My Salvation Testimony

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My Testimony. I was brought up in a one parent home. That is the only way to describe my upbringing.My Dad left us when I was 10. I was an angry young man with a look of defiance in my eyes. I was the firstborn of 4 brothers from three different fathers. None of them were around to give guidance and the things needful for a young man to grow up and find a wife and have a good life. On top of that I was told, “you are man of the house”, by my Mom. We only saw Mom at dinnertime after she got home from working a 12 hour shift at the hospital. So I retreated into my fantasy world. Because of the emptiness and pain in my soul, I retreated into my fantasy world with my parakeet and my drugs . This became my medication of choice to sooth the wounds. My drugs of choice were alchohol and marijuana. Chemicals were added to that list as I moved out and lived in Talbot Village next to my college campus, John Herron School of Art Indianapolis.
I dabbled in the occult and rock and roll with my band which I led vocally and musically with my lead guitar. Trying to fill the void in my life I added many short term female relationships to my quest which added more and more confusion to the mix. I remember being prophesied over by many occult gurus including some college professors(what a title; teachers who professed to have higher knowledge). One hobo, whom I paid for his prophecy by taking him to the bus station, gave me his cane walking stick and instructed me to paint on the end of it. He said that he would know what I put there and it would lead me to my destiny. This ragamuffin cited astral projection and eastern mythology as my new creed. I was following the path of my idol Jimmy Hendrix. One lady, my first year drawing instructor, who also was my counsellor to help me find a path in careers, told me that there is no absolute Truth. This was my mantra until I returned to campus some 6 years later to find her and rebuke her for falsely teaching her worldview to me and my classmates. I challenged Mrs. Burford by saying, “you said there was no absolute truth but I have found the real Truth, the Life and the Way and His Name is Jesus Christ”.
One last instructor who stands out in my mind was shipped in from New York City. As a cultural guru of the arts, he one day critiqued some of my paintings and actually prophesied my future with some accuracy. Ken, he said, “your work makes me think of these grandiose scenes from the bible where you have these great vistas from mountaintops and beautiful scenery”. Wow, that one really caught me off guard! Considering he was viewing totally abstract paintings, his impression was a spiritual interpretation. But I took it to heart. You see, I believed there was a God who made the world of nature but He was distant from me and I didn’t know His Son or the relevance this Jesus was soon to play in my life. I was heading quickly towards eternity at age 22 still not knowing my final destination.
I missed my graduation ceremony because I was so high. I got arrested for dealing drugs and was bailed out by my Mom. I met a young woman who became my first wife, the mother of my two natural children. Her sister had become a Christian, and with the help of an evangelist friend, decided to take me on as a project for the Lord. Armed with four days of prayer and fasting for my soul they proceeded to knock on my door one Saturday morning. I donned my yellow brocade japanese smoking jacket and my super bell bottomed jeans as I stumbled to the front door. My long hair was sticking straight out. I must have been a strange sight to these two. We proceed with the usual niceties as they came into my cave of musical equipment and band setup...then, after introductions, Eddie, the motor cycle evangelist dressed in leathers and chain wallet hanging from his side, boldly went for the jugular vein. “Kenny”, he said,” do you know that you are on the road to Hell?” This was a strange greeting for Saturday morning! I immediately thought about how I was going to nail this preacher to the wall. I had sent many of them packing in confusion from my front door when the substance of their appeals were so full of religion I could throw up. “This one would be no different”, I thought. So I gave Eddie my desperate reply. “How could you possibly know where I’m going? If you can answer that we might talk.” He dropped his head and studied for a minute that lasted for eternity. He replied as he looked around the room strewn with amplifiers, drums and guitars plus liquor bottles and ashes. “Kenny, what did you do last night?” Eddie did it; he asked the only relevant question that had ever been asked of me by a soul-saver. Combined with the power of conviction released by Holy Spirit on me from 4 days of prayer and fasting I blurted out, “I am lost, will you pray for me?”. I tried to take the words back but I couldn’t. I had arrived at a truth that clashed with my lifestyle...... My Sunday morning church of my rock band had been invaded. He replied that they could pray a quick prayer and that’s what it was. No salvation plea. Just an invite to church the next day. They left me in my mess full of conviction.
That night I had a very vivid dream and at the end my bed was on fire as I woke up in a sweat burning and being consumed in the flames of hell as I was slipping in. I jumped up awake and blurted out, “where did that guy say that church was!????”. We got dressed in our finest. My yellow pants, deerskin topped hunting boots with my wild silk shirt. We drove the hour and a half road to Southport Church of the Nazarene. What a sight I must have been with my waist length hair and my fu man chu in the midst of these fine church people( I looked just like the middle musketeer on the front of the Tiparrillo Cigar box). Men with their suits and shaved haircuts and ladies with their full length dresses and hair piled up on their heads like a beehive. Don’t remember the sermon but the altar call came from the McClary family singers in this room full of 400 people with ladies waving their hankechiefs and loud singing going on. I white knuckle gripped the pew and wouldn’t go to the altar as they beckoned. I felt like I was going to have a heart attack. My heart was pounding in my chest and I knew what to do, but that devil was in my ear whispering “what is she going to do?“( referring to my live in girlfriend). So I escaped the call. The nice church people greeted me and asked me to come back for another torture session in the evening. I was a fish on a hook. I came back that evening and the same thing happened, but this time I said to myself,”I don’t care what she does, I’ve got to do this!”. I pushed past her and the entire room as I ran forward 20 feet and sprawled out over the old fashioned mourners bench, and poured out a bucketful of tears as I confessed every thing I had ever done wrong. People gave me kleenex and Eddie joined me there. “Do you feel anything?’, he asked. I said, “ I just told God everything I ever did wrong.” Eddie opened a big bible and handed it to me and said,’ read this verse.’ I read out loud Romans 10:9...”If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead you shall be saved.” Verse 10, “For with the heart man believes, and with the tongue man confesses unto salvation”. Read verse 13. “And whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved”. “Do you feel anything now?”. “No”, I said. “Are you a whosoever?”. “Yes”, I said. Eddie patiently asked, “do you believe this?”. I said, “yes, this book says Holy Bible, I believe it must be true”. “Let’s read some more”, Eddie suggested as he opened to I John I:9. “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
Just about that time the music had risen to a crescendo. The altar call was beckoning the lost to come. People were beating on my back saying, ‘get on!’. Others were saying, ‘let go!’ I remember the old white haired preacher shouting as he paced back and forth across the stage in front of me, “Look up at the Cross!”. Then Brother Stafford cried,” Jesus of Nazareth passes by”.....time stood still for a moment as I looked up at the large backlit cross suspended on the rear stage wall.....suddenly all shouting and singing and cries for salvation became dim and it was just me and the Lord..this stillness lasted what seemed for a while but was only a moment. My heart became very peaceful and in that silence I heard the audible voice of my Savior speak to me...”My son, you are forgiven”. I instantly felt the weight of 1000 lbs off of my back. I began to embrace this strange new family of God shaking hands and being welcomed into the fellowship of the Church. What had seemed like an odd bunch minutes ago now were new friends and pilgrims. The woman I came into the church with was found kneeling next to me and had given her heart to Jesus. I remember feeling lighter than air and seemed to float out of that building. We drove to my sister- in -law’s home. We weren’t married and didn’t want to tarnish our clean slate so we got married the next night in the church fellowship hall.
That night, January 7th, 1979 at about 9:30 the old Ken Smith died and all things became new as a new creation of Jesus Christ. In my salvation prayers at that altar I had told the Lord if He took away the desire to do drugs and sin I would never turn back again. Jesus kept His Word and I kept my commitment and I have never regretted this decision or gone back. I am a T Totaler for Jesus through the one step program. One step to freedom from My Lord and my savior Jesus Christ. This is my testimony which I have shared personally and in public preaching the Gospel more times than I can remember. This is the power of God.
’They Overcame by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of their Testimony’. Revelation 12:11
I am available to share the simple Gospel of Salvation and my personal testimony to any person or group. My wife and I have produced an all original Praise and worship CD titled ‘Lord of All’
We preach the Gospel through ‘Chalk Talks’, a multi media artistic presentation of the Gospel.