Mystical Experiencer: Man in his mid-thirties
Submission date: October 10, 2022
Current location: United States
Age at time of experience: 36
I had decided to kill myself. I wasn’t just contemplating the decision but had made the decision. What is scary and makes me think I would have followed through is that I was completely calm. I just didn’t feel I had anything to live for anymore because my career as a lawyer was collapsing and I was miserable in my marriage. I was extremely self-centered because I felt this way even though I had a beautiful, healthy ten-month- old son. From my perspective then, he only added to my burden, though I never regretted his existence.
After deciding to kill myself, my next thought was that I needed to get a gun, that was the way, nice and clean, certain. And I probably shouldn’t do at the house, lest my mom be the one to find my body. Wal-Mart was probably easiest for getting the gun. Suddenly, I was transported to the side of a mountain. I was overlooking a valley with a river that I think had a bend in it. I remembered this scene because I had seen it in a Thomas Cole painting before. In fact, it was a compilation of Thomas Cole paintings and maybe the paintings of other artists. There were pine trees around me. I might have heard birds. Suddenly, a wind, a breeze blew over me, and I felt a perfect peace, an absolute peace. I might have heard the rustling of leaves. I felt God in the breeze. There was no voice, no words, but I felt God speaking to me. He said, “So you promised me to be Muslim” (five years prior I had converted to Islam to marry a woman but our relationship didn’t work out, and I didn’t ever follow Islam despite my conversion). “If you serve Me, I will show you a happiness you never imagined.” I knew God was telling me to keep my promise of being a Muslim. Then the breeze left, and I thought, just as Bill W. had, “So, this is the God of the preachers.” I must have culled this from my unconscious mind because I had read Bill’s story before.
I was returned to my normal state, standing where I had been. I immediately started following Islam the next morning, waking up on my own before my alarm went off at 5:30 for the dawn prayer. The worst things about me–looking at women with lust, fantasizing about women while masturbating, masturbating at all, the desire to have sex outside of marriage–all immediately left me. People in the coming weeks noticed an immediate change in me, that I was less selfish and self-centered, more patient and kind. This was through no concerted effort on my own. I started taking an interest in people I hadn’t had in years and re-connected with high school and college friends, even reaching out to relatives I had generally ignored. I became a one-woman kind of a man whereas for the last decade or so I had struggled with being faithful in my heart and mind. God has kept His promise.
I have known and generally do know a happiness I could have ever imagined, even in my wildest dreams.