"Simon ByGod"

1,480 Photos

Joined 2017

"Simon ByGod"

1,480 Photos

Joined 2017

Drag to set position!

091125 Have you ever woken up from a deep deep sleep? Struggling to wake up, you do not know where you are. You cannot even move. Only your eyes move, starting to flicker they are encased in “sleep wax”. Then BANG, you sit up, rubbing your eyes to see. You begin to really see. You begin to realize the horror you have created. You are shocked into reality and realize the pain. This beginning is the pain you created for someone else. It is just the start of what maybe your eternal call to redemption.

This True-Life Story continues below....in just a few minutes of your time a secret to life itself will be revealed.

Should you not be able to take the time to continue viewing this real and true event in the few minutes it takes to view it, you may be missing one of the greatest gifts offered to you. We are confident you will discover it is one of the very best you have ever been given. Take time now because now is the moment......truly NOW is YOUR moment!

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On February 10, 2001, (that’s right, nearly 25 years ago) late night moving into early morning on the floor of my apartment in Wayzata, Minnesota (a western suburb of metro Minneapolis) the pain of the pain I had caused my Lord Jesus Christ came to me in what including others claimed was my born-again experience. In heaven, a host of angels were praising God in his glory for the redemption of one sinner. I remember, an early morning call, to my dearest friend Tom exclaiming, “It happened, you can’t believe what has happened, it just like you said it might be, -- I think…. ah—well…. I don’t understand,…… but last night I believe I was born again.” His skepticism wore off in just a few days as he himself experienced his own redemption in Jesus Christ years prior. I ask you to understand, this happened some twenty plus years ago and still I come to live out this event nearly every day in my life with Christ.

Tears of pain, tears of joy consumed me that night, into the next period of each minute, each day of every year since. Here is a snippet comprising some of the real events which will be characterized in my true to life novel “Swept Away ----Guilty as Sin”:

“My mind races back and forth, somehow it comes to me, -- it is, today February 10th, three years to the exact day when God entered my life in his sovereign providence to bring me back into his arms. In front of me is nothing but sin,…. "MINE". The separation from the one I love so much (the Christ), beyond my own understanding, hits me and drops me to my nakedness and knees. The floor of the bare apartment at “The Woods” reaches up in its reality and presses me down. I cry out, “What have I done Lord God, Jesus? How can you---forgive? Please forgive me.”

Care to view what was and is “The Woods”?

Link ONE (1) detailed at the INTERCESSION as you continue reading and scrolling down.

A weight, a heavy one, is lifted from my very being my soul, my mind. I start my walk on an unknown path of learning. The next day I rush to a local bookstore and bought a Bible. These were the days when the shrieking sound of signing-on with a computer using a telephone line were heard. With a laptop next to my bedside, I started to listen to internet sermon messages from Charles Stanley, Greg Laurie, Adrian Rodgers, Chuck Swindoll and numerous others.

The path was one of intensive bible reading, meditating and studying, teaching from numerous Biblical teachers, and over the years various denominational churches. These last twenty some years have seen me make even more mistakes but that day of 2/10/2001 I received forgiveness and instantaneous redemption (justification} from a Holy God, the Son Jesus, and a Holy Spirit.

Just a bit of how much Jesus loves me, and it is more than I could ever love him, burrows the pain of my sin into my very soul. His grace abounds, my childhood Faith and belief in the Christ, in the Triune God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit carried me forth, nothing of my own doing. All of it came from the 'choosiness' of God himself. My name was written before the creation of the world, in the Book of Life.

"Where have I been? Why have I been away from you for so long? Forgive, please Forgive me. This life I have led is not what you wanted for me.”

This was a day, exactly three years to the very day when I first met the "California Beauty", my mutually adulterous sinful redhead lover of 2/10/1998. It is now 2/10/2001. Have you figured it out? It was exactly three years prior. Three years to the very day. Who is at work here?

My Minnesota employer, Rockler Companies, commonly known on the street today as “Rockler – Woodworking & Hardware” had reassigned me to corporate retail business development. I was In LA. A new retail store was giving birth. I developed a new retail store within the Los Angeles suburban region of Orange, California. The install project was moving ahead. The twenty-member set-up team included the last-minute arrival of a new volunteer, an employee, a striking redhead from San Diego, Annie.

Care to view my drawing of “Annie”?

LINK TWO (2) at INTERCESSION as you continue reading and scrolling down..

I came to learn from great biblical teachers, John MacArthur, RC Sproul and others, my repentance was indeed immediate justification (getting right with God). It is also true from that point on I was on a path of sanctification (the path towards heaven and finally upon death to glorification). I was in fact instantly justified and right in the eyes of God.

I was not confessing to mankind, a priest, a minister, this was between me and a Holy God. There was no need for any kind of penance (penance is a deed or a set of actions done in repentance for sins committed.) Here is part of the secret unknown to those outside of the bible: Nothing of this was of my own doing. I was being called, redeemed, drawn by the living God in Heaven, the only true God. Yes, it is truth, God loves those he has chosen and will never let go, even in our sin.

This was not of my own doing but rather my ‘chosen-ness’ (my word defined as solely the choice of the providence of God himself). Days passed, twenty or so; I continued to hear the whispering snickering laughter beyond my office cubicle in Medina, Minnesota for employer Rockler. Let me digress in saying this and so apparent in my true to life novel: “Oh, how I loved my employer, my job, my associates and you will see how much over the past twenty-some years how much I have missed all of it. But greater and more important truths and life is ahead.”

Care to view what was my employer “Rockler Companies, Inc.”?

LINK THREE (3) at INTERCESSION as you continue reading and scrolling down.

The sin caused shattering remorse, conviction and contrition of my very being. My long lived and double life of sin rips my heart and my mind to shreds. I weep quietly and spontaneously. I was trying to understand what happened on the apartment floor on February 10th, 2001. The Holy Spirit was moving mightily prior to and over the days after New Year Day of 2001 when I left San Diego, California and the Beauty in our (my) pre-planned romantic visit. This was the last time I ever saw or expect to see her again in person.

Perhaps my Rockler associates noted my reading of scripture during the workday. February 17th, 2001, I speak with Dr. Keith Olson of San Diego, CA, and he makes a recommendation. Later I set up an appointment with Dr. Olson’s right-hand associate, Ms. Leno. My determination to share my newfound freedom from sin drove me to San Diego. Sharing my Born-Again experience with my recently lost live-in lover (who had returned to California just seven weeks prior) was the ultimate goal. I hoped she had listened to the six-cassette tape program titled "Unmet Needs" lessons from the renowned pastor, Charles Stanley of Atlanta, GA sent to her weeks before. In one of my very brief phone conversations with her she promised she would listen to “Unmet Needs”. I had received the packet as a gift from my dear friend Tom. Arriving late at night, taking the red-eye into L A X I used my stand-by status, a ticket from my dear nephew, an employee of Delta. A brand-new model Chrysler rental car and my drive to San Diego found me sitting waiting for daybreak to share with her. “I will be there when she starts her daily early morning walk.”

And please, listen carefully. I was warned twice, no actually-- three times --NOT to go to San Diego. #1 - My dear friend Tom, said “Your headed for Jail.” So, he claimed, “I did not and do not remember. #2 - My calls to a potential counselor (one of three, I was attempting to arrange for three counselors, each a back-up in the event of obstacles) in one call I was cautioned, “Don’t get yourself into trouble. I know all about your Beauty and her mother.” #3 - In the Minneapolis airport, I was sitting waiting to be called for stand-by. Sitting next to me a lady and I shared personal stories, she listened intently and genuinely said, “Be careful, you could find a very stubborn person, you could face trouble.”

I ask you what was this? Where did this come from? Where do you think it was from? How could I not have been able to hear this? I was so zealous, type A, driven, -- I knew my beauty would listen and come with me to at least one counseling session with Bethel Seminary’s Karen Leno. Early that year 2001 Friday morning March 2nd, I was tired yet anxious parked in front of her mother's La Mesa home.

Care to see where I was parked prior to daybreak in “La Mesa, California”?

LINK FOUR (4) at INTERCESSION as you continue reading and scrolling down.

Just before daybreak, I drove to a convenience store to seek out a restroom and a cup of coffee. Who could imagine what lay ahead? A county Sheriff, a next-door neighbor, pulled out his gun when I eased the rental Chrysler to curbside to talk with him. Within minutes approximately four to six police cars surrounded my rental car. Handcuffed, (sitting in the back seat of a police car is a very painful experience), eventually transported downtown I was interviewed by a very angry policewoman, supposedly a detective. Arrested, I was charged with felony stalking. Immediately thrown in jail, I went through a twelve-hour process of being photographed and fingerprinted. Stripped and searched I was issued an orange jumpsuit. In your naivety, you think he had the opportunity to call an attorney. Not the case. I forgot everything, going into shock, including my prearranged counseling session for the next day (if I convinced redhead California Beauty to attend). Saturday’s appointment with Karen Leno never was to happen. Providence of God was on the move in all of these actions and events. More on this later, read on to not miss each valuable insight to the secret to life.

In jail, days on days ground away, with the constant pain of trying to understand in my feeble way what caused all this event. Over the first few days, I discovered my best friends back in Minnesota, two of my long-time co-workers, misunderstood my intentions for my flight to California, characterizing my visit for the charges leveled at me. One of the two was filled with hate and envy. She meant it for evil. God turned it into a blessing. Their phone calls and actions did not add to any panic for the ‘California Beauty’ (novel named Annie Heathrow). As I already sensed and saw actual proof, even prior to her returning to her home state she had already started another sinful relationship with a fellow company associate and someone I considered a friend. The Minnesota phone call to Annie led to her call to the next-door neighbor, a San Diego County Sheriff Deputy and subsequent interchanges between Minnesota and San Diego Police.

Weeks passed, lying in a cold steel jail cell, downtown, San Diego County Jail, housed in a designated pool of other inmates characterized as a medical unit. Just six months prior I had suffered a heart attack and survived a five-by-pass heart surgery; I digress in repeating what intensive care nurses called me, "The Miracle Boy", I was not supposed to survive, God gave me Dr. John Overton. A mysterious fact, Dr. Overton was originally from California. In an after-surgery interview with Annie and Marilyn Seymour (a fictious name of my long time Rockler work associate-Katherine Jorgenson) he explained making the comment, “Dennis should not be coming out of surgery, but he is, we can’t explain it entirely.” I am not digressing by injecting this truth, this heart attack at fifty-four and one before at age thirty-five was of God reaching for me in my sin. The stress of this sin was the single most significant reason for these attacks. Truth. Are you starting to understand God? What is going on in this man’s life? Read on, do not stop --there is truth ahead.

My mind was unable to comprehend what all of this meant. Not well represented in my innocence I was waiting for help, and I prayed to God for a blessing. I prayed, “Lord God, you know why I came here, what is the meaning of all this, I plead with you to bless me.” Imagine that!, “Bless me”, do you really think this came from my own being? Not the case, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit spoke for me. Here is truth: Just days before unknown to me but it is true, upon repentance and the following of justification in numerous regeneration experiences like mine a believer, a born-again person, has the Holy Spirit come alive in a very real sense. Days of confusion flipped by in their prison routine and yet a sense of inner peace was what I remember.

Seeing a fellow inmate, a black man, drawing, I watched as he drew a beautiful face. He encouraged me to try, saying ‘you can draw like this if you want’. I shook my head in unbelief but did start up and for the entire time incarcerated I drew every day. I started this daily attempt at drawing, this after the prayer for a blessing two days earlier, March 23, 2001.

Not defending myself I took a plea and unbelievable to you or most readers, taking the plea to protect my thirty-year-old family including former and children, the life of the accuser, her my sinful lover, especially her young son, and NOW I realized even her ’boyfriend’, a NEW married lover and my friend.

My pleading of guilty was beyond my own understanding other than knowing somehow the Judge would see all the lies of the prosecutor and those who were protecting personal lifestyles. I remember yet my thoughts came from within "more trouble, more trouble." How could I move into a court environment? A court trial will only “harden her heart, stubborn pride will grow, and ears will be deafened, turn your cheek." More on this later but the renowned character and person of my new friend (age 82) Joe Sinay of Los Angeles likely influenced the judge to a great degree in the sentencing. It did not hurt, of course, for the judge to read a letter from my eighty-three-year-old mother. BTW: I thank, right here, God for very Judge for sending me to jail (you will see why). Judge Daniel Davidson pictured as novel character Judge David Danielson.

Care to see my drawing of Judge David Danielson as charactered in novel – “Swept Away?”

LINK FIVE (5) at INTERCESSION as you continue reading and scrolling down

TRUTH. Now here is what I know and mostly what I don't, if you can understand, and a part of the revealing secret. This decision was not my own mind or powered thinking; it was God's Holy Spirit invested in me back from the days of my love for Christ as a nine-year-old, and if you will, refurbished just some thirty days prior (on 2/10/2001). However, it occurred to me certain specifics concerning the protection of Annie’s very own real and natural son, Jon. Please keep reading much more ahead. I know this seems long but so important for you to see individual points of more than interest, it is of God moving.

One dark night in the nightly shipment of prisoners I found myself in a prison called the Thunderdome just north of the Mexico border (at end of this true witness is a depiction of my being transported as authored in my novel – “Swept Away”). George F Bailey Detention Center may be pictured herein San Diego, California -

Care to see the Jail and Prison and Detention Center where I was imprisoned?

LINK SIX (6) at INTERCESSION as you continue reading and scrolling down

It was in the huge community room in Pod 6 sitting at the cold steel round anchored table where a fellow inmate, Al Martinez, gave me my name in his exclamation, "My God! Simon that is really a great drawing", hence my artist name some two years later became “Simon ByGod". I drew and I drew for the past twenty plus years. Still, each and every day, my prayer, my drawing, and my worship continues in penciled drawings.

Returning to my home state and area within Wisconsin at age fifty-four my drawings became a prayer to the worship and glory of God himself. A prayer authored in prison and today I still pray the prayer "Annie's Prayer" a prayer for the long-lost lover and for my estranged family; a prayer that always starts and ends with the words "Let This Be the Day, Lord.... Let this be the day.” I do not have to recite the prayer itself. God knows the prayer of the heart.

I am sure you would be able to recognize the fact my return to freedom was at the loss of my comparable $100,000-year annual career in 2001. But it might be difficult for you to understand the loss of two things; 1. Continuing the significant accomplishments of twelve years of work with my specialty retailer, Rockler, and 2. Even more grievous to me was the loss of companionship of my former corporate associates such as Marilyn Seymour (fictional name in novel) and people like my dear new friend, Joe Sinay, of Los Angeles. You can read about my dear friend Joe searching these words: RB Furniture founder Joseph Sinay dies at 91 - Furniture Today

God’s blessings, part of them, had already arrived in the drawings. His sovereign providence and new direction of my life came about through these penciled faces. I returned to Boyd, Wisconsin, population 600 and lived with my aging strong-willed mother. I moved away to Eau Claire, WI where my former and two of my children lived. Putting myself into a run-down motel for several weeks. Do you consider this next strange event one of God’s providence. I finally got a job with a former Eau Claire County deputy for $8.00 per hour. I developed a system to send Police and Sheriff departments a product introduction produced for their recognition awards programs. God was on a mission.

Soon, within three years another blessing arrived and continues yet today (many blessings between the prison days and what was to happen next). Yes, it is TRUE, and was evident to me and others, God directed every event in my life, in his grace and providence, thereafter and from early on.

I could not return to my corporate career, and a family business ensued. Eventually, and in 2003 what most would think of as menial work, my new daily job became lawn care & winter services. I laugh or at the least chuckle because I realize God’s will is not necessarily going to be an easy one. Not an easy one because God is not only loving he is equally JUST. I know God is divine as early on in Boyd, Wisconsin I mowed lawns as early as 10 or 11 years old. Can you imagine this, you may doubt but can you simply just imagine this truth?

Soon my youngest son came to my rescue and took over the business in 2004. Many years have passed with the daily blessing of working with my son as an advisor, banker, and father. God took all the trouble and turned it into a blessing for YOU to see and try to believe (the artwork, no it was not some latent talent, it was part of the actual blessing prayed for and from a HOLY GOD). If you could only see what God has done with my youngest son and this small little business. This business is going to do over one million dollars in revenue this year. It employs at least seven individuals. My son has become quite the entrepreneur and has recently taken ownership of a full-blown cabinetry business. Counting blessings, what number could anyone give this one? TRUTH. Here is more, not through rituals of a church denomination or priestly intervention, these blessing were direct from God with the self-knowledge I could never ever have influenced God to do so. Direct from God and specifically the HOLY SPIRIT.

GOD'S glory in my redemption is the artwork that acts as a witness (active each day in my interaction with anyone or everyone) to Jesus Christ, who is the living God Almighty. Trials and tribulation to make a weak sinful man stronger and steadfast in the work of the LORD. THIS IS NOT THE END OF TRUTH. THE BEST IS STILL AHEAD. READ ON PLEASE.

Passing the ripe old age of seventy-some years ago I STILL draw and pray every day. The artwork is God's tool for my witness. You see, many years ago at the age of eighteen I thought I could head towards the Lutheran ministry by attending introductory courses at Concordia College, St. Paul, Minnesota. Around the age of ten the town bully sexually abused me, and God saw and protected me from that day forward (this finally came out over the adult years as a formative event and especially years after being incarcerated). Our HOLY GOD, God knew in his providence where I was going to work for him, he allowed my double sinful life until he directed far in advance the right time and the entire plan for his purpose for my life. WACKO, of course to those who cannot see or hear and unwilling to believe, those who God passes over and not chosen for salvation.

My training from the day I fell in love with Jesus Christ behind the St. Peter’s Lutheran Church in the small village of Boyd, Wisconsin was already God’s plan for what was to come about, Training in business at the age of twenty-two and the youngest district manager in company history for a major hardware retailer played a significant role in my ability for talking sometimes persuading people to sign leases, for sale agreements, new store sales etc. Success in my business development presentations, franchise promotion, property and lease negotiation, capital procurement and all the issues for advancing others in small business prepared me for daily work for the Lord, Today and for the past twenty years (improving all along) I keep working, not looking for success beyond the opportunity to present the real truth, This is the secret to life, Truth, The only real truth is that OF GOD and the only place you can find Truth is within the understanding you will gain in reading the 66 books of the Holy Bible.

Just recently, just the other day in October 2022, my beloved mother, age 105, from her final resting place in memory care spoke truth as she waved good-by from her wheelchair, “Dennis, you are a preacher.” Her wish for me at eighteen was God’s plan.

Those many years ago I was forgiven and could only forgive even those who one would consider enemies and those with agendas perpendicular. God saved me as a wretch in his Amazing Grace. Praise God in your own day of darkness, that darkness maybe from GOD in his reach and could be his "chosen-ness" for YOU.

Simon ByGod

The TRUTH:

Years Later a brief update: God repeated and revealed the following to me over the years and drilled in my head this evening, late-night I am drawing, He said, "Simon, the greatest gift I've given you is this, in one word, it is FORGIVENESS, you will have ability to forgive others and the acceptance of the gift of forgiveness I gave you in Jesus." It is important for me to share I never had to forgive “Annie”; it was instantaneous. I understand completely why she did what she did and the reasons why. I cry out to those filled with remorse, with hatred, with unforgiveness I only can pray and hope your hearts are turned to God and you are offered and willingly receive this same gift which I believe is at the core of the being of God himself.

From the start, what is this secret to life? You should realize when you die you still live. It is not your choice. Your spirit, your soul is carried away to Heaven or Hades for eternity. The secret to life is this: Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to eternal life with him and all other believers. If you do not believe, if you have sin in your life you must repent, you must repent and believe. Believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ as given us by God and written in the pages of the Holy Bible, 39 books of the Old Testament and 27 of the New Testament. Some people claiming to be Christian have never read the bible, leaving it to others to instruct and inform them. This is a ridiculous theory and not one God wants for anyone.

Start by reading and re-reading the Book of John, AND here to help you with sincere tenderness, yet with my directness, to help you face yourself is -- just start here: Take a sheet of paper and with a pencil (it's good for erasing) and write down in a small paragraph answering the question - "What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ?" Kindly do not help yourself, don't run to let your fingers fly over the keyboard. Think! Think! and then just write what you think it is – What is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Be awakened to yourself. Truth.

AND NOW…. WHAT IS TRUTH? Here is the real truth. CHRIST HAS RISEN. HE IS ALIVE. There is no need to crucify him again and again as typified by the Roman Catholic rituals, NOT even as favored traditions. The cross is empty. Jesus remained on this earth after his crucifixion of some forty days and was seen not only by his disciples but by hundreds, some know that five-hundred people saw him at a single time. What is more, of the remaining disciples only one was not martyred. They were eyewitnesses to the risen Christ. Who dies for someone or for something without completely believing it as truth? Walking away from the evil of mankind God in his love for mankind gave his son Jesus Christ as a path to make ready God’s redemption for mankind. JESUS IS LORD. There is a hard to handle but common warning provided to you by people with only love in their hearts. This final warning is: You will die in your sins! You will die in your sins! You will die in your sins! Refuse to believe in the Christ and your destiny is the constant agony of the conscience in pleading for one drop of relief, one drop of water. You can NOT earn your way to heaven. Nothing you do as good deeds adds to gaining salvation. The choice is that of God himself. Are you Chosen or not? Find out. Repeating …. nothing you do in good works contributes to your salvation. WE ARE NOT SAVED BY GOOD WORKS BUT RATHER ARE SAVED FOR GOOD WORKS. Ephesians Chapter Two and especially verses 8-10 give you the truth.

Now you that don’t understand it is understandable. So just after the completion of my testimony is a best listen to message, a 40-minute message from the renowned voice and character of R C Sproul.

Simon

P.S. I never heard from California Beauty again, but STILL. After the expiration of a ten-year restraining order, I have written to her, no reply. I have NEVER attempted to reach her by phone, ever! What would you guess would be one of the first things I would say should I ever talk with her again? What is most important?

This is the END of the essence of my testimony to the providence of God, the Lord Jesus Christ and the personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit in my life. There is more to tell but one of my Pastor made mention of the length. So I leave it to you to see more truth ahead, view personal pictures, additional insight into circumstances and life that move onward over the years.

INTERCESSION:

LINK ONE (1): Wayzata Woods Apartments