All I had to do was put a pair of hippie pants on, wear some crystals, skateboard around
a little bit, and it was just really easy to be accepted by them.
I grew up in a small coastal town in Wisconsin with an older brother and two loving parents,
and my mom had somewhat of a background with the Lord.
I met a group of friends on the college campus, and they were so easy to get along with.
They accepted everything, they accepted everyone.
It was all about love and light, your truth, my truth.
Shortly after joining this group of people, they really drastically changed the view that
I held in life.
I started to see things differently in the sense of, I am my own God, I can create my
own reality.
That led to just getting into psychedelics, which led to this false perception of reality
really starting to settle in, especially with the psychedelics, because everything seemed
so real.
There was this deep connection that I felt on a spiritual level that we were all one.
I was one with this tree, I was one with my friends, everything was one.
If everything is one, then there's no distinction between the creation and the creator.
I was desperately seeking to be the best human that I could be.
I was confused, I was lost, I was aimlessly wandering.
I was getting into relationships that just totally distorted my view of love.
I was so desperate for love and finding it in all the wrong places.
One day I went for a drive and I ended up in this church parking lot where I used to
volunteer when I was in high school.
I was sitting in the parking lot and realized that I was such a hypocrite.
I believed that I accepted everything and everyone, but the name of Jesus triggered
me so much and I had no idea why.
After that, the spiritual attacks just started coming in hot.
One night, I had this nightmare, this demonic attack in my dream.
I willingly walked through this door and I was on the edge of this cliff.
There is this cliff and I was right here, about to fall off into this conglomeration
of just black, mangled demons just all entwined together.
I started calling out all these different names, I was like, Buddha save me, Allah save
me and nothing happened and finally I called on the name of Jesus and I instantly was out
of the dream.
I seriously just believed that everything was love and light.
I didn't believe that Satan was real.
I didn't believe that demons were real.
To experience something that was so dark just shifted my perception on everything.
I didn't think this was real, but it obviously is based on this crazy experience that I just
had and then immediately being filled with the Holy Spirit after, I was like, this is
real.
This is what I was searching for.
It just instantly filled that hole inside of me.
Shortly after that dream, I ended up going to my first worship night at the church that
I had been volunteering at.
I didn't really know anybody there and so I went to leave really quick and this lady
stopped me and she told me, I have a message for you from the Holy Spirit.
She told me, you want to bring hope to this world, but you don't know how because you
don't know hope himself.
There was so much truth that rang to the words that she shared with me.
We get so distracted by all of these shiny things that the world tries to offer us that
sometimes it's even hard to know where to seek God.
I think that there's power in just a simple cry out to the Lord and a simple heart posture
of if you are real God, please lead me, guide me.
I want to know you and I want to know truth.
It gets confusing to know that by yourself, but the Holy Spirit is so faithful in revealing
that because that's who he is.
I love you.
God bless you.