Flashback Friday #184

Come To The Dark Side


A warm welcome to all who have come this way via cyberspace. My title today is reminiscent of another space & time. Since this will post on May 4th (aka Star Wars Day) the title is appropriate. May the Fourth be with you.

http://youtu.be/IGaSI68gGY8

As in the movie, life has a way of drawing you to the light or the darkness. This was the beginning of my Sophomore year in High School, and also the beginning of one of the darkest periods in my life. If I had known anything about "Goth", I probably would have gotten into it deep. Yeah, it really was that bad.

But what could I expect? During my Freshman year, I had gone to church a couple time with Doris. The Bible is quite emphatic about what will happen to someone who repents, but does nothing to fill the emptiness inside. Matthew 12:43-45 state:43: When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none.Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished.Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.

I promise you that passage rang true in my life.I was seeing/dating Kelly Stump, the girl I met at the skating rink.She wasn't the type of girl that you brought home to meet Momma. She couldn't have been any looser if she bathed in WD-40. She looked old enough to buy booze without someone asking for an ID, and she did that frequently. She was 17 going on 45. I'm surprised that we never had an accident with her drinking behind the wheel. I wasn't any better. I drank, but I didn't drive because I only had my permit. Looking back, I misjudged the timeline on Flashback Friday #150. It happened a little later than the time in the post. I hadn't yet turned 16, but it was just around the corner.

I can't blame all my troubles on Kelly. My taste in music grew harder and wilder. If you haven't noticed, many of the hard rock groups are into sex, drugs & witchcraft.The more I listened to it, the closer I gravitated to their vices. Experimentation in all of them happened. Like I said,it was a bad time in my life. After Flashback Friday #150, I stopped drinking, but anything else was fair game.

Fortunately, God saw fit to keep me alive through this time. He saw something in the trash that I had become. The ultimate in recycling. But I'm jumping WAY ahead of myself. I'll mention some of the highlights and some low lights in upcoming Flashback Friday posts.