I owe you this much...

 

I was the third out of four boys born to my mom

and dad.

I guess it was like the ideal family when I was

young, dad worked, mom raised kids, dad disciplined,

we went camping together, the whole deal.

 

 

There was no Church that we ever went to, my only

experiences with any church was when a little friend

would invite me along to a Sunday school class

.. but of course we would just

goof around..

When I was around 11 or 12, I guess, Dad and Mom

sat us down and said very calmly that my Dad would

be going away for awhile...I didn’t seem to think

going away for awhile was a big deal..until my

brother announced in the basement later that

"he(dad) would never be coming back."

 

I guess I didn’t believe it but it was true, he never came back

 

Really, it wasn’t such a big deal to me, Hey, I had

a ton of friends and they were all like me, growing

up with mom.

 

So mom had to work..my older bros were teens and

there was hardly ever a parent at the house

we were generally ok kids I guess, hung out at the

swimming pool..video games etc..

beat the crap out of each other...

it wouldn’t be long though that my older bros started

smoking pot, in the summer of sixth grade I had

"got high" for the first time.

I don’t even want to know how old my little bro was

when he first got high I imagine around 9 or so..

 

 

Anyway when you are in 7th grade being a pot smoker

isn’t something that you want everyone to know so it

was pretty well kept..except for my fellow

7th grade pot smoking buddies,no one knew.

 

Soon, I started to experiment with alcohol

( my mom had tons of liquor)..

By the time I was 14 I didn’t have any problems

sucking down beers every night ..by 16 I was a fully

functioning alcoholic..not beer. Jim Beam.

Tons of it.. I'm sure my mom knew, it wasn’t hard to

tell with my room full of empty bottles displayed

like trophys..it couldn’t be hard to tell...she just

never really said anything...

 

I gave up sports, I was a great soccer player

I played for a Colorado select team...we went to

Mexico City, played in all these huge tournaments etc...

I realize that those were,

perhaps the best times of my life, gone.

My coach didn’t help much as he used to have

big "team parties" where me and all my soccer buds

could get hammered under his drunken supervision..He

was English and me and some of the other guys hung

out with him alot.

I think he realized our family situations and didn’t

mind..but he was an idiot.

So I quit sports. I would rather party like crazy.

There are more nights that are a blur to me then aren’t.

I would even drink when I was alone at home.

I also did some LSD and coke, mushrooms on occasion but not too

heavily..I had seen it literally destroy people.

 

When I was sixteen I got my girlfriend pregnant...

I told my dad I needed $625 for a car and bought

a $400 car and took my girlfriend to have an

abortion.

 

Ill never forget that day, my friends car, I borrowed, overheated on

the way to the clinic, we went and used a phone at

some ladies apt after knocking on her door..

She knew what was going on but seemed speechless

to me it was like I was in a tunnel..like she

wasn’t even there..we were assured that it would

be ok if we were late...

We got to the clinic and I was looking at the other

women in there (I was the only guy in the place)

and it was freaky, most wouldn’t look up and I didn’t

think any of this was that big of a deal..what a

bunch of weirdo’s I thought.

 

They laid my girlfriend up on a table and made

me feel like a hero for being such a nice

supportive guy and they simply sucked

our baby out of her with a vacuum...5 minutes later

we were on our way home. I didn’t feel like much of

a hero.

The car never overheated on the way home.

My senior year of high school I gave up drugs

they just made me feel guilty(?) So I got my

grades up real well and just kept drinking..

I got a dwai(this was like not drunk, but buzzed)

while drag racing a motorcycle my senior year.

I think I lost my license for 3 months or

something like that.

that summer I got pulled over after coming out of

a bar(you only had to be 18 then ). Racing again, after

going about 130 mph and got a dui a .24 on the

scale,very drunk.

I had to go to this work release jail thing for

a couple weeks and lost my license for a year.

 

I worked in construction alot and one day we got

rained out, me and my friend, Tim, got drunk

got some other guys together and decided to go

go cart racing we never made it..

 

Flying down the highway at 140+ we flipped the car (a 72 Dodge 340 Demon)

and slid upside down, down the highway

until stopping...when I realized no-one was hurt

I felt as if "something" was watching over us,

we knew we were lucky to be alive but we went on

as usual.

 

I started having dreams that were very disturbing

..dreams that if I didn’t wake up I would die

so I would try to force myself awake ..one time

waking up not able to breathe or see.. then when

I finally relaxed enough to breathe

my vision returned...these dreams came once a

month or so, over the next 5 years,

and were scaring me to death.

 

After messing around longer I then decided to

join the Navy..

I ended up going to gas turbine tech school

which I liked, got honors and all that..

and found many more drinking buddies..

 

I went to the West Coast where two of my back

home friends were(also in navy) and we were

drinking together again, as usual.

I got married to my girlfriend (same one)

and after a couple of her violent, drunken episodes

I sent her home and we got divorced..at one

point I tried to get back together with her because

I felt we could work it all out... but she declined and well, we got

divorced.

 

I sunk to an all-time low. I did great as far

as my job, receiving a NAM (Navy Achievement Medal)

and all sorts of letters

from admirals and whoever..

All with a hangover. At sea, however, I was in

better shape and was kept busy enough to

not worry about much..

I had many different girlfriends, I found that I never wanted to

be married again, and never loved

any of them.

I became pretty reckless and one night got drunk

at a bar jumped on my motorcycle, and got into a

high speed chase through San Diego. I tried to lose

the cop(I had outrun them before) at an exit and

ended up wiping out at

about 120 mph. I tore the skin off the left side

of my body then hit a guard rail, directly, and the

bike stood up and threw me over the rail between

two sign posts and under the sign they held.

I went into shock was taken to the hospital, where I

remained for three days and then a couple weeks at

home sleeping on the couch, heavily sedated.

I knew I was lucky again...perhaps even a miracle,

But I had been through this before.

It wouldn’t be too long before I got sick of

partying hard and started wondering what is the

point of living at all.

if it seemed like bad outweighed good and we are

going to die anyway, then what's the point of

dragging it out.

 

So I found myself thinking about killing myself with a shotgun I had.

I didn't, mostly because I thought about how it would affect my mom.

 

I figured once I get out of the

Navy everything will be cool..and better.

I got out and moved to Oregon.

I really dot know why, I moved to Oregon, I just knew I didn't want to go back home, to Denver..

 

I got by on unemployment for a while and automotive

mechanic stuff..

I then landed a job at a cryogenics gas plant and was

earning good money.

 

I had a nice place , nice car and all that stuff...

 

From the outside, I probably seemed ok..but the

"purpose to continue" still escaped me and I

was still having those dreams..I was sure

I was going crazy and thought that I should see

a psych. I never did.

 

I was sure I would die in my sleep, it was just a matter of time.

 

 

I once again considered suicide, I really can't explain why this kept crossing my mind, It has to do with guilt and shame.

This time there was a voice in my head saying, very clearly,

"If you die now you will go to hell."

It was that simple, and somehow I knew it to be true.

I struggled with that for a

while and felt a need to release and get all the

past off my chest..

I didn’t know how though, a priest? a nun, a psychiatrist?

a church? what?

 

Soon after I was out at a bar and met Julie..

We began to go out. I knew she was a different kind of person than anyone I had met.

I didn't know why though.

 

She brought up church and I said I would go

with her...I find it amusing how people will go anywhere in the world, except

to a church.

It was ok, everyone "seemed nice" I guess

I continued to go there.

So throughout the services I went to, I started to learn.

I couldn't believe the things that are in the Bible.

It surely wasn’t written by men,

especially so long ago and be talking about me, right now!

 

I learned that Jesus was a Savior and that

everyone needed a savior because we are all pretty

disgusting.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

I learned what they meant by 'born again'

even though I was brought up by my father that

religious people were weirdo’s..

I liked how Jesus argued with religious men.

I thought of what it would mean for me to be

"saved" to my friends ,parents , brothers etc..

I would be a weirdo now...but then they weren’t

doing much for me anyway. I then found it laughable, how

accepted I was as a murderer a drunk a drug user, a thief..etc..

 

Misery loves company, but I was sick of it.

 

 

I wrote a letter to the

church's head pastor(much to the shock of Julie and

her family)

I went to his office and he led a prayer asking

God to forgive me...I remember feeling like I was

floating..

I felt great coming out of there, I was never

same again..

 

 

I couldn’t believe the conversations I heard at

work the way I saw things now the past that

I had forgotten now surfaced, the thought of that

baby being killed now sickened me and still does.

 

I was in love with a woman again...married.. scared

to have children, for I thought God would punish

me somehow for what I had done before..but I was

to learn that

HE wasn’t like that and Jessica was more beautiful

then I could have ever imagined. God indeed was

encircling this planet and I finally realized it..

and my dreams of dying went away....

What Jesus has done for me cannot be expressed.

There is no other way out of the muck. You can try

to conjure up all the will power in the world, and fail.

You can keep trying those ever-powerful New Year's resolutions...

 

You can keep telling yourself that none of this means anything to you, but somehow it still affects you.

You can continue to fall farther and farther or you can ask God to forgive you and

restore you, I promise He will.

I owe you this much, Jesus, thank you.

 

Chris Jones