I FOLLOW...

I now know that it is time, time for me to stand up. After the Fall, after admitting and accepting defeat....I knew the time had come to surrender. I had been beaten...I was left alone...defeated in every way possible.I brought it on myself and I am ultimately responsible for the life choices that I made. I thought I knew it all.

It wasn't a passing folly of youth...NOPE, I was nearly 44 yrs old. I had lived, successfully for a long time. I'd had many positive things happen in my life: my career, I married the woman of my dreams who I really cared deeply about, I had two great kids, a not too "dysfunctional" family thing going. We had $$, a really nice home...all the material things were great...awesome.

It wasn't enough...I lived by my own rules...those rules, as they were were solely motivated by my selfish desires. I lived for me...if it didn't' screw things up, hey you could come along but this was MY story, MY destiny...you were WITH me and it was all about ME.

That was the beginning of the END. And the END came swiftly and I fell apart...daily, I flew to pieces until there wasn't anything left.A shell of a human being...begging, wishing for the end. I could not live with booze...I couldn't even ENVISION life without it. I stood at a crossroads...the intersection between life....and death. And I chose death...

But God had a different idea.That was supposed to be the last day of my LIFE. The funny this is, in a way it most certainly was the last day...of THAT life. I did die that day...I didn't know it then but on that day, that very first day, my self died. And it's died every day since...without even knowing anymore then that at the time...I picked up my cross and followed Jesus. To have life, I must deny myself, take up my cross...and FOLLOW. (Para-phrased from:LUKE 9 23-25)

It's been some since then, nearly five years now but I truly look at that as the day I accepted the Lord. It just took awhile for me to realize it...

So folks, all those people who thought, "Thom quit the drinkin', now he's going to find religion"...well I did find God or he found me or he was there all along and I woke up, WHATEVER....I believe...and I Will FOLLOW.

(MUCH more to come...)