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My Miracle

I can’t believe how much I have changed since my last entry. A lot of people don’t know but I was the most revered student by my Religious Studies professor. She was the head of Religious Studies at my university. Her wisdom and guidance was life changing. Being trained in the arts of psychology beforehand I approached her class with a psychological perspective. And she in turned gave my young undergraduate mind the academic, theologian perspective I needed of different world religions that us humans have. I was raised catholic but never felt any connection to the Creator/God. I was just taught to pray this and pray that and to know that God watches everything I do. Despite my mom and dad being very involved in the church I didn’t even know the difference between the New Testament and Old Testament. This is not to belittle Catholicism, or to say that Catholics raised in the church aren’t knowledgeable of the Bible or don’t feel close to God. My experience is my experience and I’m just giving readers a background to my experience. There’s many other names for God us humans have used to describe the idea of a creator or maker. Some cultures believe in many Gods, some believe in one God. Some people believe there was a beginning and will be a end, some religions feel that there was no beginning and that time and life is a circular cycle. I suggest you ask yourself what you believe and search for the answer. Not just in the scriptures, but through other religious books. I find the similarities of holy books so interesting and comforting. I don’t find it to make a holy book less valuable. To me it’s just a testament that humans have a spiritual connection to each other even if they live across the world from each other and in different times.

After my dad suffered stroke when I was int he 5th grade my family completely fell off church. The church that preached to take care of your brothers and sisters was gone when my dad who spent countless weekends and hours and sacrificed his life for his belief in the people of the church, visited him maybe once while he was in the hospital. And that was when the doctors felt he was going to die any minute.

At the time I didn’t understand the severity of a stroke and what it was going to do to my family. I was your typical church raised kid. I did what I was told to do and never questioned the Bible. So when I went to college and learned about psychology and thought I discovered the truth. I learned so much about science, evolution, evolutionary psychology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, and all the different disciplines in the academic world. I experimented and lived the life a wild college boy lives.

I was agnostic and denounced my religious beliefs. Though I was morally good from what today’s society says is good (didn’t cheat on any of my girlfriends, worked with children at schools, volunteered at a nearby physical therapy hospital) I was so off the mark.

When I started to take religious studies courses I took everything they said at faced value. Why not. I didn’t believe in a good God since what happened to my dad. Where was God when my family suffered because of his stroke. And if he was a good God why didn’t he just take him from this world. To leave him physically and mentally disabled I felt was cruel. It left such a burden on my mom. She literally lived out of the hospital for 2 years and left me and my older brother to be taken care of by my mom’s brother. Which was ok, I wasn’t too upset or mad since I didn’t have to deal with it. My mom was taking all the stress of dealing with a husband who’s life was at the mercy of the doctors knowledge at the time. That all changed once my father moved back home. I was ill-prepared to handle what had happened to my father and while he was at the hospital for those 2 years I wasn’t taking classes or being educated on the science of a severe stroke and how it affects a persons mind, body, and soul. So when he came home and my mom told me I had to give my father 1 hr of speech therapy twice a week, 1 hr of physical therapy twice a week of physical therapy I didn’t know what I was doing. That doesn’t sound like much but just to get him ready for therapy took 30 minutes. Plus this was all after school and during my heavy sports schedule. Plus I was a little punk kid. I just wanted to watch TV and play video games after school. And wow did I have problems. I had anger problems beyond acceptable. Add that on top of my fathers quick temper it was a disaster waiting to happen. I hated my father and didn’t understand why he couldn’t walk, and do the things he did. I wish there was a guide of what to expect when a family member comes back from a stroke. I’m pretty sure there is now, but before the popularity of the internet and information age I just went off my family’s belief that your inadequacies stem from a lack of belief and not ability.

Despite my family’s best effort and mom’s belief in my father’s full recovery my father never recovered. Though he was close to walking I know now that my actions and sins toward my father kept him from walking. Yeah he is ultimately responsible to what happened to him, but since I didn’t have a spiritual moral compass at the time I hindered my father from fully recovering. Everyone played a part and not just my father. I wish I could turn back the hands of time and welcome my father back to our home with open hands with the hands that have now been blessed with powers that are not mine. I wonder what the outcome would be. My father would probably be walking right now and I could go to his room right now and ask him for wisdom and guidance.

So now that I foreshadowed who I am now or what you might believe a different mind I’ll go straight into it. Before your bias and world education hinder you from what I need to tell you. It’s still quite a long story so if you don’t have the time I suggest you don’t read on. If you don’t finish the whole thing I fear you might only get a glimpse of who I am and what God has done to me.

When in college my mom begged me to attend a religious retreat with the church that she lived, my father, and my older brothers did. I wanted nothing a part of it. I was perfectly contempt with who I was and what I believed. I had pretty much everything I wanted. I was Vice President of the only Universirty Boxing club in the college system. I had a beautiful girlfriend. I had great friends, and a great social life. I don’t want you to think they practiced some sort of psychological manipulation and what you are reading now is someone brainwashed. You need to take what I’m telling you to heart and just hear me out.

It was a 3 day 2 night event. I didn’t know what to expect. But I was extremely up to making my mom happy. I didn’t care if I didn’t believe in a kind God, or the story of Jesus. Despite my immaturity to my mom’s beliefs and what I deemed a psychological phenomenon that allows humans to comprehend things they don’t understand and help them live a more comfortable life by believing in something that could not be checked by scientific observations and proved in a historic context I went.

I even journal my experience like the little college psychology punk I was. I saw grown men cry, grown men tell their deepest darkest secrets and how the Lord/Creator/Maker/God or what I thought at the time made up psychological belief changed their ways. I even played along with it all. I was that insincere and just wanted the event to end. And wow was I in it for a divine awakening. It was the day before (Sunday) we were going to be released to our family. They asked to go outside where they did a ceremony honoring the Catholic saint who saw the virgin Mary in the desert. I remember laughing in my mind on how dumb I thought all my fellow retreat members were believing in this psychological experience. I was being so prideful and told myself as they released the balloon and asked us to look at them in the sky and thought to myself “Wow. I’m I the only educated one of this group. Has no one else been educated in psychology or the sciences.” (Please forgive the immaturity of my thoughts at the time. I pray you see that this is not out of disrespect but to show you what I was thinking and my new found belief in the scriptures. I live by the Proverb “Honesty is the Kiss of Friendship” so this is out of friendship from me and you) While thinking this in my head and looking at the sky I smirked and told myself in such a complete disregard of the creator “God if you’re real, and if you really did create humans, then I want you tell me the hardest question that mankind ask. I want you to tell me why? Why create us? Why are we on this earth? Show me, tell me!” I did it in such a immature, rude, and downright, disrespectful tone. The day went on and I continued to play along with the retreat and made everyone believe that I believed in God and Jesus and was changing and how grateful I was to have live it. Fast forward to the next day. After breakfast and everyone was instructed that the retreat was about to end (they take away all cell phones, watches, or anything that would let us know the day of time and date) they gathered us in a room. I so happy to know at the time that I wasn’t fooled and proud of myself for being able to trick people into me believing. What a punk I was. And just as they were about to usher us out to release us to our family or whoever signed us up for this, randomly (or what I thought was randomly) my dad’s former best friend (from the church which he served) stood up and asked the speaker if he could approach the podium. I recognized him instantly he. And this is what took place.

Rudy ‘Can I say something please’ Speaker ‘Ummm, ok.’ Rudy ‘Can I approach the podium and say something’ Speaker ‘Ok’

Rudy then approached the podium and grabbed the mic. Rudy ‘I feel I need to come up and say this. Sorry for the interruption but I feel compelled to say this. I knew a man who is the father of 2 men here who I loved dearly. His laugh was contagious and his smile was something else. He could lighten up the room with his presence.’ (I had no idea where this was going but it had my attention. I knew he was talking about my dad and I for the first time was listening with an open heart. He continued and said this) ‘Charly and Jr. I know if you dad was well and capable he would tell you guys, he would want you guys to know this 1 thing, your father, to love life. To love life, and that’s all.’

I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I just heard. It instantly made sense. I begin to doubt what he said. I begin to run through your typical logical thought process. This is random. But my soul and heart quickly overcame me. I knew this was not by chance, this wasn’t random! My answer to the question I asked the day before. Why are humans on this earth? “To LOVE LIFE” Now how to love life, I didn’t know, but I didn’t ask and at the time. A feeling of divinity and holiness came over me. I tried to hold in my emotions but I begin to weep. I tried to hold it in but couldn’t, my spirit didn’t let me. I put my head down and slowly begin to cry more and more. Rudy came to comfort me and continued to explain that my father loves me and wants the best for me and that despite what happened to him he cares for me and wants me to Love Life. To the atheist and agnostics out there you might excuse this as just another random event where the receiver of this so-called miracle had this question that needed to be answered so when he heard something that was close to what his mind wanted/needed to hear to go on about his life in a happy and non-depressed move he quickly attributed to something holy and divine know this. But this is what I found out after the encounter/retreat. Rudy hadn’t live the encounter for over 10 years. He wasn’t even suppose to go up there. When he spoke to my mom he told her ‘That he didn’t even know why he went up there. He said something came over him and he felt compelled to say that. Those Catholic Encounters are strict events that don’t leave room for random “I’d like to take the podium if you don’t mind” moments. The leaders and organizers have to go to classes for 6 weeks in order to live it. And Rudy wasn’t even suppose to go. Last minute one of the helpers got sick andcouldn’t go and he covered for him. After 10 years of not going. On top of that he didn’t even know that my brother and I were attending. It was just as a surprise for him.

This was still while I was in college. I told my mom, cousins, and whole family what happened. When I spoke of what happened everyone listened. I could see it in their eyes they believed what I was saying. They would get emotional too and my cousins didn’t know how to take my new found belief. Sadly I didn’t read the bible despite my message from God. I was still living in Sin and prideful. My answer if there was a God and was he a kind God was answered, but the Christian story of Jesus, and his disciples I could not believe. My religious studies courses discredited on every count the story. So I just thought there was a God and all the religions of the world were still man-made but that God still cared. In hindsight I can’t believe how ignorant and how much my pride kept me from believing in Jesus since it was a Catholic-Christian retreat, and everyone there believed in the Bible. Why God decided to grace me with his grace I still ask now, but grateful he did. Despite not believing in the Bible my belief in a kind God skyrocketed my attitude. I came back to college with such a fire for life. I believed in the spiritual world again. My relationships with my friends, professors, and family all became better. My grades all that semester were all A’s. The encounter/retreat was 2 weeks in the quarter and that’s when I begin to make the effort to connect with my religious studies professor. I would go to her office hours every chance I got and discuss the class material and readings where she would offer me insight and answer questions. We would talk more than 1 hr every time. She was so wise in religion/theology.

So my agnostic attitude became a belief in a God but not the belief in a Messiah. So I lived the rest of my college life and graduated in Psychology and almost minored in Relgious Studies but opted out because of my want to graduate on time.

Fast forward to about 5 months ago. Living back at home while I studying for my GRE to get a masters in psychology my relationships with my older brother was falling apart. In all honesty we didn’t have a relationship. I hated his guts, and hated what he had put me through after moving from LA. Day in and day out his pessimistic and negative attitude was hurting my mentally and draining me. Then my brother started to change. One weekend at a church that my cousin and aunt were going they invited him to a church they had been attending. Though I didn’t believe in Christ or Christianity I knew the benefits in believing in something and the positives of family’s who pray together from my studies at college. My mom wanted to go as well so we started going. Keep in mind me and my brother were still at odds with each other. When it came up that he was going to be baptized the weekend I went all I could think was “He doesn’t need to be baptized. What he needs is some professional psychology help and a beat down from not only me but from my mom and other brother.” So when he got baptzed in the water I thought it was all a lie and just something he needed to do to become a better person. Then my other older brother got baptized too. I was like “What the heck is going on?” Both of them are just got baptized. It soften my heart. I hugged my brother who I was literally wanting to beat up and told him that I was proud of him as a show for my mom and because I thought it was the nice gesture to do.

After his baptism I started to see the change it brought to my brother. It had an effect on me and we started to talk again. Then he invited me to a New Beginnings class. I didn’t know what to expect but my brother told me that I’d like it, and I wanted to understand the bible more since it was something I never read with an open heart and only from a outsider religious academic approach. That class was an eye-opener. I’ve never heard anyone explain the fall of men in the way Marv (the person teaching the class) did. He broke in down in such a way that my psychological background mind loved. It was as if the class was tailored to me and only me. While people were asking him to elaborate more on what he just said all I could say in my mind was “This is so amazing. I’m understanding everything he’s saying and my education in psychology is only backing this up versus opposing it.” In this class they give you a free Bible. NLT (New Living Translation) so everything is written in a way a 3rd grade child could understand (not to say it’s for little kids, but the sentences are translated to be understood very easily). So I started to read the bible they gave me. I didn’t get right into scripture though. I read a small little book they gave called ‘How to Read Your Bible’ and ‘History of the Bible’ first. Which really help give me a good foundation on how to go about reading the bible. After reading this I thought “Should I read the New Testament like everyone is telling me to read, or what should I do?” I know a lot of pastors and mature believers are against this but I just told myself “Lets just see what the luck of the draw does. Whatever I open my bible up to I’ll read the entire section of the Bible.” I landed on Job, and by the grace of God is gave me the exact needed foundation of just how immature and small I was; me, this prideful, arrogant, and speck of dust. The verse 38:39 sticks out in my head “Be prepared to be answered like the man you are.” – NLT Just Wow. Only someone with true divine power speaks to someone like that after going through the worse impossible life disasters anyone could imagine. All the questions we humans ask “Why is their pain?” “Why are bad people rich?” “Why doesn’t God stop all the bad form happening?” “Why did God let the economy go bad, and now I’m living at my mom’s house when I did everything they said to get a good paying job?” are just so little and unimportant to the God-like questions God has to deal with. God-like questions like the way there’s a night and a day, and the thunder claps and the way lighting comes down. The complexity of keeping the seas from consuming the land, the complexity of the ground when the earth quakes. I mean the complexity and genius the Creator had to put into figuring these things out blows any of our regular day-in and day-out struggles out of the water. So there I am not really agnostic (a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown) because I believe in a monostestic (A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe). But still not believing in Christianity and the story of Jesus. I almost minored in religious studies so I knew about religious form around the world and being a psychologist came to a conclusion that religion was our humans mind natural tendancy to fill in details of things we didn’t understand in order to live confidently and not waste energy on things we could never really find out. But I kept reading the bible. I mean I was enjoying the wisdom I was learning from the different bible books ‘Proverbs,’ ‘Ecclesiastes,’ ‘Job.’

The day before my miracle I was even talking to a friend who went to Catholic School for nearly his whole life and told him I didn’t believe in the story of Jesus. How could I? I knew too much about other religions and I was a evolutionary psychologist at heart. Despite noticing a pattern of how many religions that never came into contact with each other prophesied about a messiah (or Man-God being born on earth by a virgin, or some type of divine unnatural way) coming to save the world and then dieing to only be raised again I believed and honestly felt it was just a random occurrence of the humans minds infatuation of a perfect human being. And what more perfect than the idea of the son of the creator who could do no evil, speak no evil, and see no evil. So I didn’t believe. So that night I prayed a honest prayer. I prayed to God if he could tell me if the story of Jesus was true. If he was the true Messiah sent form heaven and walked this earth. I prayed this because I thought “If God is all power, created all things, and has super natural powers, then surely he could some how tell me if the story of Jesus was more than just a story.” I didn’t think to prayer on how to tell me, or when. I just prayer with a honest desired to know the truth. Because even though I loved what the belief in the bible was doing to my brothers and the wisdom I was already receiving I knew in my heart that I couldn’t be part of something if it wasn’t true. I love and desire the truth too much. It’s been something I have always displayed in life. Whether the truth is painful and unappealing. So I prayed that prayer that night after hanging out with my friend.

Please head my warning what you’re about to hear I can’t explain and I find trouble accepting what you’re about to hear.

The next morning I got up as usually around 6am and grabbed my Bible and went outside to read during the sunrise. I was now on the book of ‘Mark’ in the bible and loved reading in the sun. Scientist have only recently been finding massive amounts of empirical data on the benefits of the sun and being a darker skin tone need 3x the amount of lighter tone people. So while reading without my glasses or contacts that morning I did the normal routine of squinting my eyes to get a clear vision what I was reading. A couple of minutes into reading with the Sun shining down on me as I read the words shacked and became extremely blurry. In that same second the words became clear. I not knowing what was going stopped squinting my eyes and still saw the words to be clear. At this moment my heart sanked. A feeling of unbelief and shock and concern over my face appeared. Wondering if maybe my eyes became accustomed to the distance of the words and adjusted my eyes to read the words clearer I brought the book closer. Still clear. Then close. Still clear. Then closer. Still clear. Then further. Still clear. Then further. Still clear. Then further. Still clear. I was freaking out! I couldn’t believe what was going on. Was my astigmatism gone? I stopped reading in those seconds but immediately thought to myself “Charly don’t stop reading. Keep reading. Keep reading” I was afraid that what ever was happening it would stop if I ceased doing what I was doing. So I continued to read. As I finished the last sentence I was on when the words became clear, I deceive you not. In Bold Letters the next section of my bible read “Jesus Cures a Blind Man” (As I write this a flood of emotions run over me as my eyes become teary). I was at a state of transcendance. I stood up and beginning passing back and forth as I clutched my bible to my chest. If someone was watching me they would think I was going crazy. I was saying in my mind “Oh God, oh God, it’s true! Jesus was real. He was not just a story made by religious readers at the time who came up with a brillant idea to recreate the story of the Son of God who came to save the world and it’s people from their destructive ways” Everything I was taught about the creation of the bible in my religious studies classes by my so-called wise teachers were false. They were false. They were wrong. Jesus was real. He’s real. With the sun gleaming down on me I close my eyes and made a oath with God. I said that I would live to bring him glory and live for him. At first I promised, but then I remembered in the ‘Proverbs’ it said to never make a promise or take a oath but to only say yes and no so you don’t make you a liar in times when you can’t fulfill a promise. But that oath and promise is still my main goal. I just back pedaled out of obedience of the gospel. So there I was in my back yard in a state of joy, happiness, love, and a state of relief. God had answered my prayers. I had no idea how he would answer me and even if he would ask me. I prayed because it was the only thing I could do. I had no answers and I had not way of finding out. But God, our God, the Creator of Heaven and Earth is all powerful and loving. He has blessed me a actual divine miracle. Why? I’m still figuring that out. And I have my beliefs, but I hold my tongue in fear that I may become boastful. For as the Bible says everything I am, everything I’ve done, and everything I will become is not a product of me and my doing, but God. Every accomplish, every goal, every skill, every natural and learned ability was because of him. He has given me everything and will continue to give me everything. I pray to God, Jesus, & the Holy Spirit for reveal themselves to people around the world and give people that miracle they need to believe in him and believe in the Bible. I want and desire people to experience what I have, but I don’t know if he will. It says in the bible that if you seek God that you will find him. Even though I didn’t believe in the Bible I believed in God. And even though I didn’t believe in the New Testament or bible I still was reading it. It felt good reading it, even though when I was young I didn’t. I was looking for answers to the Truth in something I felt was a lie. But I still wanted to believe. And I didn’t just want to believe but I acted upon it. I’m pretty sure God comes to people who don’t even seek him in the Bible, but this is my testimony. This is my story of how God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit came to me. Ever since then (November) I’ve been a not a different person, but a transformed person. I’ve hit the ground running. I became fully committed to the will of God, Jesus Christ, and what they say lies in us after Jesus left this world ‘The Holy Spirit.’ I give all credit to God. Yes I seeked him and walked the path to find him, but I’m only alive and can even walk that path to find him because of him. I say him because in the Bible it describes God with the pronoun him. God is God and more than a Man with Supernatural powers. He created everything, knows everything, and sees everything. He knows your heart and the reasons why you do things, good things, and bad things. So my wish and desire for my brothers and sisters of this world is to know that there is God. And not just a God who is up there in a place where we can’t see him. But a God who is walking behind us, next to us, in front of us and above. You may not believe in my experience, but I can’t control that. I prefer you don’t just believe me, but question me. Challenge what I say and ask me anything that comes to mind. I have no fear the world and what people think of me. I’m not perfect and I still struggle with what the Bible has referred to sin, but I’m trying. And I love God now. And according to the promise God has made to us in the Bible he will always protect me. Even when evil harms me he won’t allow anything more than I can handle. There will be ups and downs, but it’s up to me to keep my heart and eye on God’s will. For they not only didn’t believe Jesus despite the many miracles he performed but killed and said he came from and heal in the name of Lucifer the evil one. So I know the world and people won’t want to or choose to believe that I’m saying my story out of love. But out of self-interest. But whatever! I know a lot of people and according to the dreams I have been having (on a side note I have stopped dreaming and now have extremely powerful dreams) a lot of people will believe despite the darkness in the background. And not because of my wisdom, knowledge, or love but because of God’s wisdom, knowledge, and wisdom. So God Bless everyone out there. I try to judge no one now, and humble myself before you. For just like Jesus came to serve and not be serve I come to you to serve you in anyway. I am no where near the Prince of Peace and will never come close to his grace, power, and love by myself, but know that with the help, love, and grace of him I will do great things in this world. I invite you to message me if you want to link up as Disciples of Christ to glorify him. How we will help each other only God knows but do know that we must walk this path together. For we can not do this alone. I pray that I will never lose faith and hope in my God and till I meet him love all of his creation as he has done to me.

All praise and glory go to God

Setting Goals

By the end of this month I'm setting new goals for myself. Not just in fitness but my wealth as well. I don't know if I want to keep getting bigger but I definitely want to get more wealthier.

I feel really good looking a certain way, but the maintenance is a lot of work and I've noticed that I'm starting to break out a lot. I've read people experiences breaking out after going vegan (people feel it's there liver pushing out their toxins in their skin) and it really really sucks.

I didn't expect to have bad skin after going vegan. There's been so many times I've wanted to give up being vegan and then this happens. It sucks cause not too long ago (4 months back before going vegan) I had the clearest skin. Now I get pimples on my cheeks that make me say wtf all the time. I'm going to stick with it though. I didn't become vegan to look flawless, but I wouldn't mind it. I might need to start breaking up my meals into smaller meals and stop doing intermittent fasting. I feel it has to do with my bodies inability to break up the chemicals or whatever in my peas, beans, lentils, and other vegan source of protein. I eat huge amounts in one sitting and I don't think my liver is getting enough time to break it down. It sucks cause I like intermittent fasting. So a face full of pimples because of the animals lol. Damnit.

For my wealth I'm going to be working on some side projects that should bring needed resources in my life. I don't know why I say needed, but I know I have to change my attitude and become really passionate about this side project if it's going succeed.

I probably need to dedicate more time it by not spending so much time on social media sites like tumblr. I'll most likely only go on once a week now to give my self a fighting chance to do what I want to do. Complete focus with some room to relax. I hope everyone out there in the tumblr world is doing good. Vegan, carnivore, it doesn't matter. I have love for you all.

#personal #settinggoals

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