Chapter 2

Chapter Two
Ten Years Later

The ten years that passed from that day were what some call a wasted youth. I call it the foundational years. By the end of the long decade, I was done with the partying, the cheating, the lying, and most all of done with trying to be something I wasn’t. I had become a Marine in those ten years. I served my time in the Corps, not as much as I would have liked. None the less I earned the title. As I take you all through this journey those ten years will come into play again. For the most part I wanted to wipe that entire time frame out of my memory banks. Now as I write more and more that history comes back to paint whom I have become as a Man, a Chaplain, a Counselor, most of all how it formed me into the husband I am now. The next story is one other experience in that ten year time frame that for some reason just stands out most in my mind. It will cover briefly what it was like for me as a teen. As well as how one moment can impact some one twenty years later.

A Soft Place to Land

As I write this book memories once erased are coming back to me. Thanks not only to the introspective way in which I am writing but the marvel of a technology called Face Book. For those of you that have been under a rock some where on Mars. Face Book is a social Networking site. Social networking is the internet’s equivalent to a local pub. Where after years of being away you walk in and start seeing old friends and catching up on the years. My Twenty year high school reunion was coming up. I got an e-mail to join the group the NPHS class of 88. Talk about having a floodgate of memories coming out!!! Folks it was like the morning after a bad night of cheap tequila and even cheaper Mexican food!!

One day while goofing off on the site after the reunion passed I saw a name and a picture that about had me cry with joy and remorse. In those ten years I tried to block out there were moments when I acted as a gentleman. As I stared at her picture, I began to remember the day. The day when Angie walked into my classroom. Angie and I were talking again on line about what life was like currently for us. She was going through a hard time. To say the least!! Some how a question came up about that asked “what is you’re one memory of the other?” This is pasted from an e-mail she had sent me on the topic.

“I don't remember a lot from those days and I wasn't even the one smokin. However, I remember you being happy, funny and genuine. I don't know the Pat you turned into for a brief time. Interesting how I was not in your life during the "Womanizer" stint. Anyway, we had a class together after I moved out from my Dad's I don't remember what class but when I left my Dad's to live with my grandma
and both of my parents would not talk to me, it was a very lonely time. I missed several weeks of school and my first day back, I walked into my first class (I didn’t even have my own clothes yet so I felt like a bum) For what ever reason I had not been there before but you guys were already in session so I had already missed several classes and everyone had their seats and everything already, I was really nervous about walking into an established class my first time. I remember walking in, seeing your face, being immediately at ease and as I was trying to figure out where I was going to sit, I found an open desk and you came and sat behind me with your books and all. It was total relief! It was like the saying a sight for sore eyes. You were my safe place to land.

Since, that day I felt an unknown, unseen connection to you, that even you didn't know about. You had no idea what you had done for me that day, but I always carried it in my heart.
I don't know the Pat you were for a while, but I know your soul. What you do and what you are can be two very different things. ;)


Here is the Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the story” version as I remember it.
I was sitting with my friends and hadn’t seen her in years. She came into class. Went to the teacher and gave her note to him with her head down. I looked at her as she wouldn’t make eye contact. Then she looked up again at me and I smiled. I could see she felt so out of place. All the while my friends were making wise ass comments about her. The girls in class were talking shit about her. Let me try to paint a picture of what she looked like back then. She was tall about 5’ 9’,.Slender with a two really big blessings from God riding high on her chest. She had long hair. Her eyes are the kind that when you look into them they take you down to her soul. As she finished signing in the teacher sent her to find a seat. The people in class were just being ass holes. I had been out of school as a run away a couple of month’s prior and remembered how bad I felt when I walked into a class that I hadn’t been in. Looking at people as they whispered shit about me. Here I was watching the same thing happen to some one else. I told one of my buddies that was eluding to what he would do with her “blessings” if given the chance. Too shut his mouth. I did this about two inches away from his face with anger in my eyes. He knew this look well and backed down. Angie took a seat off to the side sighing as she sat down. I looked around the class disgusted at what I saw from these people. I grabbed my books and went and sat behind her. If anyone was going to say anything to her that day to make her feel even worse. I was going to tear them a new ass. Angie and I would talked off and through school. I never once did or said anything to her about the fights that happened from my actions that day. I just made sure she knew she wasn’t alone.

We both went different directions in life she moved to Texas with her boyfriend. I became a cocked out, pot smoking drunken womanizer. In retrospect I was one of the people that I had stood up to on her behalf. I saw her again when we were in our early twenties. I had just gotten out of the Marines. Went to Denny’s restaurant with some friends and she was the waitress. We exchanged pleasantries. She looked the same. Her eyes were the death of me folks. We paid our check and left. When we got out to the car and turned on the radio a song came on that since the moment I heard it has always reminded me of her. The song is called “Heaven in your Eyes” The lyrics are simple 80’s music from the Top Gun sound track. One of the lines Is “You gave me to time to find out what my heart was looking for.. In your eyes… I never want this feeling to end… It took some time to find the light but now I realize, I can see the heavens in your eyes.”

Eighteen years later she sends that e-mail and I listen to the song again as I write this story. I realize just what a close friendship can form between two hearts when hardly any words were ever spoken. That day when I did the right thing by sitting next to her, to make her feel safe was just another moment when God brought some one into my life so I would know my own heart and what he wanted from me. Angie and I speak almost daily now. She is one of my most valued friends. Male or Female. For one big reason. No matter what I did in the time after that day she doesn’t judge me. She knows my heart. Folks read what she sent me again.. She has allowed me to know her heart as well. Like she wrote it is an “unspoken bound” that has finally been spoken. For those of you reading that may not understand the concept of a male/female relationship. They do in fact exist and sex has nothing to do with it. This isn’t like the movie “When Harry Met Sally” where men and women can’t be friend because sexual tension will always prevail in the relationship. People that is just Hollywood bullshit. This is about YhWh and his design for our lives and our desires to be known as he knows us at the deepest level of the hearts he breathed into us..

To finish off this lil ditty let me tell you all one more thing about us. The day we spoke again after all those years was when YhWh knew Angie needed that “soft place to fall again.” I have moments like this that will unveil themselves throughout this book. I stand in absolute dumb founded awe of our Lord. Only He could fashion a quilt of life with so many intersections all to his Glory. Using some one as screwed up as me or my other friends. Each day I pray Angie finds Love like I have. Each day I see her growing closer to it and I smile like a teenage bad boy that by the grace of God. Turned into a real good man.

When the call began

I hit the road in the summer of 1992 working as a Mover. I had a great boss that taught me a new trade. I enjoyed that year. I was never home long. The road was filled with adventure in my mind. Most days spent busting my ass fitting the lives of people in a semi truck. For the first time in ten years, I had gone more than two months without a fist fight. My head was clearing from the fog I had inflicted upon it. My heart still ached from lost loves. When we would be driving through the night, I would stare out the window to skies filled with stars. Pondering if I would ever love without screwing it up. Would any one ever love me? Would I ever be able to escape the mistakes of my past?

Inevitably, I would find myself thinking about God. Even talking to my boss about religion; Asking him how his life in the Catholic church had effected him? Sharing stories, back and forth of our youth. On weekends we would come home. He would go pick up his youngest daughter from his ex. The man would be alive when he was around his daughter. I had never seen a man so wild about being a dad. He had two older daughters from his first marriage that had gone in life. His youngest though, took him from his mid forties back down to his twenties. It was infectious being around the both of them.

Our runs became shorter over the year. I started renting a room from a couple back in my home town. Weekends were still filled some hard drinking. My buddies and I would get together, doing the things 20 something men would do. The partying may have been fun at the time, but I was feeling very alone. Looking in the mirror at times disgusted me. It had been two years since I was with a woman. Since I stopped working in the porn industry.

Yes you did read that right. I spent some time working security and doing lighting in an industry that made women objects. By the time I got out of that work. I had seen too many beautiful women destroyed by men. Either, through drugs or abuse. My last day there is forever etched in my mind. Indulge me a moment why I explain. It will help tell the story of how God started calling me. I worked as the security guard for a popular actress. We were coming out of a strip club at about 3:00 am. I had kicked out a patron earlier in the night for offensively touching my friend/actress. We came out the back doors to the streets of El Paso. The world stopped. Three shots were fired at us. I covered my friend with my body as the patron ran towards us shooting wildly. I rolled over un-holstered my firearm and fired back. My right arm burning like a son of a bitch. There are “Oh Shit” moments in life and this was one becoming one quickly. The gap closed between the patron and myself. This guy was coming for blood. I had hit him with two rounds to the upper left side of his chest and shoulder. Yet he kept coming. I realized he wasn’t going to stop until he had killed both my friend and I. My firearm stove piped. Jamming the weapon. The distance was down to about 8 feet now. This guy couldn’t seem to hit the broadside of barn with his shots. As he got real close I jammed my fist into the bridge of nose. Shattering it on impact. My friend finally got up and ran back into the club.

This psycho and I went at it fighting like I had never done before. His punches had some punishing effect to them. He was screaming he was going to kill me. As he tried to bite at my face. The fight ended about ten seconds later. He laid dead on the streets of El Paso. His esophagus crushed. I fell to the ground. Just looking at how death had come over his face. His hazel eyes staring at me. It was quite a profound moment for me. As I stared at his dead eyes, I thought I should feel remorse of some sense of loss for the guy. Yet to me he was just a stupid fool that couldn’t get his pecker wet with a $500.00 a lap dance stripper. I sat there at least 10 minutes just staring at his dead eyes.

The owner and his crew watched the last moments of the fight. He came up to me checking to see how bad I was. The Constable was there a few minutes later. I had known him from when I had lived in El Paso shortly after getting out of the Marines.

He looked at me and the guy on the ground. Took me to his car and had me sit in the back of the old crown vic. My whole body hurt like hell. I was bleeding from my mouth, my arm, and my ribs just felt like hell fire. The next hours were a blur. Flashing lights. Paramedics and firemen checking me over. The dancer I was protecting came out and sat with me. She had been shot in the leg and left arm as well. As they loaded her in the ambulance, she looked at me, smiled then said something I never expected from her.
“Patrick my daddy use to tell me No greater Love have a man than he lay his life down for a friend. Thank you for saving me.”

I was hauled off to the Constables jail. Close to the border of El Paso and New Mexico. Ready to spend the rest of my life in jail. Two days after being put in jail, the constable came in opened the door, took my hand and shook it. With a big ol’ smile he said the words I didn’t expect. “I concluded my investigation. You are free to go. No charges will be filed your actions were committed in the act of protecting human life. By all witness accounts you acted as best you could in the situation.” I sat there going what the hell did you just say? He just lifted me up took me to his car and dropped me off at the border of New Mexico. He handed me my belongings. Including my side arm still jammed. I told him he could keep it. He handed me a couple of hundred dollars as well. Telling me to go start a new life. You did what you had to do to save yourself and that woman.

I spent the next six month hitch hiking around the southwest. The desert had a way of making me heal. The high mountains of Cloud Croft New Mexico to the Unitas and Wasatch ranges were therapeutic. If you have never experienced a summer thunderstorm in these mountains you are missing out in one of God’s greatest shows. I remember one night I was in Cloud Croft New Mexico. A mountain thunder storm came in while I was chopping wood for the cabin I was living in. I climbed to the top of the cabin and just watched the sky rage. I found myself crying not out of fear but out of the beauty I was seeing. The thunder was so intense the little cabin would shack. Trees would go down as lightning hit them. It wreaked Havoc across the whole mountain. It brought me to so many levels in those two hours. After some more time of wondering and fighting throughout the south west. I went back home a survivor of the streets and the wilderness. Taking us all back to where I left off.

I continued to do the moving gig. Basically working and playing hard. One night I was out with the boys. I met a young girl that just captured me. It wasn’t the usual sexual one night stand. I was longing to find real love. I misplaced that longing onto her. We dated a few times. I went over to her house one night to surprise her with some flowers and a poem. When I got there she was in bed with another man. He gave me a one finger salute as he was going to town on her. Again a rage that lays within me came to the surface. I shoved him out the bedroom window. Beating the shit out of him on the front lawn. The cops arrived. Pulling me off, I hit a couple of them as well. There I was again sitting in jail. Stitches in my shoulders, arms, and face. I don’t know who spoke on my behalf, to this day I have my suspicions but he never admits to it. Long story short. Charges were dropped Saturday morning. I was free to go home.

One of my buddies picked me up from the jail and gave me a ride home. The couple I was living with looked at me as I walked in the door. I said hello and went up to my room to sleep. I woke that evening, going downstairs to eat with the family. They asked what happened. I simply replied “Got in a fight.” They told me if I was to stay in the house I was attend church with them, when I wasn’t on the road. I agreed out of pure defeat.


Part II
The First Taste

The next morning the family woke me to get ready for church. As we pulled into the parking lot of once had been my private school in my early childhood, a calming yet agitated effect came over me. I walked in bandages on my hands, eyes black and stitches showing. To that body I must have been the scariest things they have ever seen. I sat in the back of the sanctuary. The choir sang “Amazing Grace” I remember standing up to sing the song. People looking at me with a look of “what the French toast” I lifted my voice with the choir. With each verse the calmness replacing the agitation. The male that I lived with whispered in my ear. “Man you can sing” I smiled. My face hurting when I did so. The song ended and the pastor stood up for his sermon. He spoke on John 15:13 I sat up in my seat as he read the verse. “ No greater love hath a man than this, that a man lay his life down for a friend.” He spoke of Christ and how he laid his life down for all of us on the cross. Going into detail about the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. This Preacher could lay it down folks. He had me tuned in like a guided missile. Actually the Trinity was using this man to get through to my heart. As he ended the sermon he made his alter call.

With tears rolling down my face I walked that isle. Stood and asked for my salvation. I was trembling as the preacher prayed over me. I felt something I had never felt before. Hope. The pastor and I talked after service. I went home wanting more of the truth.

I went back to work that Monday excited like a little kid. My boss and I talked as we drove to Carson city. We were delivering for a family that the husband was a Vietnam vet. As we unloaded he would just look at me and smile. I felt kind of odd. We stopped for lunch. He looked at me smiling “Marine you look like the hand of God has come down and touched you.” I never told him I was a Marine. I said “what do you mean, the bruises and stitches?” No. he replied. The smile you have and the lightness of your movements. He and I talked for a bit. He told me his story after coming home from Vietnam. How he just couldn’t fit in. How he spent more time in bars and jails then he did living. He gave me what is coined as a “testimony” My boss listened as intently as I did. His story was riveting. He finished with how he found God. Then what God has done in his life since. He prayed with me as we finished unloading and were buckling up the truck. The prayer ended with him asking God to always show me the way of the Warrior. That my heart is the greatest weapon God had given me. I opened my eyes and raised my head with tears in my eyes. I thanked him, for his prayers. We went on to Oregon from there. The whole rest of the trip I prayed. Asking God to explore my heart and use me as he sees fit. I gave him my life. My boss smiled even more than usual on that trip.

We got home the following week. I called my first real girlfriend. Before meeting my wife she was the closest thing I had known to being in love. She was heading to Santa Barbara that day she wanted to know if I wanted to go. I said sure. We caught up on the years we had been apart. I told her what happened over the last two weeks. She laughed and cried as we drove. When we got to town we parked up on Main Street and began walking. We wondered into a Christian book store. I felt uneasy in there for some reason. She went through bibles, picking one up that was small leather bound. She asked if I liked it. I opened it and looked at the print and maps and said “sure” she took it up to the counter and bought it for me.

I was taken back by the gesture. She was a devout Catholic girl. Yet, she had just purchased the New King James version of the bible for me. She smiled at me like she always did. Telling me “Patrick I have always loved you. You hurt me so many times in school cheating on me, yet to this day I love you for the man I am starting to see now. We will never be together as a couple again. But you will always have my heart and my friendship. No matter where or when.” I was speechless. We went and had lunch and I still couldn’t say a word to her. I just looked at her. Finally she looked up at me. Putting her hand to the bible she said isn’t this whole book about love and forgiveness. I shrugged my shoulders and said I guess. She came back with “I forgive you for all you did to me.” Again I sat speechless.

We finished out the day in a tee-shirt shop. She found a shirt that read “It is always better to be a Smart Ass, than a Dumb Shit.” Laughing she said well this fits you as well.

Within a month I was looking at attending seminary. My pastor had written several schools about me. One finally said they would accept me. Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Scottsdale AZ. They sent me a letter of invite to start school in the spring of that year. I visited the school. Figured what the heck why not. I had been reading the bible every day since Cheryl bought it. I was into this big time. Then the road turned. I am not the smartest person you will ever meet; take my word on this though. God is mysterious in all he does for his purposes. As great as God is mysterious Satan is devious.