I was a young backslidden preacher that was overworked and stressed to the limit. This caused me to suffer a partial nervous breakdown, which lasted seven years. It was in the early 80’s that I had left home and secured a job running coast to coast, as I thought I could run from my troubles and from myself. My parents were trying to make up their mind on having me committed to an asylum for treatment, but I was not going to stick around and wait.
It was time for me to go, and soon I was back on drugs and going back toward the world. I bought all new clothes, which looked like something out of a young guns movie, and hit the western trail. I didn’t make contact with my family for over a year. I ran the wheels off my truck, averaging over six thousand miles per week. I decided I did not have the desire to live and tried on three different occasions to end my life.
I had guns all over my truck, as I had earlier worked with the Sherriff’s Department in my home county. I am unable to recall the first few times I attempted to take my life, but I will never forget the third. I was in Carlisle, Pennsylvania near the Association of Christian Truckers Chapel. It was raining. As the morning sun began to swallow up the darkness, I slipped out of my truck with one of my guns. I stood behind the cab of my truck. As I slipped the pistol under my chin, I thought nobody would see me and nobody would even care. I am
unable to remember much except that someone stopped me, pointed at the chapel, and said, “That is where you need to be.” I don’t know who they were or where they went, but it got me thinking that maybe I could put it off and go to the chapel.
I recall as if it was yesterday, that beautiful red head meeting me as I opened the door. She instantly recognized that something was wrong with me and began speaking what I needed to hear. I was one messed up individual that had grown tired of the church scene with preachers not practicing what they were preaching behind the blessed desk. I just could not understand how they could be one way toward their family and another way in church, with no remorse or conscience.
The lady chaplain walked over to where I was sitting and stared in my face with a smile that caused me to forget why I was even there. I was taken back as I looked at her red dress and white boots. Suddenly, she began speaking on how people in clergy sometimes get caught up in the flesh. This got my attention. I remember she began to expound on how people could claim to be godly but end up being dragged down by the flesh. She said sometimes people do these things because the flesh likes to do what it knows how to do. I started to cry and told her what I had just attempted to do behind my truck. It was then that I saw her husband start crying with me. She prayed with me. I later learned that her name was Kris, and her husband’s name was Joe. He was a retired high ranking officer in the US Navy. These two precious people were used of God to make an influential impact on my life.
It was in the early 90’s that I was on Interstate 80 and passing through Milton, Pennsylvania. I heard a voice I had come to know so well. It was Chaplain Kris on the CB inviting drivers to chapel service. I thought, “After all these years could this really be her?” I made a point to pass that route again, and sure enough there was that voice calling me home. I stopped in, and she instantly recognized me and said, “The Lord says you are preaching tonight.” I smiled and said, “Chaplain Kris, the Lord has cleared up my nerves and placed me back into his ministry, but I have not attempted to speak. She said, “I knew it, and you are preaching tonight!”
I remember preaching the message about the woman at the well and
calling it God’s Flower Garden. I did not know it, but she had recorded the message that night and gave me a copy. The Lord opened the door for me in several radio stations and started performing miracles when I would preach. Several tape ministries reproduced and distributed the message from that chapel service on God’s Flower Garden. It traveled the world with hundreds of stories coming in of changed lives and healings. I would often stop by The Little Grace Chapel in Milton, Pennsylvania and preach. There were services every night at 7:30 and 10:30, and the place was usually full. The Lord even had my runs set up until I could do a week revival there with many lives changed for the Glory of God. We have witnessed God bring them in by the hundreds as we sang and played our guitars over the speakers in outside services.
There were drivers young and old dancing in the parking lot giving praise to the Lord as we had revival in the parking lot by the fuel isle. Many times, God would use me to give a word of wisdom and knowledge that would stop drivers from attempting to take their life with stories like mine. Some had left their truck, coming to our meeting, looking for a reason to live. Just like Kris had the words for me, God had the words for them. Just like me, some later made it into the Lord’s ministry.
I could go on and on, but now you know why I have devoted my whole life to working in God’s ministry and allowing Him to leave His signature through me to other generations. I became a recognized chaplain with the Association of Christian Truckers and was blessed to minister at the Road Angel on several occasions in Illinois.
My thanks to the Mobil Truck Drivers Ministry for being there for me when I was looking for a reason to live! God has used my ministries, Withered Hand Ministries, Inc. and Withered Hand Ministries International, to reach around the world with hundreds of testimonies of changed lives, miracles, and healings. The Lord has blessed me to write inspirational books, which can be found in many cities in the USA and many countries throughout the free world.
Yes, dear friend, I can say with confidence that when God gives out His rewards, those that paved the way for the Mobil Chapel Ministry to the drivers and motoring public, they will not lack for rewards. Be blessed.
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