My Story of Life

By:  H. Linke

When I was a young boy, my dad made all of us kids go to church at least three times a week.  I was an altar boy for about 17 years and I did a lot of stuff for and at the church.  As the years went on, I started to go to church less and less.  When I turned 21 or 22, I just didn’t go at all.  I thought that I didn’t need God or church in my life because when I was 17 years old, I was in a bad car crash.  I was dead for about 8-1/2 minutes and when I saw the Pearly Gates, I was told not to worry that I would be back.  So I got to thinking that I could do anything I wanted and God would watch over me.  What I didn’t do was praise God and thank Him every day for my life.

As time went on, He showed me that if I wanted to be a sinner, so be it.  I didn’t listen, so He let me do me as I pleased.  I just kept doing what I wanted, not what the Lord wanted. I thought I was okay. As I continued, things got bad.  I started drinking more and more which led me to doing drugs and anything else I wanted to do.  The next thing I knew, when I was in my forties, I was in prison for a life crime because I thought that it was okay to kill someone for stealing from me.

For the next twenty years, I sat in prison thinking that I was right and I could do as I pleased even in prison.  I made booze and white-lightning for a hustle in prison for about ten years.  Then I went to a level II pen and I started thinking, “Do I want to stay in prison for the rest of my life or go home and do the things I enjoy?”  I thought about this for a long time about eight years or so when I finally said to myself “I really wanted to do the things I love to do.”  So I started this Bible study to change my life and find God in my life after forty years.  I think it is starting to work as I now read the Bible almost every day because it makes me feel better in my life, in my heart, and in my soul.

I hope that someday I will be able to give back to the person that helped me find God again.  I will keep reading God’s word now for the rest of my life.  This is all because of one person who told me that I didn’t have the guts or the nerve to do or to finish this Bible study.  To that person I say thank you for the push in the right direction to help me find a better way of life that is in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.  So for this, I say thank you again for now I will stop and try to be a better person for our Father in Heaven.