When I was a teenager I was pursuing this beautiful young girl. I was running around with a preacher's son. He was wilder than I was. We were both pretty wild. She came over to their house. She was friends with his sister. When she came over, the first thing that I saw was her. It didn’t have anything to do with the conversation. I just saw her and said, “that’s a girl I would like to date.” As we got to talking I found out that she was a very interesting person because she was sweet, kind, sincere and I could tell that she was just real. She said, “I can’t put up with that lifestyle that you have. I don’t think anything good can come out of it.” I would come around her after I had been drinking or doing whatever and she would say, “I want to be with you but I just can’t live with that. There’s nothing good that can come of that lifestyle.” So, I had to choose if I was going to continue to do that and just go away from her or try to get closer to her and start to change as much as I could. Of course, I couldn’t change on my own. I tried but I couldn’t until I eventually went to church with her.
I went into this church and first of all, I was used to people sitting very calmly in the pews, sing a few songs, stand up, sit down but these people were on their feet. The choir was standing up, clapping hands, raising their hands in the air. There was a lot of activity going on. I just kind of stayed in my place and hoped that I made it out of there. Over time, I continued to come back because I figured out that these people meant me no harm.
There was a Pentecostal Evangelist that was there. He had asked people to come up and pray. He called me up. Reluctantly I went up there and whenever he anointed me with oil and touched my forehead the last thing I remember was hitting the ground. I didn’t know what was happening then but later I came to realize that the Lord had touched me. It’s what they call “being slain in the spirit”. When I had seen it I thought it was fake and putting on a show. After having experienced that myself, I still don’t understand the complete purpose of what that is, but I do know that when the Holy Spirit wants to do that, that it’s real. When he touched me, I went down. It was nothing on my own but I know it was the power of the Holy Spirit that put me down there. I guess He was wanting to get my attention. I stayed down for a while. When I got up after he prayed for me it was like I had gotten a shower on the inside and I was now clean. That happened to me and that’s when I realized that my life had been changed.
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