In 2009 the economy was really down, so our company started to downsize. They fired many people from my shop, and finally, they fired me. I didn't know what to do. I felt that I should go with the flow, but I was scared

and tried to find another job. I did, but I got fired from there too, after just 2 weeks. I got depressed. I mean I already was depressed, but these firings made me feel utterly incapable of anything. In addition, I found out that one of the coworkers that I worked with in my first job, that was fired just days before me, hung himself. He had 5 children. This was too much for me. I slipped into a deep depression. It lasted for a few months. And finally, I decided that I will just go away in the woods, and let nature kill me.

The night before I planned to do it, I decided to sleep outside our house. As I was laying there in my sleeping bag, I was crying to God, cursing Him for the life He gave me. I wanted to know why He treats me like this, why He hates me. God wouldn't answer. I felt that there should be Someone who is in charge of this world, this universe. I felt like I was a failure, that I was a mistake that couldn't live up to expectations of life, and that it is best for me to not exist. In these thoughts I was slipping deeper and deeper into the darkness.

And suddenly I hit the bottom. There, I saw the reality of life that I was facing. And I realized that I am unfair to God, because I am still alive, and if God still keeps me alive, I have no rights to judge Him yet. So I told God, "I submit! I will continue living this life to give you a chance to show me what You are, and what You are going to do with my life."

This gave me a strange peace, a peace that I haven't had for years. I got up, and went back to my bed and hugged my wife. Since then I entered a strange stage, I was sad, unhappy, but I felt that God had accepted my proposition. The depression was still lurking in and out, but I would remember that night and beat the depression with the submission that I promised to God. After calling a few times the suicide line, they suggested me to find people that can relate to me. I did, and I met Scientologists. I never knew who they were, but I started reading Dianetics and tried to implement it in my life. My wife and my son weren't happy with my new pursuit. But I was desperate, I wanted to regain life, to take control of it. I wanted to be usefull to my family.

And then it happened. I woke up one morning, it was Sunday. My wife and my son were still asleep, so I went to the living room and sat on the couch. I threw my head up and closed my eyes. I wasn't sleeping. I was thinking about life and what I should do, I was lost. And suddenly I felt that I started moving away from my body, I looked back, and saw that I was still sitting. I went through the ceiling and kept going higher and higher, faster and faster. The Earth became small and disappeared in the distance, the stars were passing me by like the light-posts as seen from a fast moving car. I kept going and going.

And suddenly I reached an end of the dark Universe, as it seemed. The whole new, tenderly bright world appeared to my eyes. It was utterly peaceful and friendly, It felt like home, like the real home, like the feeling I've been searching for my entire life. The feeling was so amazing that when I remembered and compared it to what is going on in my life, I started crying.

And suddenly I saw God. No, He wasn't a dude or a gal, He was a formless source of the most wonderful light and joy. His light reached me and it took me back to my childhood. It reminded me of the feeling I had deep inside, the world I saw in me that I wished God was like that, but it was too good to be true, and I could never accept that feeling as the real deal. And now God showed me that He is like that deep, most wonderful feeling that I have in me, and that this feeling is only a drop of water in the ocean compared to what God really is. It made me so unbelievably happy. All the numberless questions I had were answered in that single instant. I had no fear whatsoever. The joy I had was full and complete.

I can't describe the feeling, but I can say that it is something like "All is well" multiplied by a million. It was something that when you reach it, you finally know, "this is it." And I never was able or even believed that this is possible. It was just a mere childish dream, which my mind would kill in the instant any time it would manifest itself. The highest high that I was getting from drugs will not compare to that feeling. In fact, the feeling from drugs compared to this feeling, was like a poor, pathetic and insulting attempt to recreate the true presence of God.

God was overseeing everything. That wonderful God had control over everything that happens. I was crying to God to take me to Him, saying that it feels like home here, and I want to stay. But I felt His response that it wasn't the time yet. And in His amazing voice that only my heart could hear, He said, "I will give you a new body," and suddenly He showed me the body he will give me. It was so bright, perfect in every way, it had limitless potentials, it was indestructible, immune to diseases and mind flaws. And I started to fall back into the darkness, back into the universe. The darkness of the universe, like a veil, closed the view of Heaven and God.

I opened my eyes. It took me some time to realize what just happened. My heart was still filled with the feeling of the presence of God I had just met. I was flying, I was ultimately happy. I called my mother and told her that I just saw God. But she, being overly religious, said that no human can see God. I didn't want to argue with her. I was waiting for my wife and son to wake up, so I could share the news, but I couldn't wait. I crawled to my sleeping wife and told her that I saw God. Of course, she took it as if I had a dream, like many people say they've seen God as a person, but haven't experienced God's presence. But after she saw my face, she wanted to know the details. I told her. She liked it so much, that it made her sad: she said, "Why God doesn't give me such an experience?"

I dropped Dianetics right away, like one throws a piece of trash in the garbage. Since then, I felt so happy for many months, but the feeling started to fade. But I remembered that God is in control, so I moved on with my life, was doing what I wanted to do, to live like I felt deep in my heart, to be myself. I decided to embrace that feeling that God showed me inside of me, the one that I would always put aside as "too good to be true." I have had many following experiences of closeness with God as a result. But things weren't going where I wanted them to go.

Slowly, God started taking away things from me. A few years passed, and I started to think that what I have experienced was probably somehow brain induced, that my innermost desires somehow expressed themselves in such a way. But there were things that I knew that my brain is incapable of, because it could never grasp the feeling of God in my heart, it was beyond logic, beyond flesh.

Me and my wife started slowly drifting apart. The kinder I tried to be with her, the meaner and more distant she would become. My expensive tools, needed for work, were stolen from the garage. And then my car got stolen too. My throat started to become hoarse. First I thought that I got a sore throat, but it kept getting worse and dragging on for months. I couldn't speak anymore, and I felt like something is restricting my breathing. I finally went to a doctor, and they told me that I need a surgery, that this is a rare growth that they started seeing more and more in California. I did the surgery, and then another.

And then my wife left me. It happened a year ago. She left me with nothing, just things in the apartment. She divorced me. She still pays for the apartment, because I live with my 19 year old son, who is in a few months finishing school, and is planing to move away to San Diego with his girlfriend. My ex moved to another state, to live with a guy she fell for years ago. I believe she's happier there.

I went through hell because of this. I loved her so much. But things got slowly better. I am much better now, I have learned so much. I actually found out what God wants from me, and what it really means to be myself, to live in the moment. I lost religious God as a result and was able to fully embrace the God in my heart. I am facing the streets in a few months, that's how the circumstances seem to be. But though I am scared, I refuse to run away from it, because I feel that God wants me to trust Him.

Recently He told me that He will take care of me the way I am, that I shouldn't act in fear, that I shouldn't settle for anything less than what I really want, that I should rather have nothing at all, and even die on the streets or in prison, than live life in fear. God has shown me so much, and what is going on, that I can't relate to any religion, except maybe the closest one will be the Dao, "go with the flow." I can't share my experience, even a 100th part of it, because words are such a useless medium for this task.

Most people have no idea what it really means to go with the flow, to truly trust the Universe, to trust even when everything is gone and nothing seems to be coming your way. I am now in the situations as was Iliya from the Bible, when God sent him to sit by the drying brook. In my situation, everyone would try to find any job, to take care of themselves. But I truly feel that I will betray myself (and God) if I do this, because this will be acting out of fear, and not trust. And yes, I am called lazy, loser, pathetic, baby, not a real man, etc. My wife told me that I am not worthy of her. And despite all that, I choose to trust my heart, and I believe that everything will be given to me, the best things in life, the things that I need to get closer to Heaven, to God.

I cannot go back to living the life I have lived before. And nothing will make me.