From Meth to Mystery: My Journey to the Real

“God, if You’re real, make it stop and I will quit doing meth.”

Instantly my nose stopped bleeding. I had lost so much blood I thought I was going to die, but when I looked to the sky uttering those words, which was the ceiling of my apartment bedroom, God became more real to me. But not yet real enough. 

There was still a ceiling, from my perspective, even though an answered prayer had snuck through. 

After that answered prayer, I instantly stopped doing meth. Meth was something I never really wanted to do. In fact, I don’t remember ever buying it after trying it for the first time during my senior year of high school. It was more something I did on occasion when I was around the people who had it, but when I went to college, I hung around a dealer and his friends often, who essentially gave it away whenever we hung out. 

I’ve thought about the kind of blessing that came from being around such darkness allowing me to be consumed by it so quickly, rather than remain the occasional user who may have never quit otherwise. There is a reason so many who hit rock bottom finally realize there is nowhere else to go but up. When you realize where certain choices have led you, you are finally ready to turn around.

Years later I am in a different apartment in the same city where I am in my bedroom praying these words:

“God I know You're real, but I don’t know You.”

In a few short years I had moved from “God, if You’re real” to “God I know You're real, but I don’t know You.”

We only know what we know.

My roommate at the time who drank a lot, as I also did, had started talking about God and was slowly being transformed. He came home one night all excited about an intense dream he had recently and was talking about spiritual warfare, you know, things like angels and demons. I was sitting on the couch watching TV not really knowing what to make of what he was saying, but he was passionate in what he was learning with his friends. 

I remember feeling scared, because I knew God was real based on different things that had happened in my life where I shouldn’t be alive, but I didn't know God. I eventually went to my bedroom and found a cross necklace my mother had given me and I looked for a bible that I never read, which had also been given to me, though I didn’t know what to do with it. I was simply searching for religious relics that symbolized what I understood God might be. I then sat on my bed and said:

“God I know You’re real, but I don’t know You. I want to know who You really are.”

Instantly, what I can only describe as Unconditional Love and Perfect Peace entered the room. It seemed to be coming in waves where all I could do was slowly lay back and rest in this beautiful presence. I eventually fell asleep like a baby and woke up the next day a brand new person. I was on my way to actually wanting to know who this God was.

Come to think of it, this reminds me of when Adam was put to sleep and the formation of Eve was created. Eve’s name means: “the gift of life.” You too, are on the Eve of an awakening. 

And that is where we are heading, to understand Adam has been put to sleep and a new kind of Adam, a new gift of creation, is wanting to arise from within you.

Fast forward a few years later to yet another apartment bedroom where another encounter with God would take place. There is a reason God loves bedrooms, which we will get to. Yet little did I know, I was about to leave my bedroom, and my body, to see something from a much higher perspective.

To be continued….

-PH