Deep Waters

Hi. My name is Vance

I guess I am a perfect example of what can happen when someone ignores God's calling. But even though I was humbled in my effort to run from God, He was merciful to me. I testify to the following undeniable truths: God sent his son Jesus Christ into this world to save us and Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.

My dad's most notable achievement in life was being a member of the Hell's Angels in the late 1950's. He eventually drowned on his own vomit. He was 42 years old when he died.

My mom's life was patterned upon numerous broken relationships, alcohol abuse, drug overdoses and numerous suicide attempts. She died at the age of 61 as a result of end stage lung and liver disease.

I gave my life to Christ at a very young age. I did my best at keeping as close to God as possible throughout a childhood of upheaval, but I never looked for help when I really needed it. I endured to the age of 15 before self-destructing.

I began to emulate the lifestyle that surrounded me. I began drinking, smoking pot, and getting into trouble. By the age of 16 I was convicted for joyriding.

While I was still 17, I drove a couple of people I knew to and from houses where they entered them and took guns. Nine days after my eighteenth birthday I was arrested for that activity. I lived by the code and took the rap, allowing my accomplices to go free. I was extremely fortunate not to go to prison.

Throughout the next seven years, I was arrested 15 more times as a result of alcohol and substance abuse. The drunk tank truly became my friend.

Three months after my 22nd birthday I was riding on the hood of a car with several of my friends. I had taken a considerable amount of speed, and had spent a long evening drinking beer and half of a fifth of Jim Beam. The driver of the car we were riding on swerved. I fell off the car, and was drug underneath the car embedding skin and denim into the highway for 14 feet. The driver notified the fire department of the accident and hid in a motel room, not sure of what to do next.

The fire department began searching for us, but unfortunately it was on the mountain several miles below. Eventually, an anonymous lady only known as "Mountain 4" began hailing the fire department below us on her CB radio. The fire department and "Mountain 4" eventually met up with each other, and I was transported to St. Mary's Desert Valley Hospital in Apple Valley.

Later that evening as I was being wheeled to the operating room, Dr. Su, the surgeon on duty somberly advised me of my chances of survival.

Dr. Su told me "I don't think I can save you young man! You had better make your peace with God!"

I went into emergency surgery that evening without much hope for survival. I can not adequately describe what it felt like to not have any time to say goodbye to family or friends. I had only enough time to say a quick prayer for mercy before slipping into an anesthetically induced unconsciousness.

My liver had been lacerated, my spleen and bladder had been ruptured and my pelvis had been shattered. The skin on my knees and the palm of my left hand had been ground completely away as the result of being grated into the rough asphalt.

Miraculously I survived, and was flown to Loma Linda University Medical Center as a result of suffering a closed head injury. As I was being taken out to the transport helicopter, I had just enough time to see all my friends and family who had gathered in the waiting room.

The flight for life team told me “Wave goodbye, because this might be the last time you see them!”

Later as neurosurgeons were evacuating the subdural hematoma on the left side of my head they found an old head injury caused by a fight I had been in on my 22nd birthday. They evacuated it as well.

After spending five days in a coma I spent three months at Loma Linda, and I had to undergo three more surgeries while a patient there. I presently endure paralysis of the right side of my diaphragm, a permanent limp and chronic pain as a result of this accident. I was a seasonal firefighter with the U.S. Forest Service, and would have to give up my aspirations of working for them year round.

As I was being released, I was warned not to drink again.

Barely able to walk I celebrated my release from Loma Linda later that evening by cracking a couple of Rainier Ale's with some friends who lived down the street.

I fell in and out of trouble as a result of alcohol and substance abuse for the next three years. I was a lowlife. Certainly, I was somebody not worth the price of saving.

After narrowly escaping a couple of drug related convictions I realized that I had been thrown more than my share of lifelines. I slowly began to admit my life was beyond my own recovery. As I reflected on my life, I began to come to terms with the shame of wasting God's purpose for my life.

So as I lay in bed one evening I began to pray for God's mercy.

I can honestly testify that God reached down that evening, took firm hold of me and shook me from my slumber. I found myself looking down at a poor, pathetic lonely old man on the brink of death with nothing to hope for. I was in fact actually looking down at myself. As I tried to blink away the disbelief of this moment it also became apparent to me that this was the way other people currently saw me as well. I became convinced that my life had to change.

I began attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and as time passed, I received my 30 day sobriety pin. But even though I should have been proud, I still had an emptiness in my heart longing to be filled. For ten years I had attempted to fill it with drugs and alcohol; but now the pain of that emptiness was free to burn away at will.

I could no longer deny the obvious. I had another purpose to life other that to just remain clean and sober. As a result, I began to search for something more. I began to listen to a local Christian radio station, and as I listened in, certain verses seemed to reach out to me.

Romans 5:8 - … God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

2 Peter 3:9 - The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Romans 10:13 - For whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Just as a long distance runner gains their second wind, I began to spiritually reawaken. In that process of reawakening, I slowly began coming to the following conclusion. God never gave up on me; I had given up on Him and by doing so, I had given up on myself.

I thought to myself "If God has room enough to love me, he can love anybody!"

So on December 21st. 1985, I walked down to the intersection of Apple Valley Road and Highway 18, threw away my last pack of cigarettes and began hitchhiking down to the New Life Chapel. On that day, I rededicated my life to Jesus Christ. As a result, I became immediately filled with God’s love and forgiveness.

A respiratory therapist who knew of my life experiences in regards to my chest injuries had frequently encouraged me to pursue his field as a profession. But because of the lifestyle I had recently surfaced out of, I was skeptical of ever achieving that goal. This was compounded by the fact that the respiratory therapy program was going to inquire about my past.

I began praying for direction; and you know, God gave me the strength to talk to the program director.

My confession didn't even faze him.

He told me "Yes! Of course you can enter the program! Congratulations!"

My jaw must have hit the floor. God had opened the doors of possibility in my life, and I was completely thunderstruck.

As the fall semester began, I met a beautiful looking blonde with blue eyes and a captivating smile that was enrolled in the respiratory therapy program as well. She only lived a few blocks away from where I was staying, so we began carpooling to classes together. We eventually began going out on dinner and movie dates, and on January 10th, 1987 Randi and I were married in a small church in San Bernardino California. Life could not have been better than at that moment.

In the spring of 1988 I petitioned the Victorville Superior Court to have the conviction rendered against me when I was 18 erased from my records. I was surprised when it took all of about 30 seconds for the judge presiding over my case to do just that. I walked out of Superior Court that day free from the sanctions that had been imposed on me for the past 10 years.

Then on May 7th, 1988, Randi delivered our son, Vance II. Let me tell you that this in fact was the greatest miracle of all.

I currently hold state licensure to practice respiratory therapy in the State of Colorado. Previously I held licensure in the state of California as well. I have been honest and forthright about my past when applying for licensure, and even though the standards are very strict I have never been denied it. I have been in the respiratory therapy profession for the past 17 years. Although the pay is modest, the rewards for serving the community are undeniably a blessing.

You see, God truly is a god of miracles.

There are life choices and the consequences that occur because of those choices. Smart choices are not necessarily the easy or fast ones. I encourage you to make the smart choices.

If you feel as if you are beyond the point of salvation, I want to tell you that God never gave up on me, and He certainly will never give up on you. No matter how far down you are in life, God is willing to meet you there and bring you out.

Psalms 18:16-17 (NIV) He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me.

May God receive all the glory for His love, His compassion and His longsuffering quest to rescue us all out of our own deep waters.