The Unusual Suspect

For the rest of the off time that I had, It has been spent reading Stephen Baldwin’s new book The Unusual Suspect. At first I was a little skeptical about a Baldwin becoming a Christian but the more I read, the more I see myself in his story.

Well, no I haven’t made millions making movies, playing everything from a hit man to a teenage littler-bugging boob, but I do see allot of my own childhood in him as I read his book. The way in which he grew up in a loving family was similar and had loving and suportive parents too.

I was also temped several times by the devil in several different situations that as I look back on them now seemed perfectly harmless but could have turned into such disaster that I would have sold my soul for sure, or at least lost my wife and children and gone to prison.

His description of his brother’s fight with his devils are worth mentioning because my brother lost his fight twenty-four years ago and although the devil took him, I will always love the lord that much more and miss my brother more than ever knowing that I will see my bro someday soon.

He also tells of his plight with his twelve step program and what an impact the third step made on him not to mention him wanting to stop drinking during which time I did too much earlier in my life. (I'm a little older that Stephen B by a coule of years) It was then that I knew in my heart of hearts that God was speaking to me in a way that I didn’t fully understand at the time but I do know now. God does have a mission and a plan for all of us set up by Him before birth to do His work for Him while we’re here and for some of us it just takes a bit longer for the plans to be revealed.

I was once out of town in a hotel room, a twice a week thing for me with the job I had, and even though I had been married for just a short time to my second wife I was still drinking, I was offered a line of cocaine with I gladly accepted, I went into the hotel room of this fellow traveler at the hotel and upon entering she removed her bathing suit top because we were out by the pool at the time. She looked over to me after we did our lines and asked me if I wanted to get lucky that night. Now I had a decision to make. I could have easily gotten away with cheating on my wife but God would have known and I would have known and I just had to tell her thank you for the drugs, (hey I was just being polite) that she had spectacular breasts, but that I was married and so no thank you. She then asked me if I wanted to go back to the pool and I gladly accepted and we spent another half an hour until the hotel people kicked us out for being out there too late.

The reason I tell this story is that I too had to deal with temptations just after learning that particular step in my program too and there’s more that I can relate to throughout his book, for me though the AA meetings were just a bunch of caffeine addicted folks and people smoking cigarettes so much that I almost couldn’t breath. The state that required it also used to take your word about going and now it’s all one big money making machine for MAD that state (not Ohio but they don’t get off scott free either) I’m not anti Mad or anti AA, they’re both good organizations but I found that inner strength was far more powerful than what I was learning out of a book. I had a monkey on my shoulder and I had to shake it, shake it like a Polaroid.


That's The Lazlo Report for January 23, 2007