<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
<h1><b><font color="black" face="Times New Roman" size="7"><span
style="font-size: 36pt; color: black;">How I Found Peace with God</span></font><o:p></o:p></b></h1>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">I was driving down a rural highway in north
central <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Wisconsin</st1:place></st1:state>
that Autumn night in 1977, thoughts running wildly through my mind.
"Why wasn't I dead?" I thought unbelievingly. I had fully intended to
overdose on drugs and end my life just hours before. But after
swallowing some one hundred assorted pills that I thought were pretty
potent, I woke up surprised not only to find myself alive, but my head
clear also. Didn't even catch a buzz!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">As a senior in high school, I was hanging
around with the wrong crowd, and heavily into the drug culture. My
parents being divorced when I was young, I had tried living with both
sets of parents and couldn't get along with either one. I didn't strike
it off too well with girls either, so with one failed relationship
after another, I had decided that death was preferable to life,
thinking that somehow it would be a gateway to a better life.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">But now I was confused, off balance.
Overdosing on drugs seemed like the easiest most painless way of ending
my life, and when I decided to finally go through with it, there was no
turning back. The thought never occurred to me that I would not
succeed. So there I was back in my car driving down a rural highway
pondering what to do next. I remembered a junior high teacher once
reading an article to our class about a guy who killed himself
instantly by driving his car 55 mph into a telephone pole. That was it!
It would be instantaneous; painless.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">There was one problem, however. As I drove
down this unfamiliar rural road somewhere north of <st1:city w:st="on">Appleton</st1:city>
(about 2 hours north of my home in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Milwaukee</st1:place></st1:city>), there were drainage
ditches between the edge of the road and where the telephone poles
were. I feared my car would never make it over the ditch.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Finally the road led through a small country
town consisting of not much more than a bar and grocery store. But it
was lit up with a few light poles on the gravel shoulder of the main
highway. This was it. I backed the car up several hundred yards, and
then floored it, racing towards one of the light poles. A glance at the
speedometer read 85 mph just before impact. And then total darkness……
for maybe 10-15 seconds.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">The sound of my car horn blaring woke me up….
again. Again I had failed. With nothing better to do, I decided to try
and crawl out of the wreckage. The car was now upside down, but my
driver-side window was missing, so I began to climb out. The people who
were in the bar across the street rushed over and helped me the rest of
the way out. One guy exclaimed to his buddies, "Wow! Check it out! He
knocked down the light pole!" It was probably the most excitement that
little town had seen in years. They called an ambulance and took me to
a nearby hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">At the hospital they did some routine checks
on me, but other than a few bruises, I had driven my car into a light
pole 85 mph and walked away from it. The police were able to contact my
father through my licenses plates. I was kept in the hospital overnight
for observations, mostly out of concern for the drugs I had taken.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">So I laid there in the hospital bed staring
at the ceiling and wondering why I was alive. The thought had never
occurred to me that I would not succeed in ending my life. Then it hit
me. I did not have control over my own life. God did. It was not mine
to take. This was not some tremendous revelation or anything like that,
it was just something I had learned that day through practical
experience. And it gave me comfort. I felt as if God was saying to me:
"I have a purpose for your life, just wait." From that night on I never
again had the desire to take my own life.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">The next day confirmed my suspicions that God
had been in control the whole time. First the sheriff's report from the
"accident" came in. I learned that my car had gone right through the
light pole shearing it out of the ground, and then continued up the
road, veered off into a drainage ditch, hit a culvert that went
underneath a driveway which upended the car and flipped it over three
times finally coming to rest upside down. Wow! And I walked away from
that! But wait, it gets better….<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">My dad says to me, "Let's go to the crash
site on the way home." Ok I thought, why not? As we drive down the
rural highway heading north out of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place
w:st="on">Appleton</st1:place></st1:city>, we come to the small town
where I crashed the car. The name of the town: Freedom. We drive over
to the place where the car finally came to rest: right in front of a
big country church. As I look at that church and reflect on God's
control over my life, my Dad says to me: "Hey, look at the name of that
bar across the street." I turn around and look at it: The Crash Inn. My
Dad chuckles, and I feel like I'm in the twilight zone or something.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">It's time to drive back to <st1:city
w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Milwaukee</st1:place></st1:city>, but
we decide to stop at the junk yard where they hauled my car. We ask the
guy where the <st1:place w:st="on">Torino</st1:place> is that they
brought in this morning. The guy takes us to the car. He looks at the
car, looks at me, and then asks, "Were you driving that car??" I nod in
affirmant. The guy shakes his head in disbelief. "You see that car over
there?" he says, pointing to a large wrecked car, "It's not half as
smashed up as yours, but the guy driving that car didn't make it."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">We walk over to what used to be my car.
Totally demolished. The engine was pushed off its block, and half of it
was in the passenger side front seat. The car basically crumpled when
it took out the light pole. The guy said he couldn't even tow it,
because the wheels and axles were bent. He had to use a flat-bed truck
and lift it up there with a crane. After hauling it to the junk yard,
he had to return a second time to pick up all the pieces. But the
driver seat was still in tact. It was almost as if a protective bubble
had been placed around it. I left there feeling like my life was worth
something to God, and that he had me on this earth for some reason.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Going back to school, my whole outlook on
life changed. I now had hope, believing that God had some purpose for
my life. I had been brought up in church, and had been taught the Bible
and the creeds of my Protestant denomination, but my faith was very
"creedal" also: it didn't have much of an impact on my day to day life.
So I went back to my old friends and my partying way of life.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">But my attitude in school changed. I was
enrolled in a specialty program in my senior year of high school
majoring in business and marketing. With my new found self confidence,
I excelled in the program, especially in demonstrating sales abilities.
I won some awards in some city and state wide competitions, and
purposed to graduate from high school and make a lot of money in sales.
After graduating from high school, I quickly got certified and began to
sell accident and health insurance door-to-door. I was doing great, and
even sold a policy my first day on the field. But there was something
missing, and I often felt guilty having "conned" someone to buy a
policy that they probably didn't need and wasn't quite what they
expected it to be.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">So I got a job in a factory working a
graveyard shift from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. three days on and three
days off. It was a good hourly rate, and a lot of my buddies from high
school were working there. It was boring work, and we all "got high" to
help us make it through the long shifts. But I always saw it as
temporary work, until I found a good sales job that I really liked. It
allowed me some financial freedom, and I was able to rent a condominium
with another friend. I was also able to buy a nice sports car. Life was
great in many ways, I could now party as much as I wanted. But I was
still empty and unsatisfied with my life. I knew there had to be more,
and I just thought that if I could get a good job with the potential to
advance in a career, that I would be happy.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">After about a year out of high school and
having worked at the factory for several months, I decided to get back
into sales. This time I got a job selling educational books. It seemed
like a more "worthy" product to be selling. But something inside of me
said that I would not be happy doing this either if I didn't have God's
blessing. So facing discouragement again, and having no where to go but
forward, because I had already tried running away from my problems, and
I had already tried exiting life and God wouldn't let me, I decided to
try not getting high for a few days and just read the Bible, to try and
understand what God's will was for my life.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">This was July of 1979, and at that point I
had been getting high on drugs every day for almost 4 years straight.
As I read the Bible, and I don't even remember what exactly I was
reading, I became acutely aware of my sins. I had always considered
myself a Christian, and a good person. Even though I got high on drugs,
I was no junkie. I rationalized my behavior as being no different than
the casual social drinker of alcohol. It was just that one was legal
and the other wasn't. But I thought the laws were wrong, not me.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">But now two major sins in my life were
staring me right in the face: one was my drug usage, and the other one
was planning my life without considering what God wanted me to do with
my life. Without even really understanding what the word "repentance"
means, I saw myself in a different light, and knew that my sins were
keeping me from knowing God's will. I immediately confessed my sins to
God, and told him that I was not going to make any more decisions about
my life until He told me what He wanted me to do.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">What happened next is truly the miracle in my
life, and words cannot come close to describing the inner
transformation that occurred in me that summer day in 1979. First of
all, a joy and peace flooded my being, such that I had never known
could even exist in this life. It was the ultimate high, and it was
from the Holy Spirit. It was so wonderful, that I took all my
paraphernalia that I used to smoke pot and threw it into the dumpster
outside our building. What I had found was so much better than drugs,
that I never had a desire to get high on drugs again.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Secondly, the words in the Bible now came
alive. It was as if God was speaking directly to me through them, and
indeed He was. The facts I had studied for years as a kid growing up in
church now became part of a vibrant relationship with the living God,
and with the Savior of the world Jesus Christ. Having never doubted the
facts of Jesus life, death, and resurrection, they now came alive with
fresh meaning. I read the entire New Testament in about two weeks: I
just couldn't get enough of it. When I read verses like Romans 5:7-8
"Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man
someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love
for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us," I
would just fall down and weep over the incredible love God was showing
me through Christ.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">I now knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that
God had saved me, not just from a suicide attempt, but He had truly
saved me from my sins, and that I was now going to be with Him in
eternity: "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." Hebrews
13:5<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Since I had dedicated my life to God, I
decided to go back to school and study the Bible. I studied the Bible
for a number of years, and then served in full-time ministries in
various parts of the world. But I have also learned that one does not
have to be professional Christian minister to be serving God. You can
serve God as a minister wherever you are in many different ways. Today
my business is providing healthy food, and I seek to serve God in that
task to the best of my ability. The Bible says, and science now
confirms, that a "<i><span style="font-style: italic;">joyful heart is
good medicine.</span></i>" The Bible has much to say about good health,
and not all of it is physical. Our spiritual and emotional state has
more to do with our health than our modern rationalistic society and
medical system would care to admit. So if you are seeking better
health, don't just look at your physical symptoms. Look to the Great
Physician, and healer of your soul, and give your heart to Christ for
true peace with God. Then you will discover true health and life!
Everything else on this website, and any product I have to offer you,
is worthless if you don't know God and His incredible love for you, and
understand His will for your life. The best part is that His offer of
eternal life is free for you, because he already paid the price of your
sins through the blood of his Son. I have nothing here to offer you
that can beat that!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Peace!<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class="txtjustify"><em><i><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"><span
style="font-size: 12pt;">Brian Shilhavy</span></font></i></em><br>
Founder, Tropical Traditions, Inc.<br>
<a href="http://www.created4health.org/index.html">http://www.created4health.org/</a></p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"The fundamental premise of liberalism is the moral and
rational incapacity of the American people." ~ Fred Miller</pre>
</body>
</html>