82602Testimonial by Jim Rasmusson
What do drugs, sex and rock and roll
have to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ???
This is what happened to me:
My name is James Rasmusson, I
grew up in a small town in western Minnesota -
the Red River Valley. My parents
(God bless you Mom and Dad), raised me to be
1.) a responsible decision maker,
2.) a golfer and 3.) a Lutheran by faith.
I know from having my own family now
that raising children is probably the most
challenging thing two people can endeavor
to do together, since the outcome has a
will of it's (his or her) own. So thank you Mom and Dad
from the bottom of my heart!
To summarize my
perspective on their training, it would look something like this:
1.) Don't bend
your elbow, keep your head down, keep your eye on the ball
and it's ok if your not here for meals if your golfing.
2.) If you drink alcohol (and we're not saying you should), don't ever drive.
3.) If you
have sex (and we're not saying you should-it used to be taboo when we where your
age), use protection so you
don't
to get the girl pregnant. (that would be a big responsibility
and really mess
up your life)
4.) Transcendental
meditation is good for relaxation, it might even help your golf
game. (no spiritual thought or ramifications)
5.) Attend church
if you want to unless you spend your weekends at the
lake or golfing or snow skiing, etc.
6.) You can
golf on our family membership and if you need any money, you
can work at Dad's dental office and or get a job somewhere if you
want
to.
Now this may sound mean-spirited to
you but this is how it was for me
as a teen-ager and it suited me just
fine until sometime in 1980 when some changes
were desperately needed - more on the
changes in a minute. But as I look back, I
do have fond memories of those care-free
days and I do appreciate all that my
parents did for and with me. Thanks again
Mom and Dad!
I began to drink as a freshman or
sophomore , it didn't take long before it was getting to be a
weekly thing. Then a childhood friend of mine from Minot ND
visited with us
overnight on their way through. We
camped out on the golf course (two blocks
away) and he turned me on to my
first marijuana high. From there I quickly became a
'pot-head' or burn out. What made drugs all the more
attractive, was that I finally found a group to belong to who
thought I was 'cool'. This was much better than the 'rich nerd
kid' image.
As for golf, I was successful in
getting my best golfing buddy hooked on tripping
(only how hooked I had no idea till
later) My golf game stopped improving
because I was using drugs more and
more. By the end of my sophomore year
I was getting 'stoned' nearly everyday
and if I had no 'pot' then I would
drink 6 ounces of whiskey and chase it
down with a beer. I was to the point where
I didn't want to face living unless I
was stoned. This was in part to the deteriorating
family relations in our house. My
mom and dad were fighting more and more,
my sister was becoming a nervous wreck
due in part to my mom's competitive
way of looking at things -sports,
friends and dieting to name a few. So I was
more and more content to live out the
winters in the sound-proof basement game room, getting stoned,
and playing pool to my then favorite rock groups, Rush, ELO,
Journey, Angel, Pink Floyd, the Cars, etc., etc., etc. - till all
hours of the night
Then in January of 1980, I got a job
at a brand new chain pizza and ice cream
restaurant. It was here that I met my
first steady girl friend. Up to this point,
I was very un-experienced at 'love' so
when this girl with the long legs and pretty
face initiated our relationship by
writing a note in my math notebook, I was
hooked.
It wasn't long before physical intimacy entered the picture and though she hadn't given me her virginity, the intimacy we had shared, made a monster out of me. I became very possessive of her and very jealous, fearing that she would dump me for another. From my jealous tainted viewpoint she was very flirtatious.
At some point before it got so
emotionally painful for me, my girlfriend asked me
if I ever heard of having a personal
relationship with Jesus. I hadn't and she
told me more but I can't remember much
of it, but it had an impact on me,
I had been attempting to initiate
her into the drug scene but she would not allow herself to get
drunk or stoned. She did however give herself to me physically to
an extent, I think for fear that I might loose interest, which
eventually became the downfall of our relationship.
As time went on I began to have a
conscience about my life, I was starting to see
that those druggies only liked me for my
drugs and that my life wasn't getting
better but worse. College was on
the immediate forefront and I wanted to
change my ways, get off drugs, clean up
my life, mostly to improve my golf game so I could make the
college golf team, but after only two days of this 'new leaf', I
was now a college 'load-stone'.
In my freshman year of college, I was
still going steady with my girl friend, working
the weekends back in my home town. Two
things happened in that year that
really got my attention.
First, I had become her mothers enemy
the night her mother dropped her off at work, only to be picked
up by me, she wasn't scheduled
to work. I took her to an REO
Speedwagon concert in a city 45 miles away, her
mother was the wiser and forbid her to
date me after that. This had happened
early in our relationship and so
considerable time and sneakiness had passed -
finally I wrote her mother a last ditch
effort note and asked her to forgive me.
She did. I had expected the worse
so it surprised me.
Secondly, after entering into this relationship, I found out that she had dumped her old boyfriend for me. This awareness came when he returned from the Marines expecting her to run into the arms of her hero. She didn't. So here I am at college, one enemy down (her mother) and one to go her x-boyfriend the Marine. I called him to tell him to leave her alone - he had been calling her - bugging her in a stalking kind of way, mostly he wanted her back. He told me he was just waiting to fight me and that he was trained to kill,.....five seconds later he was crying and telling me that I was the least of his problems, our friendship was restored - to a degree.
These two incidents took place with
in weeks of each other. Shortly there-after, I was
reading the bible in Proverbs, chapter 16, verse 7
"When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, he makes even
his enemies live at peace with him". It astounded me,
God revealed himself to me, that he was real and that he cared
about me. Now I really had a conscience, a God conscience. I
began to realize that I was a 'sinner' (Romans 3:23 ) an enemy of
God (John 3:18, James 2:10 )
I found a 'sinners prayer' in the
back of a Gideon's New Testament I had received, prayed it and
signed it, turning my life into the hands of the God of the bible
through the death and resurrection of His son - the savior Jesus
Christ. My life has never been the same since.
What happened? I accepted Jesus
as my personal savior from sin and as the new
Lord of my life I found what my
girlfriend had referred to as a 'personal relationship' with
Jesus, who is God. (John 1 )
Soon the desire for drugs was
replaced by a desire to live right before my God, I was able to
quit before the end of my freshman year. I began to attend
church
with my girlfriend and her parents and
went forward there to publicly confess
Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and
make a commitment to follow him.
I learned that I had become - as Jesus
called it - 'born again' and all things became
new. My mind changed course and I
began to see things in a new way. I was
experiencing peace and joy that I had
never known before. I was also experiencing
guilt for the physical involvement we had
become accustomed to. I somehow knew
this had to stop also and that I was
responsible to stop it. So I did - which began
to break up our relationship as we had
less in common - I was learning that love
is not sex and I had placed more stock
in the physical element of our relationship.
I began to see the source of my
jealousy and insecurity. With out the physical bond holding
me in the relationship I began to loose interest in
furthering it. I was
also returning to college for the
sophomore year and breaking up with her would
mean no more jealousy and heart ache, no
more trips home for the weekend,
new possibilities and involvement on
campus, a new start. So I did break up
with her and it devastated her heart,
she had put more stock in the relationship
than the physical, it was a dream come
true for her that I would come to know
Christ and follow after him. Sadly
the very thing she was using to hold on to me
(physical intimacy) was the thing that
drove me out of the relationship. Sin has
consequences.
As for my high school buddies who I
led into the drug culture, they became
chemically dependent and had many
troubles since then. My prayer for them
is that they would see the same light
the Lord showed me - himself!
I am now 41 years old, happily committed to my wife of
14 years and have
3 children whom I am very thankful
for. I work as a chiropractor and do children's ministry
in our fellowship.
Life gets all the more abundant as
we serve the Lord Jesus Christ who paid
the ultimate price to free us from the
penalty of our sins, reconciling
us to God the Father through the sacrifice of himself.
2Corinthians 5:20
Glory to you Jesus
James Rasmusson.
Some of my favorite links are here:
www.completelyfreesoftware.com
www.raycomfort.com
www.ywam.org
www.cfcministry.org
82602