Having no religious upbringing, after a wonderful, wholesome, loving, but hardworking childhood, marriage, children, and even my own business, things took a turn. My business was broken into three time causing financial stress, a bitter divorce, making it better for me not to see my kids, bankruptcy, the loss of my business, and a complete downward spiral on every front. One night, not knowing there was a God but knowing enough to know that I had knocked on every other door all of which were systematically slammed in my face, I began to talk to Him as if He might be listening--and He answered.
I was caught up in the spirit above the earth and shown many things--then suddenly found myself back in my body in a cold sweat in awe and bewilderment, repeating over and over in my mind all that I had experienced as if like counting sheep, and then drifted off to sleep.
The next morning I awake refreshed, changed at my core, and where I had been full of stress and not knowing what would become of me, there was peace. Everything in my life then also changed and in a matter of days it was all dismantled and I went and stayed with my brother and his wife. In the spare bedroom where they put me up amidst a thousand other books I found a Bible and began to read it. In a week or ten days I read it from cover to cover, barely stopping to eat or sleep. I couldn't stop, because around every corner there was confirmation of my experience--it confirmed what I had experienced with God, and my experience confirmed the words that were written.
Since then while continuing to read the Bible over and over from cover to cover until I lost count, a new career opened up to me and I became a unique type of teacher, one that taught me how to teach others to enter a whole new and ultimately more vast world--I became as Scuba Instructor. For several years I continued reading the scriptures without ever going to church. I then met my current wife and began to go to church with her. When I did, much of what I heard was of course from the scriptures, while much of it did not wash with all that I had learned with God and I alone. I still go...but I will leave it there. The point is, I called out to God, He answered, and lead me as the scriptures say, "unto all truth."
Now you know.