Providence or Coincidence
Sometimes
life throws us curve balls we don’t plan on. I have been dead twice already,
but that was fourteen years ago. As you will read later in this post, I think I
will be here for the rapture, but it better get here pretty quick. I am
receiving Agent Orange Compensation for my heart condition, also was diagnosed
with congestive heart failure. My mobility
has really gone downhill the last three years.
It has reached the point I use the electric carts at Walmart. I remember thinking those people need to get
up and exercise, but now I realize that is not always possible.
My daughter tells me I need to exercise and I tell her if it was that
simple the government would not be giving me the money they are. My answer to
those people now is, “ You know how you feel when you want to do that one extra
rep and it is just not there, Well that is the way I feel as soon as I
standup. At seventy plus years old I
have several other problems also. Obesity is a big part of it. In the past right
before my heart attack I lost 90 pounds, but now not
being able to exercise it is a lot harder.
I need to try though as part of the “vision” I had requires me to be
walking. So if I am going to be here for
the rapture it needs to be getting here. My walking is up to a mile at a time now. I have to use my walker with a seat to get it done, but I am walking. With this virus and as susceptable as I am with several respiratory issues I won't survive it if exposed.
In the course of writing this I learned
something else I had never noticed before. You will see why I find April Fool’s
Day significant when you read the story, but I just learned some more trivia on
the matter. Well Easter and April Fool’s Day are on the same day this
year. Checking Google to see how often that
happens, it seems the last time was in 1956, which is a bit ironic. I have a
brother who is 10 years younger than me and born in December 1956. That means,
counting back nine months he was conceived around Easter1956. It sure surprised
my parents, as they were told my Mom could have no more children after I was
born. I almost killed my Mom kicking my
way out. The irony in it is that I find Easter and April Fool’s Day have been significant
in my life more than once and at seventy plus years of age I just realized
that.
A Vision?
In January, 1967, I went to bed, and,
best as I can remember, everything was normal.
I had not been drinking nor doing drugs. I did at that point drink
sometimes, but I had never tried drugs other than those prescribed by a
doctor. The next thing I knew, I was
standing at the window of my room in the barracks looking out. The window was open, and it was a nice spring
like night. As I looked, I saw two
people walking down the street across from the barracks. All of sudden, I realized one of the two
people was me. I was telling the person with me about the Bible and the coming
of the Lord.
It was or seemed like a spring like
night. One thing I noticed was that I had this peace about me. It was a peace
that surpassed all understanding. It was
a peace to the core of my being.
Believe me, that was not the state of my life at that moment in
time. The next thing I knew, the heavens
parted and I saw Christ coming forth on a white horse, with an Army in white,
and a golden staircase preceded him. Trumpets blared, and the earth shook, and
people started running in all directions and screaming. Again I noticed that peace about me. All of a
sudden, it was over.
The next thing I knew, I was standing
at the window and looking out. However, it was not a spring like night. It was blowing snow and freezing cold, and
about six inches or more of snow was on the ground. I stood there a couple of minutes kind of
dumbfounded by my experience. I looked around the room. The light was on. It was a four man room, but all my roommates
were gone. It was very late. I closed
the window and watched as a couple of cars passed by. Slowly, I went back to my bed, turning the
light off on the way.
I laid there and tried to absorb what I
had just experienced. It was some time
later when one of my roommates came in.
That was a relief. It was not the
rapture, and I had not been left behind.
I remember his asking if I was okay.
I said yes, but wondered if my voice betrayed my concern. He never
mentioned it again. Sleep was hard
coming, but sometime later it overtook me.
The next day I talked to Allan who
lived in the next room. That was his
last name, at least I think it was, and I do not remember his first. After all, it was forty plus years in
January. That is not an excuse, because
I can close my eyes and replay that moment almost as vividly as the moment it
happened. It had not been my custom to
talk to Allan; in fact, he was almost a social leper. He was a born again,
Bible thumping Christian. In the course
of the day, I managed to get alone with Allan and discuss my “experience” with
him. He seemed to tolerate me. While I had not played any of the tricks on
him that the others had, I had not shown any sympathy or compassion either. His main advice was to pray on the matter.
While I did not do much praying, I did
consult a Bible. My success was limited
to a verse a member of our church had written in the Bible before giving it to
me on my return from Bible camp. It was Proverbs, chapter three, and verses
five and six. Since that day, they have
become my life verses. The fact I still
had that Bible was a miracle in itself.
At that moment in time, it was my Rock of Gibraltar. It was all I had to
cling to. It was the needle that led me
out of the haystack of confusion, although it was some time before I truly even
grasped its significance.
Slowly, I came to the conclusion that the
Rapture was going to be in the spring.
So I came up with my plan. Like
Jonah, I ran. I volunteered for
Vietnam. In my peanut brain and higher
logic, I expected God to put everything on hold while I went to Vietnam. Spring
came and went, and I was still in Germany.
Finally, in May, I got my orders for Vietnam and had to wait till the 20th
of June, 1967 to leave. In my job as a
parachute rigger, I thought I was going to go straight to Israel instead. God
was playing a trump card and sending me straight to Armageddon. Let me say that
Israel was going to have backup if they needed it. The Israeli Six Day War came
and went though, and off I went to Vietnam, with a short stay at home in the
states.
After forty-five days at home, it was
time to go on to Vietnam and my appointment with destiny. My year in Vietnam was a strange one to say
the least. It turned out to be more of a
Jonah experience than I realized. The
units I was assigned to were over- staffed.
Upon arriving at the 101st Airborne in Phan Rang, I spent ninety days
guarding water pumps for the Air Force.
After that, I returned to my unit, only to be transferred to Cam Ranh
Bay. Shortly after arriving there, it
was my privilege to again be sent on temporary duty. I managed to survive three months of driving
convoys up and down the coast on Highway One.
Little did I know that this would open a door later in my life .
Finally, when the Tet Offensive started in February of l968, it was my chance
to perform in the field the Army had trained me for at great expense. Many units were cut off and completely
surrounded, our job became vital. We were returned to our home units. Supply by sky, or by parachute specifically,
became the sole means of getting supplies and equipment to many units. It was
around the clock work for almost sixty days.
Finally, my time in Vietnam came to an
end. When I had volunteered for Vietnam,
it was really to get back to the states a little quicker. At this point, I need to give a little
background as to how I got to Germany the first time. I had reenlisted to go to France, and upon
getting there in September of 1966, my dream got cut short. French President De Gaulle told the Americans
to leave. You know who left with the
advance party. Not being impressed with
Germany helped me make my decision to volunteer for Vietnam. The vision or dream I had also helped
encourage me to leave. Otherwise I would have spent three years in Germany and
then my last year in the States.
However, by going to Vietnam, I would get back to the States almost two
years earlier and finish my time there.
It almost worked. I did go back to the States after leaving
Vietnam, and spent almost eight months in a heavenly place known as Fort Bragg,
North Carolina. It was not Germany, and
it definitely was not Vietnam, so for the time being I was happy. At least till February of 1969, when I got
orders to go back to Germany. It was
funny how Germany no longer seemed like such a bad deal. After all, I was not going back to the same
unit I had left. At the time, there were
only two company size units with my job specialty in Europe. At least I was not
going back to Idar.
As they say, God works in mysterious ways
His wonders to perform. My time flew by,
and I took my short leave and off to Germany I went. Arriving at the airport of
Rhine-Main in Germany, I got off the plane still in a fairly exuberant mood.
The Rapture had not happened, and I was back in Germany, but not where I was
before. As I exited the terminal a young specialist walked up to me. He asked my name. He was there to pick me up. Well, first, they do not send a jeep to pick
up a specialist, and secondly, he was not wearing an Eighth Division
patch. He was wearing the patch of the
unit I had left almost two years before. In short order, I explained these
minute details to him.
He smiled and handed me my “new orders”
explaining I had been transferred en route back to my old unit. My cheeriness of moments before was
gone. Getting my bags and the almost
three hour drive back to my unit was all a blur, and truly hardly any of it is
remembered. My conversation was
mechanical, as I was lost in deep thought all the way. How could this be, I kept asking myself. Finally, we arrived, and I came out of my
stupor. There were a lot of smiling
faces, a lot of back slapping and shaking hands. The job field I was in was small. After just four years in the Army, I had
served with and went to school with many of the soldiers greeting me. Also, as I said, it was a three- year tour,
and I had only been gone two years. So some of the faces were familiar from
when I had left.
It was almost surreal as I came “home”
the conquering hero. They carried my
bags in and took me to the First Sergeant and introduced me. He shook hands and welcomed me to the
unit. Then he explained he would get
someone to take me to my room. I
remember telling him that would not be necessary as I knew where I was
going. He explained that was impossible
as he had not even told the clerk where he was putting me yet. I smiled and looked at him, and by this time
I knew where this journey would end. I
had literally gone clear around the world and was back in the same Company, in
the same barracks, on the same floor and in the same room. I explained to him my room was the second
from the end on the right. He looked at
me puzzled. I just smiled back and left
with my entourage.
As I reached the room, I opened the door
and looked in. The bed on the right was taken the two by the windows were also
taken. Finally, I looked behind the door
and sure enough the bed and wall locker were empty. I had gone all the ways around the world to
come back to the very same bed and wall locker I had left almost two years
before. However it hit me that God does have a sense of humor. The day I arrived was April 1 1969. At that point, I became a little overwhelmed
by it all. I asked all the people to
give me a few minutes alone. I sat down
on the bunk and leaned back against the wall.
Many might dismiss all this as
coincidence, but I felt God had actually showed me the reality of his
Being. As I sat, there I told God, “I do
not know what all this is about. I will not be a hypocrite and get down on the
floor and plead and beg. But I know now you are real and there is a meaning and
a purpose to all this. I intend to continue on with my life, and, when it is
time, you give me direction. I will do
whatever it is you want me to do. I do not know what it is, but I will do
it. My life is in your hands; do with me
as you please. When you call I pray, I
have the wisdom to answer. The call came
in April of the year 1984. At least the
call to start turning my life around and get some direction to it seemed pretty
clear at that point.
That moment is also etched in my mind and
was a moving experience. However, this
whole thing is not about me. It is about knowing God and His Word and having
the faith to live by that Word. In the
course of this testimony, I left out a lot of the details, because, while they
are important to me, they are not what this is all about. It is about a revelation I have had over the
years in my time in the Word of God.
There is nothing new here that has not been there all the time. It is just looking at it all from a different
perspective and saying why is this here?
What does it actually mean?
To me, it means if we are willing to get
into and truly search his Word, the answers are there. The whole plan is laid out for us to
see. We just need to open our eyes. The stories are not for entertainment, but
for enlightenment. All I am about write
and explain came from asking God to answer one simple question. He has been over twenty years answering
it. The answer gets more and more
detailed as time goes on.
Many years ago, when I first started
walking the way the Lord wanted me to walk, at least I felt it was the way he
wanted me to walk, many things troubled my mind. Some things I could not grasp. Had I any clue
how detailed the answer would be I might have tried to change my profession,
had I felt called in that way. To this
day I have not felt called, just blessed.
At least that was the way it was till I started this project. This has become a consuming fire. Often I wonder if I have waited too long or
put it off too long, but I do not feel that is the case. There is a purpose to
all that God does, and, after, all this time I know He would have put a boot
under me or sent the message to another.
Only time will tell, but it is my belief I will be here for the
rapture. Sooner or later “it will
happen.” My belief is that we are closer
to sooner than we are to later. My
recurring question is, will I know that person I was walking with in my vision
when I meet him?
There is a certain irony about all of
this. At the time I had my heart attack I had that peace about me. Over the
last fourteen years it has been a struggle, but I have finally returned to that
point in life. The last fourteen years have allowed me to share my experiences
with others. Hopefully inspiring them to
trust and follow God. The Lord has prepared my path and I am ready to follow it
wherever it leads me. Having lived my life in Gabbatha, You will find that in John 19:13 and it is
only used one time in the Bible, it means the pavement, which means the place
of judgment. We will be judged by how we
have walked our lives.
