Why I'm a Christian Part II

Our Early Married life

After Susan and I married April 25, 1970, I was awarded the Medal of Honor. Shortly after receiving the Medal I was hired by the Department of Veteran Affairs as a Veterans Benefits Counselor and began work at the VA Regional Office in Chicago. Within six months I was transferred to the Great Lakes Naval Hospital to help returning wounded Vietnam veterans with their claims for disability. It was a special program to provide wounded service members a means of filing a claim for disability with the VA prior to being released from active duty. It was the best job I had ever had to that point in my life. I was able to help hundreds of wounded warriors get disability from the VA over the two years I was stationed at the hospital. I even got to assist some of the POW's when they were released.
  
Susan and I moved to Hoffman Estates which was a little closer to the Naval Hospital than Riverdale which was a suburb of Chicago located to the far south side of the city.  Hoffman Estates was an hour commute instead of the two hours I had before we moved. Every morning I left the house around 7:00 to arrive at the Naval Hospital at 8:30 or a little before. During the hour and a half commute I listened to the radio.

When I started the drive first from Riverdale then from Hoffman Estates I listened to music and the news. I got tired of the same old same old after a while and started station hopping hoping to find something that would fill the time other than music and news. I came upon WMBI and a couple of other religious radio stations. So I started listening to them on the drive to and from work. One of my favorites was "Through the Bible" with Dr. J. Vernon McGee it was a verse by verse study and I loved it. I also listened to “The World Tomorrow” with Garner Ted Armstrong. It was a cult but I didn't know it at the time. I liked Pastor Donald Cole of Moody Bible Institute who taught on Moody Radio for years. He also had a program where he answered questions about the Bible and faith.  There were many others and I listened too. Some just wanted money but others really got into the Word.

Soon after moving to Hoffman Estates Susan and I had our first child, Eric. He was born August 25, 1972 and we became a family. Eric was baptized at Sandridge United Methodist Church the church we attended in Hoffman Estates. Eric was a good little baby and the great joy of our lives. We attended church together and being the first grandchild he was a special little guy to his grandmas and grandpa. We soon out grew our apartment in Hoffman Estates and started looking for a new place in Waukegan much closer to work. As we were looking for a new place I joined the Army Reserves in Waukegan. More because I missed Army life and the reserves was as close as I could get and the money was also good for a struggling family.

While we looked for the perfect place in Waukegan for our little family I kept driving to and from work and continued listening to my religious programming. I also got into the habit of praying an hour a night. One night after listening to Pastor Donald Cole teach about spiritual gifts. I went into the bed room to pray.  As I was praying I asked God for spiritual gifts as Pastor Cole had said to do. It was around this time that charismatic spiritual gifts were becoming the new thing within the church. Pastor Cole taught there were other gifts that were integral to the church and church growth. those were the ones I sought.

As I was praying I felt a presence.  It felt as if it came down from the sky outside the apartment and entered through the window and into me. I could feel how it came I could almost see it. Immediately, I felt an overwhelming word welling up inside of me, Abba, Father came out and I immediately quenched the feeling without thinking of what I was doing. Then I wanted it back I wanted that feeling but it was gone. As quickly as I said those words and quenched it, it left me. That feeling, that experience has been something that has kept me through every trial, every back sliding and every questioning of my faith. I've never had that experience again though in times of trial and my falling away I have desperately sought it. In the back of my mind I know that I'll probably never have that experience or one like it again, but I think it is and was enough.

After it happened I stopped praying as much. It was as if I could no longer pray or spend time with God. I tried to continue but everything fell flat. I don’t know whether or not I was scared off by the experience or something else. I still listened to my religious programming and read the Bible and tried to spend an hour in prayer as was my habit at the time but it wasn't the same. My prayer time diminished to almost nothing. My reading became more mechanical and more about finding out things than learning about who God is and who Jesus and the Holy Spirit are.

The times were changing also. The Vietnam War was coming to a close and I was having some misgivings about the way our country was going. As the Vietnam War drew down causalities dwindled down to a trickle at the Hospital until there was no longer enough work for the two of us, my boss Dick Bush a WWII Medal of Honor recipient stayed and closed out the office then retired. In late 1972 I was transferred from the Naval Hospital to the Drug Treatment Unit at Downey VA Hospital, (Now the James A Lovell Federal Medical Center.). 

The Vietnam War was ending and troops were being pulled out and it had a great effect upon me. I remember being interviewed about the last combat troops being pulled out of Vietnam and how deeply pained I felt about all the lives wasted. Vietnam was becoming a part of history, a part that I would study over and over again but more on that in a different segment. I wasn't in the so called “dark night of the soul” but there was a distancing from God. I continued to learn and study the Bible but I was back to having a great void within me.

Part III: My Dad is converted