God saves, and when we turn to Him He always blesses us with far more than we deserve. As I finally write this story down so many months later, I am flabbergasted at the events of that Sunday. God rewarded me for nothing more than faith, and even that itself was a gift I did not deserve. I don’t understand it, and I can’t explain it. I woke up at 10AM, an hour late for work, to 5 or 6 missed calls and many texts from my job. The world came crashing down around me. I was terrified, and did the only thing I could think to do. I grabbed a Bible and prayed that God would show me that the entire previous night had not been a lie. I let the Bible fall open, and it landed on the first page of 2 Kings.
The very first chapter of 2 Kings tells the story of how Elijah called down fire from heaven to prove he was a prophet of God. I was astounded and comforted. What were the odds that my sacreligous pillar of acid-fire would coincide exactly with the Bible flip? Uncountable. My heart stopped beating a mile a minute, and I began to pray for a miracle, that somehow, some way, God would turn the clocks back. By then Hunter and Rocky were up, and when the time-pushing miracle did not occur, we tried to think of ways to embellish events so as to paint me in a light that made my absurd lateness for work slightly more explainable. I was still terrified of what would happen, going even so far as to turn off my phone.
As we talked, it hit me: however the weekend ended, it could NOT end in a lie. Around 10:30 AM Rocky and Karen and I went outside to smoke some cigarettes, and talked about my weird behavior. I told them I could not apologize for what happened, because it wasn’t me who was doing those things, which was true. Whether it was the drugs or God, whatever happened was not me. I then learned that the pathetic and pleading voice with which I had called out Karen actually came off as angry and forceful. As we talked, I realized with a shock: the desire to trip had vanished.
I don’t mean subdued, hidden, or lowered, I mean GONE. I had laughed at Dalton for thinking tripping was something I could ever stop, but now…I didn’t want to. It was gone. It was GONE, and I had another epiphany – my self-proclaimed deadline for stopping crazy partying had been that I needed to have a Hunter S. Thompson-like weekend, and that was exactly what happened. A crazy 24+ hour bender on weed, adderall, alcohol, and acid, steeped in sleep deprivation and spiritual highs. God healed me that morning, and I adored Him for it – I could not explain how or why. This bothered both Karen and Rocky, who were worried I was no longer myself. The previous night I had been manic and mad, that morning I was calm. Peaceful. Assured. I was more myself than I had ever been before.
Shortly after that, I came outside by myself and noticed Layla sitting outside as well, reading her Bible. I asked if I could join her, and we prayed together, started talking about God’s mysterious ways. I shared with her the story of the entire acid trip, because I knew it was a story worth telling. It shocked her that we had all been on acid, but her next words gave me chills: she had been in the kitchen when I had called down the pillar of acid-fire. As she watched us all out there, she felt an evil presence quite unlike any she had ever felt in her house. Keep in mind that she had no idea we were on acid until I told her that morning. She just knew God asked her to pray, so she did. Without her, I tremble to think of what could have happened.
She told me about her hippie days, her experiences with drugs, and the developing of her spiritual awareness. One time, she and her friends had been using a Ouija board to contact dead spirits, and an evil entity appeared above the board, face wrapped in a ball of flame and emanating pure evil. They bound it in Jesus’s name and it left, but they never messed with Ouija boards again. And before you ask, no she had not been tripping. Merely stoned.
Back during Lent, praying was such a frequent activity that I pretty much felt like I had run out of things to pray. One night I went to an addict recovery program at a local church. After the service, a lady approached me and said she felt God calling her to pray for me. She and one other guy joined together when I told them happily they were more than welcome to. She prayed in tongues, which both surprised, and, I’ll be honest, unsettled me. Yet I was comforted. When I got back home, I prayed some more, but I had been praying so much lately it felt like repetition lacking meaning.
Then I remembered what my pastor had told me: praying in tongues is a way to get your head out of the way of your heart. That sounded perfect to me, so right then and there I asked God for the gift of tongues. I had no clue what to expect, but for the next twenty mintues I felt my tongue and lips move of their own accord as I prayed in tongues. It was nothing short of miraculous. I felt this sense of a loving presence far greater than I. I was pushed down by the force of it all at the same time as I felt drawn up to heaven. There was such an abundant desire for God’s presence, that I could never have enough of Him. I wanted more, more, more. I had NEVER been the Pentecostal type, but that night God gave me that gift, and I used it to commune with Him.
I prayed in tongues only once or twice after that night, alone. I would not allow showmanship to corrupt my gift, so I used it only when I felt God’s prompting. The morning after the acid trip, I found out from Layla that she also spoke in tongues, and the Lord prompted me, so I asked her if we could pray in tongues together. She gladly agreed, and for a good fifteen minutes we babbled away in the language of the Holy Spirit. I received a presence, a comfort, a knowledge that God had indeed healed and blessed me. Never before had I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit like I did that morning. It was my first and still only time praying in front of another in tongues and it, too, was nothing short of miraculous. God is good.
Shortly after that me, Layla, and Hunter held a worship and Scripture reading service in the basement. Rocky and Karen quickly excused themselves outside, unsettled by the “weird” of us praying and singing with hands held high. Didn’t we know that that stuff should be kept in church? We sang “It Is Well,” by Horatio Spafford. It is a song of deep, abiding peace that occurs no matter the circumstances, made all the more powerful because he wrote it immediately following a tragic boating accident that killed his wife and three little girls. His entire world had literally fallen apart, and he still turned to Jesus. He is my hero.
God was with me that entire day. When you are walking with God, it feels like the Universe was made just for you, like even a song written over a century ago was written just to give YOU comfort one Sunday morning. The thing is, God is All-Powerful, which means that He can give this feeling to EVERY person who walks with Him. To God, we are ALL the most important person in the Universe. I told Rocky and Karen that God was still not done showing His love. I mentioend the street Adrian lived on, Blue, and I told them that color was going to be important that day. They scoffed.
Within twenty minutes, we happened to go into the weight room in Hunter’s basement. The walls were blue, the carpet was blue, everything was blue. I didn’t say anything, merely let Karen take it in. There happened to be a 5 pound fluorescent pink weight which I handed to her, because earlier in the day we had been talking about how she was probably the only person in the whole city with fluorescent pink hair. My friend Jason was with us too, high off his mind on mescaline. I found the tiniest little red bead in the fibers of the carpet, and felt the need to entrust it to him. I told him very solmently to keep it safe, quite aware that he was so far gone the likelihood of that was next to impossible. He clasped it tightly in his hand and nodded gravely. I want you to keep that red bead in mind.
While in the weight room, Hunter pulled out a 50-pound weight and stood it on its end as he related to us how it reminded him of his dad, because it was the biggest and would not fall over if you pushed it. Karen leaned over and gave it a shove. It wobbled but stood strong. We all laughed. Examples like this abounded throughout the day, and every time they popped up, I could tell it bothered Rocky and Karen. I had these urges to do the craziest, most random things, like hand Jason that red bead. People kept saying that I was still tripping, but that was clearly not the case, and they all knew it. The previous night they had been able to dismiss with a wave of the hand all the coincidences because hey, we were tripping. But that Sunday they couldn’t, because we were all sober. And it made them mad.
By the time we left Hunter’s house, I had decided that I was going to ignore work all day, for Karen’s sake. Part of it was terror at facing my work, part of it was a feeling I couldn’t quite place, that I had to dig myself a hole out of which only the Truth could get me. I knew myself, knew my capacity for weaseling. I could have easily made up some excuse to my boss, but as stated before, the weekend could NOT end on a lie. I had a very strong feeling that it needed to end on the full and complete Truth.
Most of that day I spent with Rocky and Karen. It maddened and annoyed them as I walked through the day with complete undoubting assurance. They felt like it was cocky. At one point Rocky even screamed at me. She felt like she was losing a friend. They wanted me to apologize, but I told them I couldn’t. The night had all been for Karen, and it wasn’t me. Their response was something along the lines of, “You know you were just doing that for yourself, right?” After thinking for a moment, I responded, “Given how crazy it made me look and how pretty much everyone hated me, how could it have possibly been for my sake?” They didn’t have an answer to that.
We went down to the river, near were we had gone the previous day and read poetry to each other as Karen took a swim. Our spot was occupied, though, so we went to another spot to which I felt….led. We stood by the riverside and gazed in contemplation. I noticed, not too far away from us, on the other side of some brush, a tattooed beefy bad-ass looking dude fishing – and he had a fluorescent pink beard. The EXACT same color as Karen’s hair. I pointed him out to Karen and Rocky, and said merely, “What are the odds. That’s for you.” Both of them shook their heads and would not answer me, leaving the location to which I had led them. They were still mad, confused, frustrated. It broke my heart but I could not fail to speak Truth where I saw it.
Eventually we had to meet up with John, for I had left my wallet in his car a couple of nights before that. As we waited outside an elementary school, I received a phone call from the only friend of mine who knew I had been tripping. I answered and he told me he knew I was fine, he trusted me, but everyone else was freaking out. People thought I might be dead. My boss had even gone to my house to check up on me. I was touched and a bit floored – I knew people would be mad at me for missing work, but it honestly had not occurred to me that me being hurt was a concern. The possibility of me being dead really shook things up. This should not have surprised me, but it did. The concern of one friend in particular really tore at my heart. In any case, I decided it was time to face the music.
So I called my boss to apologize and tell him I would accept any and all consequences for my behavior, but that I also had a story to tell him – the complete story of what happened. He was extremely understanding, so we set up an appointment for Monday morning. I texted back and called back several more people, and set up a time to talk to my pastor too. My story had to be told, and I knew the Truth would set me free.
As we waited for John and the awkward silence that ruled the day continued, I didn’t know what to do, as my words, even the ones I meant as encouragement, only seemed to frustrate my two best friends. So I spent a good twenty minutes in the task of cleaning Rocky’s van out. It felt good to clean, and I made a discovery – there was a page of writing amid a bunch of trash, and I asked Rocky about it.
She was embarrassed, for it was HER writing, and she had never shown it to anyone. Quite literally nobody on the planet knew she was a writer until that day, but God knew, and God blessed me with the opportunity to discover it just exactly right then. She was a REALLY good writer, and I told her so. It was a great encouragement to her, and it instantly broke the day’s tension. We were best friends once more, as I jokingly berated her for not showing it to me sooner.
Soon after that John pulled up in his car and handed me my wallet. I knew the Truth had to be spoken, so I told him that Adrian had tricked us. I then looked at Karen and held my wallet over her head. “Karen, you never got your acid rain, but this weekend was all for you. So if it really was all for you, may you feel the acid rain down upon your head.” I opened the wallet and out tumbled a few receipts and 2 $20 bills. No acid. The amount was perfect, though. It was God’s way of telling Karen to spend the money on something better than acid. $20 for her, and $20 for John, to whom I apologized for wasting his time. I had completely forgotten the money was there, but God works backwards and forwards in time – it was there and waiting for me to “make it rain.”
Dalton was scheduled to get off around 6:30, and we finished up with John around 7:00, figuring that that was plenty of time for Dalton get back home. We pulled up to his house at the exact same time as him – perfect timing. And then Luke stepped out of the car. I was thrilled. I KNEW Karen was going to meet him. I introduced them giddily. It ALSO just happened that Luke had been working towards a weight loss goal for months, so that his Mormon church would finally be able to assign him his mission. That day was the day he reached his goal.
We all hung out for awhile, and at one point Luke looked at me strangely. “Brandon, you do realize you could get fired, right? Doesn’t that worry you?” I replied honestly that it didn’t. I wasn’t worried, because I was doing the right thing, and that was all God asked of me. I told them to not look at me and my behavior, because I am nothing without my God. At some point Luke and I were outside by ourselves and I told him the entire story of the trip. He was silent, but I could tell I made him think. Later he said to me, “Remember, Brandon, God is not in the trip.” I laughed. “God can go anywhere. He’d be a pretty puny God if He couldn’t.”
The weekend was over, but not the night. The previous afternoon I had left my backpack, Bible, and cigarettes at Dalton’s house, which meant that all the previous night I had been bumming cigarettes off of Rocky and Karen, which meant that when we all got back to Dalton’s house I had basically a full pack. I offered to give some to Rocky and Karen, to compensate for their generosity, but they didn’t smoke my brand so they took a pass. It was like God was preparing me, but for a new day, a fresh start, complete with a full pack of cigs.
Karen and Rocky dropped me off at my house before heading out of town. I stepped into my room, a changed person. Everything was clicking. My writing notebook and guide to getting published were sitting together right by my bedside. Up until that weekend, I had never had the both of them in the same place at the same time. I was hungry, but I had given all my money except a paltry $1 bill to John and Karen, so I scrounged up a total $3.36 from my change jar. I had no idea what I would buy, I just knew I needed food and with faith that God would make the purchase perfect, I went to 7/11. I picked up a drink, a taquito, and a pack of two cookies. The total? $3.37. There was one penny in the Take-A-Penny bowl. It was another lesson – God works the Universe in insanely specific ways, but He loves using people too. He wouldn’t have created us if He didn’t want to use us.
So that is my story of the acid and the morning after, and it is still not the end. I had gone to a dark and evil place and chose to always ask Jesus along with me, and he rewarded me with His presence and a miraculous removal of all my desire. But the place to which I was about to go was even darker, for I fell into that most dangerous aspect of sin – it binds not only your body, but your mind, and when you let it back into your life, it WILL destroy you, it WILL make you feel like you can’t ask God along, so you won’t. But here’s the thing, God KNEW I was going to regress, and he still chose to bless me with that healing. His grace is quite truly beyond our comprehension. Stay tuned for the story of how I spat in the face of God’s gift, dirtying, bruising, and bleeding myself in the process. In the end, Jesus carried those bruises, bled that blood, and wiped my dirt clean.
Pop Culture Shocked 