Randy Meier’s a piece of work and a masterpiece of the Master. His story inspires me. I hope it inspires you as you read it.
Randy Meier’s Story (In His Own Words)
Every story has a beginning and an end, even the Bible (consider the book of Genesis and Revelation) so in telling my story. My goal is not to try and get people to believe what they don’t want to believe, because most people will believe what they want to believe, whether I like it or not. I just hope it gets you thinking about God.
Because, as a friend reminded me, God is always chasing us. Why? Because He loves us and He wants us to be His forever. He doesn’t need us. He WANTS us! That’s why the scriptures tell us He is slow to anger. Now I am not sure where to begin, I can say that my past doesn’t equal my future, but without faith in Christ, my life it would have ended…via self-inflicted a lot sooner.
I feel like “without being Born again so to speak, we are for the most part all just products of our environments, protégées, to an extent, and I even read in the Bible that the sins of the fathers are passed down from 1 generation to the next, my worst fear because I loathed, and did not respect, my real Dad, although I craved his acceptance and love I never got. Even to this day, I felt like maybe I was or am even under generational curses, from the time I was in diapers although I am not really quite sure. But, I am sure that apart from the blood of Christ I would have been lost, like so many other people.
I do know there is always hope with God, anyway. In growing up and even still now sometimes I felt like my brain was and is trying to kill me. From my earliest childhood memories, I heard I was ugly, a retard, an epileptic lazy eye; those words were constants and a lot of other verbal and emotional abuse. I won’t go too far down that rabbit trail of “Why?” but the words painfully stuck in my inner core and damaged me. I even suffered at the hands of sexually abusive people. I have had greater memories of this and they have had more of a traumatic effect, emotionally in my current adult years. I remember and now can face it
The world’s a scary place, and I was afraid of monsters. And yes, believed lies as well. I was trying to find my way when I gave my life to Christ at 17, I heard He loved me unconditionally and would except me just the way I am. And that Jesus died for my sins, etc.
How could I resist such an offer? I fell in love with God (and still do) with all my heart, mind, body, and soul, but it didn’t change my behavior or the things I was used to doing. It’s just now with my newfound faith I just felt more conviction I guess. It was like “Why do I do the things I do when I Know I ought not to?” Paul wrote about it in Romans.
I don’t know. I mean… does a 5-year old boy say, “Gee! When I grow up, I want to be hooked on drugs and porn and full of shame and blame & hatred & regrets with no self-esteem?! You see our friends and families do not always see or understand the pain that abuse causes us, but God does.
There are so many people living out there (both Christian and not) that are walking wounded with no hope. Only darkness, my past hurts, and habits, and hang-ups had been a big part of what molded my thoughts & motives and actions and attitudes and deciding who I am. Or at least I thought I was, because I now know that I am a child of God. I didn’t then. You see, when you’re a little boy or girl and used to being broken, rejected emotionally, or told lies about yourself, words like “dribbling retard or dumb, ugly, Frankenstein” make you numb to it. As a result, dysfunction becomes your new normal. You either cope and find a way to live (even if it means staying medicated and being promiscuous) and constantly rejected trying to fill that void or you give up and choose to die.
I was deceived and the problem with being deceived is you don’t know your being deceived. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be called deception. Make sense? Anyway, the Devil is the father of lies, but thanks are to Jesus, for I am a child of God. We all are the children or seed of Abraham if we put our faith and trust in him, anyway. (See Galatians 3:26).
I am an adult child of an Alcoholic with dysfunctional parents who met on a psychiatric ward during a time in their lives when they were having breakdowns. From their tormented childhoods, I grew up with a total of 3 stepdads (all Alcoholics or addicts or both). My real Dad was and still is apathetic, doesn’t care, and is not involved in my life or even my kid’s life’s in any way. (I guess he’s a product of his environment anyway.)
I won’t go down many rabbit trails of my life because:
#1 why and…
#2 I’d have to write a book.
But my 1st childhood memory of my dad was of him referring to me as a dribbling (expletive deleted) retard. I was scared of him. In the midst of it all, my mom made me feel loved. Fast forward. When I was 14, my mother decided to divorce my dad and marry a drunk named Bill, The psychic lady told her, “Bill would get a country western recording contract and you will win the lottery if you move to California.” To make a long story short, we ended up in a homeless shelter and moved about 10 times back and forth to different states over the next year.
We finally ended up in Phoenix AZ living in a small 2 bedroom apartment with my Dad, his new wife, and his stepson along with (yes) my Mom and her new husband, my brother and sister, two cats…EIGHT people in all! I was something right out of a Jerry Springer sitcom, a living disgust for me.
I felt like a character Joe Dirt going to a new High School “Beverly Hills 90210 “ trying to fit in with the “in” crowd. I was now 16. During that time period, I was once in the back of a pick up truck that was driving over 70 miles per hour on a freeway that crashed and flipped multiple times. I slid on hot pavement over 100 and maybe even 200 feet ripping me apart all the way. I should have died and could of died! God’s hand was on my life even then and I didn’t know it
John 15:16 says, “We did not choose him but he chose us.” Romans 5:8 goes even further with “Even while we were still sinners Christ died for us!”
Anyway The Doctor’s pulled glass and nails out of my back for 6-8 hrs.
I now had physical scars all over my back matching my unseen emotional ones.
I should have been grateful for the fact that I wasn’t paralyzed from the neck down which was a miracle in itself. I could not see the glass half full, only half empty, like my life and attitudes.
I felt Ugly on the inside and like a scarred monster on the out side, so I continued to self-medicate with drugs and porn and for me it was a way to cope…. What’s next?
We moved again and at 17 I became obsessed with weight lifting and then got addicted to shooting up steroids. I loved the attention looking good brought me; it was a false sense of self-esteem. I ate it up, until I broke out with horrible acne all over my face and neck. It left permanent, deep scarring. Now I looked and felt like a freak. And whenever I looked at myself in the mirror I hated myself, because it made me even more lonely and angry.
At 17, I felt the Holy Spirit, and answered an altar call, where I came weeping at the altar.
Fast forward>>>> I met a girl; we fell in love, and got married. Her name is Tricia
A short time before we got married, Tricia and I and our daughter, Angela (who was still in diapers), were driving home in our beat up Nissan Sentra. The second we got in the car, it was as if a dam exploded and I began to cry, then weep, for no other reason then the Holy Spirit was calling
Tricia was driving. It was dark. I was on the passenger side and having the deepest prayer I have ever had in my life. It rocked my world, I was crying out to God, like a baby, weeping probably 20 minutes or so. I was just begging him in the way a blind man would beg to see for God to love me and save me from myself and future sins and past regrets and all the shame I carried inside. Mainly, I prayed for God to spare me from hell and then all of a sudden it felt like I was no longer in my body. I went into a trance. Without embellishing or over-exaggerating, I had what some people refer to as an out of body experience. No, I was not high nor was it a dream. Impossible to explain, Yes, but the God of the universe actually showed up, and revealed Himself to my cries. Without speaking a word, He told me “ He would not condemn me to hell. I was in a tunnel and it felt like I was moving at the speed of light though outer space. Tricia said that I was speaking in another language although I have no recollection of it, It ROCKED my world! And it forever anchored my faith. I did not want to come back into my body, but without words God said I had to come back. The next thing I knew, it was over, and I could go on and on with further details but I won’t. Unbelievable? Sounds like it maybe, but I could pass a lie detector test that it happened
In the next chapter of my life, we were married. I was happy! I found a beautiful woman who loved me for me, something I had craved for so long. My wife was an answer to my mom’s prayer for me as well as mine.
Just 1 year later I drifted from God again. I never left loving God, but I was just not following His teachings and precepts for living. Tricia found out she was pregnant and immediately I wanted to have an abortion, out of fear mostly. I figured sooner or later she would leave me anyway. With my mom being married 5 times and having 4 “dads”, I was convinced that nothing lasts and it was only “tissue.” Again, I had succumbed to the problem with deception. At the time, you just don’t know your being deceived.
Wow! THIS time God showed up in an even BIGGER way! We went to have the abortion at the mill to murder our unborn son. I even paid for it when Tricia had second thoughts. At any rate, when the Abortion doctor when to start the procedure, he asked if she was the girl that walked out one time and had come back. Indeed, she had. He then proceeded to say, “ You don’t really want this, and I am not performing the abortion. If you still want it in a month you can come back.” We argued, but he was adamant and walked out. That night, Tricia’s mom gently spoke to us and me in particular saying she believed God wanted us to have the child. I suddenly I saw him for what he really was- my son. God, forgive me for what I almost did!
Dillon, our firstborn, will be eighteen this year. He’s very handsome, smart, and going into the military.
Who would have imagined that God would use an Abortion doctor to keep me from killing my own son! What a God we serve!
Religion or Religious people might think, “Well. Gee. If God really revealed himself to you like that, how could you have backslidden or done this or done that, or smoked this or watched that?
My answer is, “How could the Israelites have done the same thing when they saw the Red Sea part before their eyes?” I am only human. Romans 7:18 says, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature.” Things like lust and greed and pride are battles within me even to this day. The Scripture also says “We are God’s workmanship “ implying that I am not a finished product, but a work in progress.
Several years later, my wife and I were on fire for God, but the Word says, “You can’t serve both God and Money” at the same time. My insecurity and fear of not being validated as a man drove me to chase money and success. No lie. I am not bragging but we made and lost a LOT of money.
At any rate, we went to church and tithed, but the entire time I tried to stop smoking weed and using again. I couldn’t stop so I became comfortably numb and dumb and yet financially successful (at least in the worlds eyes).
Years passed. I turned 33. As they say, “Every dog has his day.” Revelation 3:19 says, “Those who I love I rebuke and discipline. So, be earnest and repent.”
Fat forward. We moved to Charlotte, NC. Now with three kids (Dillon, Angela, and Caleb) we were hoping for a fresh start after we lost our entire life savings, 3 houses, several cars, and my job. My dignity ended up filing for a divorce and my life continued to spiral down as my lust for drugs and porn grew stronger. My faith was almost dead. The straw that broke my back was moving to Phoenix. I started smoking heroin and got involved in lots of other bad stuff, but I won’t go too far down that Rabbit trail. Again, I ask myself “Why?” I would take anything just to stay higher. I was very close to suicide.
It was a Sunday. Caleb called my cell. I was a fragile bird, waiting to die, with seemingly nowhere to go. He cried and begged me to come home. My voice shook with fatigue and disgust with myself.
I told him that his mom and me were divorced. I had no home. I was at death’s door. Tricia heard something in my voice and said to come back. She told me that I could just sleep in the basement. So, with no intention of getting back together, I drove nearly two thousand miles in two days. I went forty-eight hours with no sleep. I surrendered to God and determined that whatever he wanted from me would be fine. I am HIS child.
Radical obedience and complete surrender was the hardest thing I ever did. Yet it was the VERY thing God wanted me to do. I was sober, but still very broken and emotionally worn down. I had lost what I thought was everything – money, career, etcetera. But the most important thing of all was that I got back everything that mattered- my family, sanity, direction, destiny, and true peace with God. I have a hope that this world cannot give me! My relationship with Tricia began to grow as old friends at initially and now, we are happily re-married. Imagine that I married the same women twice. I have been clean and one hundred percent sober from drugs and porn for almost 2 years. I am in God’s will and committed to the woman God wants me to be with- the mother of my children and the woman I love. You see, it’s not about a feeling. It’s about obedience and obeying God. I obeyed first and then the feelings came back.
Yes, I still have my struggles. Yes, I am a Christian. Yes, I can be a hypocrite. I may stumble or go down a wrong path at times. I may even be a jerk sometimes, but God is working in me and through me in becoming the man of God that He intended. He is straightening me out one step at a time. In closing, I would just like to say that even though my life was probably not God’s “Plan A” for me, with God all things are possible and redeemable. He can take a “Plan B” or “Plan C “ or even a “Plan F” and make it better then the original plan A. That’s the promise of scripture “All things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. “
So I will end my story with Philippians 3:13-14:
“I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind & straining toward what is ahead, I press on to win the prize for which God as called me heavenward. And my prayer is that I just finish strong, so until that day comes when he will usher me into the gate of Heaven, all things are possible with God.
I pray in Jesus Name. Amen
{NOTE FROM RAY}
WHAT A LIFE! WHAT A PRAYER! I love to see God change people like Randy, like me, like you. Not Perfect. But HIS