Raised from the dead

The Holy Spirit used a T-shirt to lead me into his kingdom.

I was into the anti-vivisection movement back in 1980, protesting against labs that abused animals for cosmetic research. And I had a couple T-shirts designed to sell to like-minded people.

One day, in April, I went to talk to my friend who designed the shirts. He was in the darkroom, developing some film. As usual, I talked about Edgar Cayce and my occult stuff, and he talked about Jesus.

Later that day, I had a one-sided conversation with God:

“I don’t even know if you exist. I’ve looked everywhere I can think of. But this guy really believes in you, and he believes that the Bible is true and accurate. How can that be? How can he do that? I don’t get it.”

The next time I saw him, he had just been fired, and we went over to IHOP to talk and grab some breakfast. As we ate, he flipped over a paper placemat and started again telling me about God.

I countered as usual. And he asked if I could put all that stuff on a shelf for a few minutes.

It was weird. I suddenly "saw" a brown shelf at about shoulder height just at the edge of my peripheral vision, and it held my vast occult library. It was as though it had all been set aside and made irrelevant to our conversation.

I don’t remember much of what he said. But I remember that, at the end, he asked if I wanted to give my life to Jesus. I must have said yes because he led me in a prayer, and suddenly I felt ridiculously light and giddy. I laughed and cried all the way up the Baltimore Washington Parkway to my apartment in Laurel.

The next day, my friend and his wife took me to a Christian bookstore to buy my first Bible. The young woman at the bookstore, easily perceiving (probably by my vocabulary) that I was a new believer, asked me where I was “fellowshipping.” I had never heard the word. She explained what she meant, and when I said I had no church, she gave me the name and phone number of her pastor.

Later that day, I called him, rolled my cigarettes into my T-shirt and rode my motorcycle to his house. When I left a couple hours later, my bike was packed with books and cassettes.

Day after day, I read the Bible and listened to the tapes. I couldn’t get enough. I'd get a few hours sleep, then go right back to it.

My wife noticed an immediate change in me and didn’t care much for what she saw. The way she put it, I had killed her husband. In other words, I was no longer the man she had married. She was absolutely right.