My Rock

As I wrote my memoir, like anyone, I faced stumbling blocks. All of the emotions that for years had gotten in the way of my self-acceptance came bubbling up like lava on an iceberg.

For nearly fifty years, I used substances and anger to run from a mirror I wasn’t strong enough to look into. Every time I tried to confront my past, my efforts were answered with empy platitudes.  

What changed wasn't an altar call. One morning, just futzing around on YouTube, a video from Deep Bible Studies queued up. I was ready to scroll past, but then I heard the narrator break down the Greek roots beneath our modern translations—showing how radically the original words had been watered down and twisted.

For the first time, I realized the religion I'd been dodging wasn't the truth at all. I opened the text and started digging into the original ancient language for myself. What I found wasn't a list of rules or condemnation; it was the reality that finally shattered the shame driving my addiction.

Today, I go to bed without the urge to get high or act out, and I wake up anchored in grace.

I’m not a pastor, a theologian, or a scholar of Greek and Hebrew. I’m just a man who was handed his life back when the real Word finally cut through the noise. These studies are the verses that hunted me down and pulled me out of the dark. Read them with an open heart—they won’t just move you, they can help heal you.