Armin was my Daniel

on Wednesday, January 12, 2011 at 5:13pm

Do you ever have people in your life that remind you of people from the bible.  God gives them to me all the time.  Today for some reason Armin was on my mind.  I haven't thought about him in years.  But today I was thinking about his sweetness.  No, Armin was not a boy friend but rather a friend that was well not a boy, a man.  I would never know how old he was. Drugs had ravaged him to such a point that I wouldn't even hazard to guess.  The man had no sense of individual space. And would freak me out.  But when he would start to tell stories of his life and how God had quite literary pulled him from the gutter, well let's just say you would forget he was practically standing on top of you and just get sucked into the story he would tell.  And He felt led to walk into the lion's den all the time.  He would tell us about going into some of the drug/crack house and of almost getting killed or getting beaten so viciously and that's how this injury or that happened.  It would make people so uncomfortable.  But here was someone that knew what my life was like. Had had it worse.  He had lost everything.  He would tell you it was his fault but his gift to me was two fold first. he knew how it hurt to have others hurt you, he knew severe pain and he survived it all.  I guess in a way even though I confess at first to have been very scared of him,  he was a hero to me. He survived and made me feel ashamed of myself for trying to take the easy way out and tried to kill myself to get away.  He opened my eyes to the fact that even in our deepest hell God can use us and if we are willing, God will gladly walk right back into it with us and lead other out as well.  He won't force us but He gladly help us if we want to try and all we have to do is be willing and he gives us so much just for wanting to walk back into the lions' den.