions that were manifesting in my mind, but the enemy would swing right back, proposing that if I was losing my mind and there was even a chance that someone was going to be hurt, it would be better to have someone take me out of the equation entirely.

At the peak of this war in my head, I looked up. Allison was standing in the hallway with her hand on the wall, looking at me. She simply just said, "Hey, come back to bed." So after a minute, I trusted her and followed her back into the bedroom, where we would both lie down and go back to sleep for the night.

The following morning, she absolutely blew my mind with a story over breakfast. Someone mentioned what had happened the night before, and she broke out into an unexpected story about what she saw when I was on the couch.

She said the reason she stopped in the hallway and didn't approach me was because I wasn't the only one sitting on the couch... She saw three of us. I was in the middle with two shadow figures to my left and right. There were purple tentacle-like things coming off of my head, and she didn't know what to do but try to separate me from them.

I remember feeling incedibly relieved at hearing this. I knew it wasn't me and this explanation gave me an incredible amount of peace knowing there could be an answer. I wouldn't say i was completely convinced either though. 

Later that day, another episode started to come on, and I would once again seriously debate calling the police. Instead, I called my mom. I told her everything, and I mean everything, to which she responded with prayer.

At this point, I was desperate. I had no choice but to welcome it and receive it, hoping it would bring me some reprieve from this mental onslaught. To my surprise, that was the last time I struggled in that way for years to come.

Chapter 5: A Whisper of the Divine: The Spiritual Search Begins

About two years later, still living with Allison, I was slowly becoming what I was calling a more spiritual person, believing there was more than what I could just pick up on with my five senses. My curiosity was beginning to grow more and more in the possibility of another side – a side of life that we couldn't see but exists nonetheless.

I remember becoming acutely obsessed with reaching this alternate plane. I was trying to reach it by any means I could find. Some bouts of sleep paralysis and out-of-body experiences at night would consume my attention for a time. I would lie there for hours, violently snapping at anybody who would disturb me while trying to get out of my body, which I did successfully. I started dabbling in witchcraft, scrying here and there.

Darker spiritual occurrences and events were slowly creeping in the background, almost festering behind the scenes at this point. Things would move on their own. There were loud noises at night that would cause Allison to lose sleep.

I remember one event in particular that was so ridiculous it left the whole household speechless. Allison, her mom, and I all decided to try something one night. It was her mom's idea to put salt in the doorway because she said it attracted spirits. So we sifted some salt under the door to the closet in our room, where we were hearing a lot of odd noises, and left it overnight.

That same night, an entire eighteen-pack of water fell down the stairs, which startled us out of our sleep. I had to comfort Allison back to sleep because she was genuinely disturbed by it.

The following day, I forgot what we had done until about noon. I suddenly remembered and excitedly gathered Allison and her mom to check on it. When I opened that door, I could not believe what I was looking at!

There was a perfect, and I mean perfect, hoof print about the size of my hand in the salt, next to a long, curvy S figure. All three of us were utterly stunned. We were looking at something impossible, and we knew it. I knew the people I was living with too well for this to be a prank.

Allison truly lacked the motivation to play a prank like that, and her mom was a God-fearing woman who generally didn't play around like that. The print was so fine and perfect, too. It would have been a hard thing to fake.

I remember shaking my head, thinking, "Who would believe this?" and even if they did, what would that even accomplish? What can you even do about something like this? We all left it alone after that and rarely spoke about it again.

I had this one particular dream one night at Allison's. I was in a hellish, cave-like structure. There was fire and lots of smoke obscuring my vision. I was beckoned into a room with the man himself...

He was a bit clichéd looking, but the look on his face... he had authority here. I remember he had servants who were terrified of him. I knew he treated them violently because they jumped and winced at his every whim. After he went over a few things with them, he turned his attention to me.

To my surprise, and without giving up his authoritative nature, he began to make me an offer. This wasn't something that was done with human words or communication. I could just feel it. He was speaking, but I couldn't hear him in the way we hear a person.

This hazy experience continued as I found myself drifting back awake, uttering the words, "I accept," almost unconsciously. When I snapped to cognition and truly realized what was coming out of my mouth, I was mortified.

The entire atmosphere in the room began to shrink, almost as if panning out. The air grew thin and spacey. I have never felt that empty in my entire life. It's as if life itself was withdrawing from me. I felt so far from a God I didn't know, so lonely, and it was progressively getting worse by the moment.

I panicked and prayed to God out of sheer instinct for the next hour. I asked him to forgive me over and over again, repeating the same phrases. I knew things were getting bad. This... was going too far.

Eventually, through my panicked praying, things smoothed out, and I went back to sleep.

Around this time in life, I began to obsess about fame and fortune, joining an acting and modeling agency. I leaned into the acting side and started to enjoy it very much. I took my classes very seriously and put a lot of work into my performances.

However, once again, things got weird.

I took to my acting with a spiritual approach and began what I felt was channeling energies. This impressed my instructors. They were stunned at times and ran to grab the director of the company mid-class to watch me.

I was struggling with work and finances and wasn't making much money in the small gigs and independent films I was doing. The agency hired me on as a paid acting instructor to help me finish my fees before I graduated in less than a year. 

I remember gaining such a sense of worth and confidence during this time, but back home with Allison, things weren't great. She was struggling with ADHD and general depression at this point and had started abusing Adderall.

I was cheating on her with girls I'd meet through gigs, etc., and binging on her Adderall prescription throughout the nights.

Our once close relationship started to kind of dissolve and become less intimate. We were both dealing with a lot and were just trying to fill empty holes from sunrise to sundown.

 This was all around the time my close group of friends introduced me to LSD. They explained it the best they could to me, but I didn't know what I was getting into. My first trip was like blasting off into outer space.

I remember enduring the first couple of hours, forgetting my name and how to pee, hating my friends and secretly vowing to never hang with them again, and then finally coming to a point where I didn't know anything at all.

The last few hours were what really got me, though. I remember looking at them as we were coming off the trip, and for the first time in my life that I can remember, my thinking changed. I thought, "Wow, these are my friends, and they are not perfect, but I love them, flaws and all."

I had never had a thought like that in my entire life. It felt good, like I was feeling something that actually mattered for once. I continued to trip with them for the next year or so, hoping that this new drug would keep showing me things of that nature.

One of these trips would change the way I treated people almost instantly. Allison had a certain quirk that used to annoy me. She would take a cigarette from me almost immediately after I had lit it and took a puff.

On this trip, we were in the car, and I was high on LSD when she took a cigarette out of my hand. It annoyed me as usual, but for some reason, I decided to think twice.

That day she had told me about a tough situation she was going through, and I just realized it wasn't personal.

The aggravation stopped once I stopped taking it personally and considered that she was just stressed out and not thinking clearly. I was so relieved and excited that I could think about others in this new way. I remember actually feeling "enlightened" with some sort of divine revelation after that car ride and would go on to tell my friends about it, preaching that we weren't our thoughts or emotions. 

It truly baffled me that my responses and treatment of people had been so robotic up until that point almost like I had been programmed. Now I felt like i had the power to consciously choose what I followed on the inside. 

I almost looked at this like a new practice, something that I was genuinely eager to work on and it felt important. I almost remember feeling like i had unlocked a super power and was now on the right track to... something bigger and better. 

This was massively life-changing, causing me to begin meditating for about an hour a day, watching my thoughts and generally just looking inside. It was fascinating to me that I had never really paid much attention to the inside. I didn't really know what I was looking for at this point, but it was really interesting to sit and watch everything that would surface.

I found that if I could sit long enough and still my mind, a certain peace would begin to kindle, and then I could just move and have my being a little more lightly. I could choose which things to ignore or pursue further, almost like choosing who I wanted to be. I was trying to lean into a more loving and kind state of being.

I started to consider Buddhism and began watching some teachings, copying what I saw and hoping for positive experiences. This became a daily practice of searching for the truth, getting all my questions answered, and ultimately finding peace.

I would continue this way until a particular LSD trip at the house with just Allison and I. What happened that day would change the course of my life forever and how me something that i never thought possible. 

Chapter 6: The Unveiling: Meeting God and Finding the Truth

It was midday when we took our dose. It kicked in, and I was enjoying myself while Allison was experiencing some very mild effects. She started making phone calls, and I stretched out on the floor to relax, watching the little electric fireplace.

I remember hallucinating. The fake coals were like crystals, and the fire would shimmer light through them in different patterns. It started to look like people's faces burning in hell. I wasn't scared, but I took it seriously... I was almost in a trance-like state and obviously not thinking very clearly.

That's when I crept up to the bed and lay there. After a few minutes of being still, a large gust of wind rushed past the window, catching my attention, then a voice. "Relax," I heard in my head, and I decided to listen to it. So I relaxed. And I began to see a door with my eyes shut.

This door was beautiful. The longer I stared, the more it manifested. The more it manifested, the more curious I got to see what was behind it. I don't know how long I was like this, but eventually, I thought out loud, "I wanna see what's in that door," and it opened immediately.

Light cascaded out, and a Being started to walk out and approach me. The closer he got, the more clearly I could see him. When we were face to face, I realized that it was me. I had come out of the door, but it couldn't be me. I don't look like that.

That version of me was way too happy, way too disciplined, way too fulfilled. I had never looked like that. It was impossible. Then it hit me and I said, "God?" He said, "Mhm," with a humble smile. 

I BROKE DOWN in relief! It was instant love at first site, the warmest welcome I had ever recieved. I couldn't believe it! I knew who he was and I knew that i was FULLY welcomed and accepted! It was a truly awe inspiring moment.

We went going back and forth, back and forth. He wasn't angry with me. He loved me! I could feel how much he loved me. He didn't lord his status or position over me. He was just so happy to finally meet me, and so was I. This meeting was like waves of pure bliss and the most healing encounter I had ever known. 

After talking for a while I felt like the time was approaching for me to go back. At that point, it was so intense, I might as well have been in another realm entirely. As I was about to depart, God made me a few promises and offered me a deal.

He told me a lot of things that he would do for me, but in return, he asked me to share the encounter with people, to tell them the truth, and I accepted. Then he said he wanted to give me a gift, and I began to leave that place. As I was drifting back, he moved towards me and stepped right into me!

I felt everything vibrate and shift as we became one, and BAM! My eyes opened. I looked around the room, then at Allison, and uttered the phrase, "Baby, hang up the phone. I just met God."

She seemed to react by calling a family member over to the house to hangout and maybe make sure I hadn't lost my mind. I'd spend the next few hours no longer alone in my body but one with God in full communication and fellowship. 

I began to prophesy and speak to these two woman about God for several hours, breaking down intermittently in tears. It's like i was beibg transformed and healed right in front of their eyes. They took it pretty well all thibgs cobsidered even though they didn't fully know what to think. 

This encounter would spark, change, and fuel the last 8 years of my life. It hasn't been easy by a long shot, but it's been a lot more real and fulfilling. Hell, the first 6 months after that trip, I felt like I was losing my mind, almost constantly battling anxiety, panic attacks, and what I now understand to be spiritual warfare.

Everything was trying to convince me that it was just a trip. When I would share that encounter people would look at me like I'd lost it, respectfully... It was a constant war in my head over the legitimacy of what had actually happened that day.

But he would keep showing up... talking to me and showing me his presence. That's been the case and solution to every problem I've had since that day in a nutshell.

Chapter 7: Walking in Light: My Journey with God

Shortly after this I would lose my position at the agency for talking about God...

The relationship with Allison would end, but not without her meeting him as well. I'd move on to a few different spots and eventually settle down and get married back in my hometown. Almost everyone I grew up with would meet him eventually and come to fellowship with me.

I've been through a lot of warfare and struggles since, but he just keeps showing up. That's usually enough to solve anything. Just hearing his voice can calm any storm! He holds the words of life. 

He's become my healer, my redeemer, my sword, my shield, my best friend. My everything. I haven't been perfect, but he has never left me or abandoned me. He has never let anything be too overwhelming and consume me.

The signs and wonders have been absolutely ridiculous but more than that his presence. His peace, joy, love, grace, and mercy is what has allowed me to keep going. His guidance keeps me from slipping too far into trouble. 

He became my lifeline and still is to this day. As I grow in my faith and face certain challenges, so does my dependence on him. These days, I spend every day seeking his voice and guidance as much as I can and cannot move forward without him.

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