To Buddy's Second Testimony

The Testimony Of Pastor Buddy Halford

The Words Of Life

I was born in 1955 to good parents in a good home in Florida.  I had two brothers, a sister and in those days, life was good.

Back in those days we saw the birth of NASA that eventually landed us on the moon.  On the down side, we saw racial tension in the south with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King and political unrest with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

The birth of Beatlemania made the biggest impact on our lives.  We wanted to be just like The Beatles.  We got hold of a guitar when I was about seven years old and this set the stage for my life’s goal.  Unfortunately, the world never got the message.  Oh, we had fun alright, but a lot of important decisions were based on STARDOM!!

The rock scene was full of sex, drugs and lies (not for the faint of heart) and by the time I turned thirty-five, I found I wasn’t going to make it.  Also during that time, I picked up a wife and two kids that needed stability.  The problem was, I didn’t have any real skills other than playing the guitar.

I tried to support my family as best I could, but life has a way of beating you down, so I tried my hand at vending.  I delivered a popular soft drink and then a popular beer.  The problem with being in the delivery service is it’s easy to take that which doesn’t belong to you.

As time went by, it seemed that life got harder and harder.  The weight on my shoulders got heavier and heavier.  I swear I heard bells sounding and a voice say, “Thou Shalt Not…” and the old Proverb, “There’s no honor among thieves” rings true.  Being the junior man, I was also the fall guy, but when you lay down with dogs, you get fleas.  So I ended up going back to the warehouse because they couldn’t fire me (I had too much proof on them).  But alas, this all came with a substantial pay cut.

Needless to say, my credit went down the toilet.  That’s when I first learned to pray, my first prayer was, “God, please don’t let me lose my house” and I got a reply!!  He said, “It’s better for you to lose your house than to lose your soul”.  HARSH REALITY!!!

So I lost my home, my dignity, my self respect, my confidence and so forth and so on.  I sunk to a new low.  Life had no meaning for me anymore.  In the meantime, my wife’s health went downhill.  She developed a hormonal tumor and had to have one of her breasts removed.  Thank The Lord it wasn’t malignant!  She then had a bowel obstruction due to a complication caused from scar tissue build up from a hysterectomy in 1987.

One night I sat alone on my bed.  My wife and I couldn’t sleep with each other as I had severe sleep apnea which caused me to snore like a freight train and she was a light sleeper.  So anyway, by this time I had no direction to look but up.  I sat on my bed with tears in my eyes and I thought to my self, “Life is no longer worth living”.  I looked around and picked up an old Bible on the night stand (that later I found out didn’t even belong to me or my wife.  Go figure!!!

So holding The Bible, I said out loud, “If there is a God in Heaven, please let me know because I don’t want to live anymore.

Then something happened for which I was ill prepared.  A Voice, Gentle and Soft, a voice I’d known all my life said an audible, “Drop the Bible!”

Needless to say, every hair on my head stood straight up.  I looked like one of the Three Stooges when they got scared.  I looked around and told myself, “someone’s playing a trick on me”, but my soul knew I was at the Threshold of Redemption.

So I wiped the tears from my eyes, looked up and said, “What???”  This time the voice was inside me and He said…, “Drop Your Bible”.

So I dropped my Bible and when I did, it fell open to the Book of 1^st Corinthians 6:9, which says “Do you not know that the wicked will not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven?”  My soul was screaming to be rescued and I could smell death on my body.  I realized I was at a turning point in my life and I could reject God (of Whom I was in the presence” or ask forgiveness for my mountain of sins.  So like the thief on the cross, I asked for His forgiveness and life seemed to change from that moment on.

When I finally fell to sleep that night, it was 3:00 am.  When I awoke, it was 7:00 in the morning.  I felt completely rested and as if the weight of the whole earth had been lifted from my shoulders.  I no longer felt as if there was no hope, because Jesus is my hope.

Jesus has been with me ever since that day and I‘ve tried to walk daily in His Footsteps.  As He said to me that day, “Let’s take it one day at a time Buddy, one day at a time".

To Buddy's Second Testimony "Fingerprints Of God"

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