“God is not willing that [I] should perish…”  (2 Peter 3)

“The Blessed man…”  (Psalms)

“I am more…”   (2 Corinthians 11)

 

Many persons can attest to what I am about to write.  What I am about to write about is not a peculiar truth to me alone but is still so very special to me and is one (1) reason I am who I am today and is a very big part of why my faith is what my faith is today. I have heard many persons speak about their experiences, today I write about ours.  There should be no thought of pride as any part of this…to God be all the glory and those that know me will know I speak truth. God is so very real to me and this is one (1) of the so many reasons why.  God is my Saviour…not only of my eternal soul but of my temporal body that shall be made like unto His perfect, resurrected, and glorified Body.

In this article we shall recount the many times I should have died or had my life changed forever but saw God’s intervention.  I said many persons could talk about what I am about to write (DV) but many more could speak to this truth yet they know not or refuse to give all glory to God.  I shall not and do not fail to do this…To God be the Glory. What I am about to report is the truth and the whole truth. I speak not in hyperbole or exagerration.

We shall report the facts in bullet point form:

*My mother and father can support this particular claim.  When I was just a young child my parents were amost involved in a car accident.  My mother was driving, my father and I were in the back seat. My mother had to slam on the brakes and as every thing went flying and rushing forward I went flying and slamming forward too.  If not for my father’s…my earthly father’s quick reflexes and my Heavenly Father’s protection, I would have most likely gone into, if not through, the windshield with terrible results.

*In my “terrible teens” three (3) events strike me.  One (1)  I remember riding on my friends running boards as we were driving down a very steep decline in the road and I remember (for what ever reason) jumping off the running boards.  I hit the street with my feet and due to physics I fell backwards with great velocity, hitting the back of my skull and my back on the street with force. The outcome?  I got up shook my head and ran to catch up to my friend’s truck.  Looking back all I can say is to God be the glory, He was not willing that I should perish or suffer any results due to my foolishness, no not even a scratch and or a bump.  Another incident from my terrible teens was due to a very physical street fight.

Two (2). The back story is not important. I found myself in the middle of a circle of other teens and ready to face off against just another opponent, one of many.  Street fighting was one way I spent my teens.  I was undefeated at this point, but that would come to an end…technically anyway.
This particular fight was against a “ringer” from Cicero.  I was set to fight two (2) other boys, but they backed out and brought this guy in to fight in their place…the two (2) boys were cowards. I was set to fight these two (2) the day before but they failed to show up which was a good thing as i planned to beat them with a hidden bat.  This was just one (1) more time God saved me from myself.  Anyway, I had beaten this stand-in ringer, I thought.  i went to far and pick him up with plans of dropping his head on a triangular white stone I spied, as we were fighting next to a newly stoned creek side and this triangular stone was one of these stones.  I picked the beaten boy, I had beaten him with my “patented” upper cut.
I dragged him over to the white stone, had him in a front face lock, think DDT and I was in the midst of lining his forhead up with the point of the triangular white stone, I was planning on killing him, again God saved me from myself, the boy came to, realized what was about to happen and with his newly realized strength pushed me into the newly realigned creek bed. I again hit the back of my head, this time, on the white stones in the creek bed. Next thing I remember, my opponent was beating my face in with one of the stones, ironically it was the one I had planned to end him with.  I was taken to the doctor once someone dropped me off at my house. My mother could not look at me because my face was so badly beaten, I could not see any thing until the next day as my eyes were swollen shut.
This was before I fell upon the Rock of Christ.  That Rock was soon to come and I would remain broken upon that Rock forever.

Three (3). One final report from my terrible teens.  Just before I was to meet Christ, I was in a bad place as many of us are before we meet Him.  This time I remember I was going to finish myself off with a bullet to the head.  I had found my parent’s gun and I put it to my head and pulled the trigger, This gun would fail to work properly…Reader, I have goosebumps.  This gun never failed to operate in the past, this time it did.  I was to meet Christ very soon and my life would never be the same again.  To God be the Glory…Reader, I have tears in my eyes.

*Years later, in 2007, I suffered the first attack of Pancreatitus.  The doctors said I should have died from this first of very many attacks, but again to God be the glory.

*During one (1) of my many hospitalizations I was put on a pain pump.  I was scheduled to receive a certain amount of dilaudid, a most powerful pain medication, usually reserved for cancer patients. The usual dose for cancer patients is point 2 (.02) milligrams,  not two (2.0) milligrams but point two (.02).  The pain pump did not act properly and I was given thirty-two (32.) milligrams in one (1) dosage. I did not know this until I tried to get my next does. The machine would not provide the next dose because it was empty.  I called the nurse to tell her it wasn’t working, she checked the machine and went into panic mode…this nurse was a very qualified and very experienced nurse and she paniced!  She asked how I was feeling and I replied that I was fine.  She and the other nurses could not understand why I was not dead.  I referred them to the last chapter of Mark.  The last chapter of Mark promises that those who believe in Christ could be given poison and not suffer therefrom!!!  To God be the glory.

*I  was in a 7-11 convenience store and was verbally assaulted by a drunk man while in line.  Things kept escalating and escalating over a period of minutes. This guy kept threatening me in front of my daughters and I kept mocking him and pressing his buttons.  I could tell by his body language he wasn’t going to do anything and if he tried he would fail.  I confessed myself to be a preacher of Christ and told him he should back down. I went on to tell him one never knows who they are messing with and he was one of those people that knew not. One (1). I am a practisioner of jiu jitsu, God had taught my fingers to fight and my hands to war, and Two (2). I has my hands in my pocket and my fingers laced a pair of brass knuckles.  Anyway, things ended as I predicted and he left without doing a thing.  I found out the nexy day, within minutes of our altercation, this guy drove a block to the Shell gas station and died in his car.  If we would have had a fight in the 7-11 parking lot, he would have died, but instead of dying alone in his car, he would have most likely died at my hands and I would be in prison.  Many will say I handled this all wrong, whether right or wrong, God saved me again.

*The last time I was hospitalized I was hospitalized with a blood sugar level over Eleven hundred (1100). Again the doctors said I should be dead and again, to God be the glory.

Reader, these are the times I remember specifically. There were many times my life could have ended or been changed for the worse.  How many times did God save me from alchohol poisoning,? or drunk driving,? how many times was I saved from being a dad to someone else than with the wife of my youth? How many times was I not arrested from DUI?

I remember one time in particular, believe this or not, it makes no difference to me. I was driving home on a Wednesday night from a country and western bar. I had “poisoned” myself with a number of Long Island Ice Teas and a number of shots of Jaegermeister, and Goldslauger. I found myself on a bridge, stopped in traffic…many cars were in front of me and many behind me.  It was odd to have so much traffic that late at night.  Then I saw the reason.  The police were stopping each car and looking for drunk drivers from the country and western bar, “of whom I [was] chief.”
Remember the cars in front of me and the cars in back of me?  There was no way out of this.  I thought to God, I was backslidden, what am I gonna due now, I figured He had finally had enough as He and i were at war…or at least I was.  Reader, the next thing I remember was my Mother screaming, “Keith!!!!!!!!!!!!, What in the h… are you doing?”  This was not normal language for my sainted mother. I new I was in trouble.  I had apparently, for what ever reason, opened my mother’s closet and opened a box containing many pairs of my mother’s many shoes, picked one smaller box, in particular, casting the shoes from inside the smaller box…no, not upon the Lord, Who careth for you, but over my shoulder so I could vomit in the smaller box!!! This was just one of the many times my mother awoke to my drunken foolishness, normally she would catch me standing atop the stairs that led to the basement as I would be urinating down those stairs, in stead of relieving myself in the bathroom which was situated right behind me.
The question was and still is, how I made it home that night without a dui. I know I had made it through a few police stops before this and faked my way through, this time was different, there could be no faking it this time. Yet, to God be the Glory, I made it home without a dui, but still how?

Reader, I could write about the number of times I could have been killed in various car accidents, one of which, had a semi truck running me off the road, into a number of orange and white, lighted up traffic horses, I can’t recall what they are called but, you understand and into a ditch…the semi truck driver leaving me to my end…whatever that end might be…I was, of course fine and of course to God be the Glory.

Some have called me, in jest, Catman because of my many lives. I call myself a blessed man among other blessed men. I look at the times David faced his potential death and the times Paul and the other apostles faced their potential deaths as well as the many times our Lord and His many other servants faced their deaths, both then and now, humanly speaking. I can, as well as so many others, say while boasting upon the Lord, “O death, where is thy sting?  O grave, where is thy victory?”
I and many others can also say, while boasting upon the Lord and glorying in His great power and strength, “I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.” I will also testify in my Lord’s protection and say, “Though an host should encamp againtst me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident,” and “A thousand shall fall at [my] side, ten thousand at [my] right hand, but it shall not come nigh [me].

Reader, any one of His servants and chosen soldiers can testify to these words and so many, many more in the Word of God and in the history of God’s loving care of His own, whether they be in Scripture or out.  It is true that all of God’s people will either face death or rapture, there be no doubt.  Those that meet the Lord through death do not lie when they claim to these passages because even though their body may find temporal rest in the earth, their spirit and soul, “afterward[s] [shall be] receive[d] to glory” and [will] dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”

So again I say with many others, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy glory?”  The sting and the glory has been taken in the great victory of our great Saviour and Defeater of death, the Lord Jesus…To Him and Him Alone, Who holds death in His nail pierced Hands and victory over the grave, be all the glory.

To any who think I am bragging in myself and not the Lord, You be a fool and know not what it is to live in the Lord and to see His great and many promises of protection.  My unbelieving friend, If His Eye be on the sparrow, should not His eye be upon me? To my believing readers, who have experienced similat acts of God, Rejoice with me in His proven promises and praise Him Who proves Himself faithful time and time again.

Godspeed.