Читать книгу Came to Believe - Anonymous - Страница 13

It happened about three in the morning. I had been in our Fellowship slightly less than a year. I was alone in the house, my third wife having divorced me prior to my entry into A.A. I awoke with a frightening sense of approaching death. I was trembling and almost paralyzed with fear. Although it was in the month of August in Southern California, I was so cold that I found a heavy blanket and draped it around my shoulders. Then I turned on the floor heater in the living room and stood directly over it, trying to get warm. Instead of getting warm, I began to feel numb all over and again felt death approaching.

I had not been a very religious person, nor had I become affiliated with any church after coming into A.A. But suddenly I said to myself, “If ever I needed to pray, now is the time.” I returned to the bedroom and fell to my knees at the side of the bed. I closed my eyes, buried my face in the palms of my hands, and rested my hands on the bed. I have forgotten all the words I said out loud, but I do recall saying, “Please, God, teach me to pray!”

Then, without raising my head or opening my eyes, I was able to “see” the entire floor plan of the house. And I could “see” a giant of a man standing on the other side of the bed, arms folded across his chest. He was glaring at me with a look of intense hatred and malevolence. He was the epitome of everything evil. After about ten seconds, I “saw” him slowly turn around, walk to the bathroom and look inside, turn to the second bedroom and look into it, walk to the living room and gaze around, then leave the house by way of the kitchen door.

I remained in my original position of prayer. Simultaneously with his departure, there seemed to be coming toward me from all directions, from the infinite reaches of space, a vibrating, pulsating, magnetic current. In probably fifteen seconds, this tremendous power reached me, stayed for some five seconds, and then slowly withdrew to its origin. But the sense of relief given me by its presence beggars description. In my clumsy way, I thanked God, got into bed, and slept like a baby.

I have not had the desire for a drink of anything intoxicating since that memorable morning twenty-three years ago. In my years in our Fellowship, I have had the privilege of hearing one other member describe an experience almost exactly like mine. Did the departure from my house of the personification of evil symbolize the departure from my life of the evils embraced by alcoholism, as some think? Be that as it may, the other part of my experience symbolizes to me the all-powerful and cleansing love of a Higher Power, whom I have since become happy to call God.

San Diego, California