Feb 14, 2008

miracles

Listening to CJ Bergman over and over has got me to thinking in these wee hours of the night. I've seen a handful of miracles in my life.

I crashed my motorcycle on the 101, no helmet, and walked away without a scratch.

I had someone throw a crowbar at me from their vehicle (yep, a crowbar) when I was in high school. He was in the back of a pickup (figures), and he chucked the thing from two lanes over. It flew through my open window, an inch from my, and landed on the middle console, between me in the driver's seat and my friend Lonnie sitting shotgun. It landed in my cupholder and didn't bounce or anything.

That same guy and 40 or so of his friends tried to kill me one night. They slammed their car into mine while we were driving down Miller Road in Scottsdale, which sent me up a sidewalk, shattering my axle... and as we turned the corner I was preparing to die. But when we turned the corner a cop was there, pulling someone over. He's now a "professional rapper" in Scottsdale, and he asked me to be friends on MySpace. Classic stuff right there...

At ten years old I got drilled by a car while riding my bike to the city pool. I flew through the air, landed in the turn lane, and got up to stagger around until the ambulance came. Two black eyes, no permanent damabewbeg.

My brother got shot at outside of some party. The bullet bounced off the pavement in front of him, skimmed his head, and kept going.

At 19 I got health insurance for the first time in my life. The day after signing up I got a stomach ache, went to the hospital because it got bad, and left three days later. It was my appendix. Had it gone bad two days earlier, I'd still be paying the $15,000 hospital bill.

My aunt had a cat that gave birth to a boatload of kittens, but one of them wasn't breathing. This slimy little guy was a gonner... until my aunt stuck most of its head in her mouth (oh yes, I was confused) and she gave the little booger CPR. It started breathing a minute or so later. My aunt, the Beastmaster.

The Gilbert High School basketball team jumped me after a game in high school... and I think I won the fight (if you call "winning" laying on the ground being pummeled).

I was a drunk for about 5 years. I did every drug under the sun, and was thrown in jail at least a dozen times. I got in fights, flipped off my principal, got suspended at least 20 times (including that one), betrayed my family, broke into houses, stole a car... and now I'm a pastor. I was a parasite. But one night, after about a year of wrestling with whether or not this whole Christianity thing was true, everything changed. If someone is reading this and worrying about my role in the high school ministry, I'd wonder if you've experienced what I'm talking about. I'm not that guy. I'm just not him. But I am. My story is only my story because of that stuff. Without that garbage in my past, I wouldn't have the confidence in God to pull anyone out of the trenches and show them the best way to live. I've been there. I love my story. I'm sorry for those that I might have hurt, but I am grateful that God has spoiled me with his grace.

And then my reward... how does a dirtbag like me end up with Lindsay Gebhardt?

I have so many more stories. How is this my life?

2 comments:

Christopher. said...

living proof right here.

i don't think Gilber High School should be capatlized, if that makes sense. hah.

i like how you remember things. maybe i just dont have that much to remember. or maybe technology has screwed up my brain.

RETHYNK.org said...

great post... I had no idea you were such thug back in the day... my mom says we can't hang out anymore because you are a bad influence on me.

BTW, welcome to the blogosphere... I do have issues with being in the same blog roll as the Anabaptist Inquisition (aka Mark Driscoll).