PAINFUL TRIBULATION FROM MY YOUTH

TESTIMONY CONTINUED

There has been many a time when sharing scriptural truths. People will contest, and debate with you over the veracity of that which is being shared....But there is one thing that cannot be contested...
Our very own personal experiences. Our Testimony is the one thing that is our own....And also the one thing that our Father desires for us to give away as many times as we have opportunity
We read of it in the scriptures, "...I will tell what great and mighty things He hath done..."
We sing about it in Hymns and Choruses, "...JESUS, JESUS, JEEEEEESUS, Let all heaven and earth PROCLAIMMMMM..."

And we read about in Blogs,

So I will continue with the story of a miserable blind wretch, that deserved all the judgement, and punishment that God and man has ever devised...
But,..." Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me..."


PROLOGUE = That which has gone before.

A brief recap of an earlier discussion:

God brought true REVIVAL to that little church that day.
I was on fire for the Lord, and began to bring everyone I could, to that same loving Savior, that so willingly, and freely accepted a poor & miserable wretch like me.
The change in me was so drastic... my conversion experience, was so dramatic, it was infectious, and so contagious,
... that just about everyone that was in the realm of my influence, wanted what I had found. That tiny Church, Baptized more new converts that year, than they ever had in their history.
Six months later, I surrendered to Gods call on my life to Preach the Gospel,...
and Texas Avenue Baptist Church, Pastor Roberts, the deacons, elders & the members of that church examined me, and extended to me, a license to preach and practice the Gospel Ministry of The Lord Jesus.
And you will have to follow my Blogs to get the rest of the story

"THE REST OF THE STORY"
( At least a few more chapters...)

Let me back up a little bit and share with you how God's Spirit had been working in my life all of my life to get me to that point to where I was so, so ready to recognize that on that day...Sunday...April 12, 1981...
"That I was lost, and on the verge of busting Hell wide open, Unless I answered Yes, to His love and his design for my life.

Prior to leaving Michigan for the oilfields of Louisiana...God had been speaking to me through so many people, as well as the many close calls that I had with disaster and destruction. I should have been killed and died so many times that I'm sure my Guardian Angel was in need of a very well deserved vacation by the time I wised up and realized that I was at a place in my life where I had to make a decision one way or the other!
That day when I said YES TO JESUS....and ...NO TO SATAN,
I heard God say to me in a very real way..."Choose Me and Live" or "Reject Me for the last time and Die... FOREVER!"

Do you Remember the story when I was 14 years young and I was befriended by a Pedophile?
I remember it as plain as day. Our family had left the house that morning and walked down the hill several blocks to watch the Memorial Day Parade. I had wandered away from the rest of the family and was standing on the curb by myself when a young black man walked up beside me and began to make small talk with me. He seemed like a very cool guy, and as the conversation progressed I found that we had some things in common, especially when he offered to smoke a joint with me. Wow, this guy really is cool...And the rest is history as they say.

It wasn't long until I introduced him to my very cool parents and invited him over to sit down and smoke some Pot with us, and before Long he became a family friend. I should have realized that something was seriously wrong when soon after we met, the man that I knew as Mark Nathan was really in Fact, Nate Cunningham. As it turned out, many of the older guys I hung out with from time to time already knew him and I suspect that many of them had already fell victim to his sick strategy,
and were too ashamed to say anything to expose him, because in doing so,
they would run the risk of being labeled as a queer,... and besides that, Nate always had the best drugs, and plenty of cash for beer, liquor etc.
He also had a car, and an apartment, a really cool car, and a really cool apartment.
Nate was really good at what he did, and he was very well connected. I knew him for almost two years, and in that two years time I remember some of the parties he threw and some very prominent people would roll through. I mean, how cool was it to be able to get high with some of your school teachers and administrators, coaches and sports figures around town, even some affluent business people.
Nate had won the trust of my parents and I was allowed to go just about anywhere with him when he invited me. If my parents were resistant he would usually prime the pump with some Primo smoke or some tabs of acid, mescaline, a few lines of coke.
Nate had a way of getting what he wanted.

These are some things that I have never shared with anyone before.

And now as I look back...I am amazed that he was able to pull these things off undetected.
I feel so bad that I introduced him to so many of my friends, and I know in my heart of hearts that they also fell victim to his sick molestations. Some of them told me so... but not in any detail, They would say things like, "Is Nate still Queer?

In those two short years, Nate introduced me to many first time experiences, He took me to my first outdoor Woodstock type rock festival at Watkins Glen New York. The Greatful Dead, The Allman Brothers, The Band...I was 14 yrs. old and there I was in the midst of over 600,000 people a thousand miles from home, alone with a very crafty Pedophile in an orgy of drunken, stoned, naked mass of hedonistic, decadence. I thought then that it was the coolest thing I had ever done. After all, I had missed Woodstock and this had to have been the next best thing!!!
In defense of Mom & Pops, they did say no to me going, but we invented a good cover story and snuck off anyways.
While at the concert, I was amazed at how free and open everything was, People were naked and having Sex out in the open, That was very eye popping and cool to a 14 year old boy, seeing all those Naked women. I though the naked men was disgusting...Big old hairy bearded bikers butt naked on their Harley's.
People rolling around in the mud after the rainstorm that rolled through. Skinny Dippers swimming in the pond.
I do remember wondering about how come all of these cops, mostly on Horse Back, were not doing anything about all of the people walking around like Carnival Carney's Selling Drugs???
They were Right out in the open hawking their wares many with Huge Written signs and Banners advertising their products,
Acid, Strawberry Mescaline, Peyote Buttons, Mushrooms, Jamaican Pot, Panama Red, Colombian Gold, Red Bud, Blond Lebanese Hash, Black Afghan, Opium, Cocaine, Black Beauties, Speed, Heroin!
Not only were they selling their Dope, they were freely sharing it with those nearby, including a young wide eyed stoned to the Max 14 year old Kid.
Nate and I had dropped some Dexedrine Speed and some Windowpane LSD. I hallucinated and tripped so hard that I actually though I was in Heaven, Little did I Know That I was actually closer to hell than any live human being could be without actually being there for real.
I think that was the first time that Nate actually attempted to molest me. I wasn't having any part of it...But it was right then and there that I Found out what he was all about.
I guess I made him really Mad, because I didn't see him for awhile after we got home. And my Parents were not very happy either. I was Grounded for a long time.
At some point, Nate came back around and all was forgiven, but their was a lot of weirdness that took place over the next few years. He did succeed a few times after he got me so intoxicated that I wasn't aware of what was going on or I didn't care or couldn't resist. He Did introduce me to my first experience with needles and intravenous drug use. It was very cool back then to use Cocaine but fortunately for me at that point in my life, I didn't do it often enough to get hooked. I really didn't care for needles.
Nate came and went and mostly he stayed Mad at me because I wouldn't give in to his advances, but one time in particular he made a move on me after a party he threw at his apartment and everyone had left and I had crashed in the spare Bedroom. He woke me up trying to crawl into bed with me and I jumped up and told him to get the hell away from me. I got up and attempted to leave. I told him I was going home, and he started beating on me but I was a tough kid from growing up in a tough neighborhood with a lot of street fight victories under my belt. I got the better of him and attempted to get out of the door when He pulled a gun on me, and threatened to kill me if I left...I managed to jump out of a second story window without getting shot and walked home. I never told anyone about what he had done and I especially didn't go to the Police, because the code of honor that I had been raised with... was, that you never narc on someone, no matter what. I was not a Rat!
Nate didn't come around anymore, but ever once in a while he would call me on the phone and tell me he wanted to see me and just talk, but I always refused because I felt that he really planned on murdering me if he got the chance.
His calls started to become more and more frequent for awhile and would always wind up with him telling me he was going to kill himself, a couple of times he even shot his gun into the phone and it would go dead. I knew he was a sick individual and he terrorized me for some time, but then one day at school, someone came up to me and told me that they heard on the News That Nate had shot himself and died behind the Post Office where he worked. He was Dead!!!
In looking back, the strangest sickest part of the whole thing was the fact that I was devastated by the news, not only me, but many of my friends also. Friends that I know for a fact that he had abused them as well. Many of us attended his funeral and cried like babies. I'll never for the life of me understand that.

Wow!!!
That was painful, re-living that. I never ever thought I would or even could tell that story.

I somehow think that God was pleased that I got that off my soul, and I know that some of you already think that I'm crazy but something just happened outside of my window that has never happened before that I am aware of in the several years that we lived here in these Skyrise Apts. Downtown.

I heard a Dove cooing outside, so I crept quietly to the window beside where I am sitting at the computer typing... and the Venetians are almost completely closed. I peeked between the blinds, and their is a mated pair of ring neck mourning doves sitting on the window sill singing.
.....DO YOU THINK MAYBE...PERHAPS....GOD???

WELL I DIDN'T GET VERY MUCH FURTHER INTO MY TESTIMONY BUT I AM EXHAUSTED FROM TELLING ABOUT THAT DEEP DARK SECRET PART OF MY CHILDHOOD...BUT THE WHOLE POINT IN SHARING THAT,... IS TO COME TO UNDERSTAND FOR MYSELF AND FOR THE READER TO REALIZE THAT,... GOD HAS ALWAYS BEEN WATCHING OUT FOR ME... AND PROTECTING ME FROM MYSELF AND FROM OTHERS SO THAT I WOULD HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO ACCEPT HIS PLAN FOR MY LIFE AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...THE LIFE TO COME.

"GOD IS NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, BUT THAT ALL WOULD COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE SAVING GRACE OF CHRIST JESUS THE LORD!" ( my paraphrase)


LOVE
Michael