I couldn't imagine, you know, God having a plan for my life. I thought I planned my life out.
Memory calls us back, Mystery draws us forward.
I was drunk: Christian and drunk. They just don't go together. But that's what happened. And the next day, obviously God had honored those prayers and healed me of alcoholism.
I was trying my best not to drink. I'd go a day or two, and I just couldn't stand it. It kinda got around that 'Hamilton got religion.' So for about a year, it was the most miserable time of my life because I was secretly still drinking. One night I came home, after about a year of this, and I woke up the next day and the desire was gone.
I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew I needed God in my life.
I ended up getting on my knees right there in my bedroom. I didn't have a tract that had, you know, 'here's how you pray to receive Christ' on it. I had never seen a tract in my life. I had never read a Bible.
My life and my plan wasn't very good, but at least it was my plan. It got to that point that I just couldn't stand it any more.
I was running from God, but I didn't know I was running from God. I didn't know that.
My dad was a good man but an emotionally absent father, and so I had to look for that male attention somewhere else, and found it in a brother-in-law. He just happened to be an alcoholic.
I have no clue who that old Jim was. God has certainly transformed me into a different Jim.
