To Hell in a Handbasket

At this point, I would love to say that I was a victim of obscene circumstances, but unfortunately most of my troubles resulted directly from sin—my sin. Granted, much of what happened to me before I grew big enough to defend myself laid beyond my control.
My parents were far too emotionally stretched to nurture the youngest of five children. A grudging and abusive alcoholic, Dad monopolized most of my mother’s defense mechanisms. While she wasn’t looking, I fell victim to my pedophilic grandfather. Being the smallest and most defenseless in the family, my parents and older siblings seemed to take their
stress and frustration out on me and in return, I acted out the family dynamics with alarming conformity to the traditional model of dysfunction.
The sob story ends there, however. The rest of my adversities struck when I agreed to and cooperated with chemical dependency, eating disorders, occult activity, and sexual promiscuity. I disrespected my parents, mercilessly aggrieving my mother, and placed my own gain before the needs of others. By my provocative dress and manner, I thumbed my nose at every noble and respected institution.
Intrinsically, I knew right from wrong. I regularly attended church and religious education while growing up, and my mother presented an unwavering example of faith. I witnessed my father’s fatal decline to alcoholism first hand. I read the Reader’s Digest articles about the dangers of tobacco. Even though I was totally indoctrinated in the New Age movement, I still knew enough to be afraid to sleep in the same room with a deck of tarot cards.
I chose to sin because in many cases it was fun and produced desirable results—at least for the short term—and it stoked my pride. Giving into temptation often proved a lot easier than putting up a fight and in my circle of family and friends, I had little positive support or encouragement either way.
Still, the choice was incontrovertibly mine. I have no one but myself to blame for the years of bondage. I willfully and knowingly shackled myself. Even though I wasn’t sacrificing small animals or dancing around pentagons, I was obeying, ministering to, and serving the Emptier through my foolish rebellion. God forgive me!

Beaten with Few Stripes

A colleague once respectfully asked what qualified me to write a book on spiritual warfare. As a mentor, like-minded in the faith, she hoped to prepare me to defend myself should a critic pose the same question with less courtesy.[1]


While I fully appreciate the gesture, (and told her so) I find it somewhat sad that the question need be asked in the first place. When I was in the Army, no one doubted my qualifications for defending the country. My uniform spoke for me. It was understood that I was lean, mean, and green!


As a submitted member of an established faith community, it should also be understood that I have been duly mentored and discipled in the finer spiritual arts. Of course, such is not always the case, especially with regard to spiritual warfare, and if believers get any training at all, it is acquired outside of the covering of the local body. Therein lays the need for credentials—to prove the validity of these “out-of-body” experiences.


At any rate, I answered the woman’s question with a glib, “School of Hard Knocks.” She acknowledged my point with a nod but went on to suggest courses to build up a marketable credibility.


I happily intend to do what ever necessary to protect my readers, but ink and paper are cheap. My treasure lies in heaven and I got a spiritual chest full of purple hearts for fifty years of pummeling at the hands of the Emptier.


How did I ever learn to fight back? The hard way, of course! Our big sister, Eve taught us that we acquire knowledge of good and evil through sin.[2] Wouldn’t it have been so much easier if God had just imprinted this information on our brains cells? He’s a tough love Advocate, however, and only occasionally lets us slide. For the rest of the journey, we pretty much learn through pain and experience. As we gain wisdom and understanding, we earn more opportunities for pain and experience.[3] It all starts at birth, when we get that slap on the fanny for surviving nine months in a water balloon.


No one, save the Son of God, Himself, boasts a unique childhood. Humankind shares this parallel experience with similar degrees of suffering, lived out in personalized scenarios. Childhood, or life for that matter, rarely generates the unprecedented events we imagine. Our pain is relative, in as much as we witness, or don’t witness, the distress of others.
[1] 1 Peter 3:15
[2] Genesis 3:1-5
[3] Luke 12:48