{"id":4090,"date":"2016-04-05T01:35:40","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T01:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/?p=4090"},"modified":"2016-04-05T01:36:39","modified_gmt":"2016-04-05T01:36:39","slug":"i-asked-god-and-god-answered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/2016\/04\/05\/i-asked-god-and-god-answered\/","title":{"rendered":"I Asked God, and God Answered!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have to tell you I am feeling a bit afraid, not so much for my own death, but about the possibility of leaving my wife alone and in a financial lurch.\u00a0 And also my faith is not as 100% as I’d like it to be sometimes.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But today, before I went to read Our Daily Bread, a devotional I follow, I prayed to God and asked him, “Please have a word for me here today”.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And this was a relevant part of what it had to say today:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWisdom through the awful grace of God\u201d is a remarkable statement. It means that God\u2019s grace fills us with awe and gives us the opportunity to grow in wisdom during life\u2019s most difficult moments.<\/span><\/p>\n

James wrote, \u201cIf any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask of God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you\u201d (James 1:5). James says that this wisdom is grown in the soil of hardship (vv. 2-4), for there we not only learn from the wisdom of God, we rest in the grace of God.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now before this I thought, God brought me through the whole prison experience and although at times it wasn’t always obvious that he was there watching over me and helping me grow through the experience but afterwards it was so very obvious.\u00a0 So I thought, and God is now bringing me through this experience, and just like the prison experience it is frightening and will no doubt involve some considerable discomfort.\u00a0 But God will carry me through this just as he did prison and he will help me grow from it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I want to share some of the ways God helped me through that time in prison.\u00a0 I feel called to do so.\u00a0 And I hope when this is said and done I can say the same for this experience.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 First, there my initial incarceration in King County Jail.\u00a0 They put you in something the prisoners referred to as “The Fish Tank”.\u00a0 They called it this because it was a big room with a glass side through which guards could observe from a centrally located guard post.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The room was designed for 12-14 people but there were typically 23, so not enough beds, some of us had to sleep on the floor.\u00a0 I spent some time sleeping on the floor.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For 23 people there was one toilet, one urinal, and one shower.\u00a0 You can probably imagine how that worked out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I had been on Ritalin for ADHD symptoms but they took me off.\u00a0 I had a Bible there, tried to read it, but couldn’t get through a single verse before I’d lose focus.\u00a0 I was frightened like I’ve never been in my life.\u00a0 At one point though while I did have a bunk and at a position where there was a window I could look outside and see downtown Seattle, on the bottom of the shelf holding the bunk above me was scratched, “Jesus Loves You”.\u00a0 I believed it and I can’t tell you how much comfort I found in that.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then I was transferred to Shelton state prison which is the states intake facility and they decide where to send you from there.\u00a0 I was so afraid of this that I did not sleep for three days prior and when I got there, about midnight local time, I was very tired and wanted to sleep. The cell mate I was stuck with kept waking me up because I snored and it got heated but before it got physical I was removed and put in solitary confinement.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So I am there and I am afraid and I am praying and by this time my body had adjusted to not having Ritalin so I could actually read, so I read the Bible, paced my cell, and wrote letters to my wife.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It seemed like God wasn’t listening, for the first month, nothing seemed to happen.\u00a0 But then I started getting what I called lesson dreams.\u00a0 They involved situations where I was not getting what I wanted and became angry and treated my family badly, and then the same dream would repeat with a different ending only in the second ending I would respond to my family in a loving proper way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was still very much in denial, blaming pretty much everything external to me for my actions, my father leaving, my psychiatrist not listening to me when I expressed concerns over improper feelings, you name it.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was writing my wife one morning when I heard a loud booming voice say, “You are responsible for the suffering you have caused.”\u00a0 And at first I continued with my usual denial, but then I finally said a prayer and said, “You are right God, I >AM< responsible for the suffering I have caused.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As soon as I said that prayer it felt like 10,000 pounds being lifted from my shoulders.\u00a0 I had many times in the past asked for forgiveness but I never felt forgiven, and now I knew I was forgiven, by God at least, maybe not so much by people.\u00a0 I had suffered severe anxiety for the previous 25 years at least, panic attacks, all totally consuming anxiety and nothing worked in any lasting measure or with any degree of completeness.\u00a0 I’d been on Xanax, Klonopin, and probably a dozen SSRIs and Welbutrin, although some of them provided some degree of short term relief, none provided long term relief.\u00a0 I’d also been in talk therapy this entire time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now the anxiety was gone, and now I knew the source, I had to primary fears, the fear of death and going to hell for past sins, and the fear of being alone.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now there in solitary God made his presence to me and at that moment I knew I would never ever be alone.\u00a0 And I knew I wasn’t destined for hell.\u00a0 And I also knew why I hadn’t been forgiven before, it was because I had asked without repentance and the reason I hadn’t repented is because I was blaming my actions on external things over which I had no control and thus could not change and thus I could not change or repent.\u00a0 As soon as I stopped doing that repentance and forgiveness were possible.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even then though my faith wasn’t absolute.\u00a0 I questioned whether I had just not had an psychotic episode, the result of all this time in isolation and whether the lack of anxiety wasn’t just placebo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I knew placebo was a short-term effect, rarely lasting more than about six months, and this happened at 11:11AM on November 21st, 2009.\u00a0 I thought interesting time that, all one’s, the first number, maybe signifying a new beginning.\u00a0 Anyway, I was asked where I’d like to go, I said Monroe because it was closest to my family, instead they send me to Airway Heights, outside of Spokane, 300 miles from my family, where visits didn’t happen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But when I arrived, I was welcomed by a group of three Christians, one of whom was the biggest guy in the unit, and they invited me to Chapel.\u00a0 Before this time I had always loathed the Christmas season, and I also never really understood the appeal of heaven.\u00a0 Mindlessly sit around and worship my creator?\u00a0 What fun is that I thought?\u00a0 What a dreadful existence.\u00a0 My state of being was rather like what George Carlin once expressed, “Oh I believe in God, I just don’t like him very much.”\u00a0 But this time I went and in the Christmas service I sang praises to God and I felt joy with an intensity I had never ever experienced in my lifetime.\u00a0 Here in prison, 300 miles away from home and I’m experiencing joy!\u00a0 And I knew at that point what the appeal of heaven is, what utter joy it will be to be in God’s presence continuously, forever.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 By April 2010, I still wasn’t experiencing any anxiety and so I went off my meds, Paxil at the time, cold turkey.\u00a0 You’re supposed to taper down, I didn’t, I just stopped and I experienced absolutely no side effects or withdraw symptoms, no anxiety.\u00a0 Still to this day I am not on meds and do not need them.\u00a0 So definitely God changed me that day for good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At one point I was celled with a black man who was a preacher.\u00a0 I do not know what his crime was, he never related it.\u00a0 But like the person in Shelton, he was intolerant of my snoring and would keep waking me throughout the night.\u00a0 The cell was also on the ground floor and the cinder block walls do not provide much insulation.\u00a0 And they only allowed us two crappy cotton blankets that were very airy and provided little warmth and it got very cold in the winter there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’m really wanting out of this situation and I’m praying to God for help.\u00a0 One day I am showering and there is a noise that I did not recognize as a fire alarm, so a guard comes over and writes me up.\u00a0 I don’t know what the end result will be but I am sitting at a table later that day with a couple of my Christian friends, and the guards come up to me with cuffs.\u00a0 We had just read Isaiah 41:10:<\/span><\/p>\n

“Fear not, for I am<\/i> with you;<\/span><\/span>
\nBe not dismayed, for I am<\/i> your God.<\/span>
\nI will strengthen you,<\/span>
\nYes, I will help you,<\/span>
\nI will uphold you with My righteous right hand.\u2019<\/span>“<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And when I saw the guards I said rather loudly, “My righteous right hand, My Ass!”, I was angry at God for allowing this to happen, it seemed so unfair.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And so I spent a week in solitary, no big deal after having spent two months there, and when I returned, my former cell had been reallocated, and I was stuck in a crowed four man cell temporarily but every one of my new cellmates was Christian and easy to get along with, then I was placed in a new cell on the top floor, where it was warm, with a Christian who was easy to get along with.\u00a0 So God was looking out for My Ass, and the rest of me, which at this point really felt like an ass, all along, and used this seemingly unpleasant incident to improve my situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And as I mentioned, I was welcomed and later befriended by a group of Christians, one of whom was the largest person in the unit, an X-Hells Angel, who was blown up in Viet Nam, went into a six month coma. and after he came out of it, brain damaged from the explosion, joined hells angles, got drunk and shot someone.\u00a0 He was there for life.\u00a0 It seemed so totally unfair, he didn’t ask to go to Viet Nam, he was drafted, then he is injured and as a direct result of his injury ended up taking a life.\u00a0 Well that’s how we treat our veterans.\u00a0 But his befriending me I think kept me safe there.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I worked hard to take advantage of programming offered there, and did sufficiently well that as a reward they offered to let me go to where I wanted to and I was then transferred to Monroe.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Monroe was a blessing in many ways.\u00a0 Where Airway Heights was a modern facility, more like a college dorm than a prison in terms of the physical facility. The cells had wooden doors and we weren’t locked in.\u00a0 We could exit and go to a common area.\u00a0 There were common restrooms instead of toilets in the cells. The stalls actually had partitions so you didn’t have people watching you while you did your business. The staff there must have got their training in Nazi Germany, there were some real sadistic bastards there.\u00a0 They would make their nightly rounds about once an hour and smack the wooden doors loudly with their maglights so sleep was interrupted every hour.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Monroe was the opposite.\u00a0 The buildings were ancient and primitive by contrast. Toilets in the cells.\u00a0 Steel doors which were locked at night and sometimes during the day if something happened.\u00a0 But the staff, these people were dedicated to rehabilitation, not mere housing and most of them really genuinely cared.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There, we had nice wool blankets that were warm, and the staff didn’t get anal about exceeding your blanket quota.\u00a0 The blankets were identical to a black army blanket I had as a kid and I found considerable comfort in their familiarity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There I was able to see my family but only my wife and first born son came, Raymond and Edward did not come.\u00a0 Edward moved out before I came home and has not communicated with me since.\u00a0 I do hope God will bring us together sometime.\u00a0 I know he is angry at me for harming his sister and I understand that.\u00a0 At any rate, I got to see at least a part of my family regularly and that was good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God brought many people into my life there, Steve McColm, a wonderful therapist there really took the time to get to know each of his clients and he had a gift for helping us to understand what lead us to offend and to develop effective strategies to avoid creating any more victims.\u00a0 He didn’t dictate to us but instead assigned us things to do that would help us discover these things ourselves.\u00a0 He also introduced us to a form of meditation called “Mindfulness meditation”, and then a group of Buddhist volunteers came into the prison and offered a class on it which I’ve found very useful and still apply today.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is by no means an exhaustive list of the ways God helped bring me through that experience, just a few highlights.\u00a0 The point is he was with me through that, and now I know he will be with me through this health crisis.\u00a0 I do feel that ultimately he will bring healing and I will grow from the experience, no matter how unpleasant.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I have to tell you I am feeling a bit afraid, not so much for my own death, but about the possibility of leaving my wife alone and in a financial lurch.\u00a0 And also my faith is not as … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","wpautop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eskimo.com\/~nanook\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}