Memoirs of a Sojourner: Life Beyond Time and Space

By Rog Gryder

Over the span of fi fty fi ve years, beginning at age eight, I have
investigated many religions. I have read Islams Quran cover-tocover,
as well as the Catholic apocrypha, in which the book of
Susanna touches my heart dearly. I have read the Book of Mormon coverto-
cover and it, too, touched my heart. I have been lured by the grace of
Hindus and Buddhists to ponder their beliefs. Yet, I do not consider these to
be a part of the preserved Word of God. Only the Biblical teachings of Jesus
Christ explain to me where my spirit came from. It tells me what I did to fall
from Gods grace, why I am on this planet, and why I need pardon greater
than I can obtain myself. Jesus Christ has provided the Way and no other
book explains it as does the Holy Bible. Th e Bible gives me healthy hope to
carry on with gusto. As of the year 2010, I have read the King James Holy
Bible cover-to-cover more than twenty fi ve times. Th is ongoing reading, of
the preserved Word of God, is the only credential I claim and stand fi rmly
upon. Biblical faith is not blind, but anchored securely in observable science.
I am a nuts-and-bolts, up to my elbows in grease, kind of gear head. I want to
know what makes it tick! Th e Authorized Holy Bible is the repair manual
for life, for dummies! It explains the mysteries of Gods kingdom in detail to
those who read it all very carefully. I have not arrived. My sojourn in this
far country called earth is still in motion. However, we are at the threshold
of major global events, as never before seen by man. Th ese events are all
foretold in Gods preserved written Word. Hence, my reading of Th e Holy
Bible is my only credential, and I have a passion for sharing what I have
found! May you be blessed eternally as you journey with me the corridors
of life that are not limited by time and space. May the Lord add His blessing
to the reading of His entire Word. Amen. Rog

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456740276

Rog Gryder

Over the span of fifty five years, beginning at age eight, I have investigated many religions. I have read Islams Quran cover-to-cover, as well as the Catholic apocrypha, in which the book of Susanna touches my heart dearly. I have read the Book of Mormon cover-to-cover and it, too, touched my heart. I have been lured by the grace of Hindus and Buddhists to ponder their beliefs. Yet, I do not consider these to be a part of the preserved Word of God. Only the Biblical teachings of Jesus Christ explain to me where my spirit came from. It tells me what I did to fall from Gods grace, why I am on this planet, and why I need pardon greater than I can obtain myself. Jesus Christ has provided the Way and no other book explains it as does the Holy Bible. The Bible gives me healthy hope to carry on with gusto. As of the year 2010, I have read the King James Holy Bible cover-to-cover more than twenty five times. This ongoing reading, of the preserved Word of God, is the only credential I claim and stand firmly upon. Biblical faith is not blind, but anchored securely in observable science. I am a nuts-and-bolts, up to my elbows in grease, kind of gear head. I want to know what makes it tick! The Authorized Holy Bible is the repair manual for life, for dummies! It explains the mysteries of Gods kingdom in detail to those who read it all very carefully. I have not arrived. My sojourn in this far country called earth is still in motion. However, we are at the threshold of major global events, as never before seen by man. These events are all foretold in Gods preserved written Word. Hence, my reading of The Holy Bible is my only credential, and I have a passion for sharing what I have found! May you be blessed eternally as you journey with me the corridors of life that are not limited by time and space. May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His entire Word. Amen. Rog

Book preview

SECTION I

DEVASTATING BLESSINGS

U.S. 26—Mile Post 114 ¾

There’s a master plan for all of us

Some will pray and some will cuss

Some will laugh—some will fuss

Some will cheat—some will trust

Some will love—some will hate

But all of us will meet our fate.

At the instant of my final breath

I will have what? And what will be left?

Whom will I join—the devil or God?

When my body is placed six feet in the sod.

The decision is ours—the coin must fall

Where do I fit in the plan for us all?

Now we live—soon we’ll be dead.

I just saw a woman

Thirty feet from her head.

38 SPECIAL

In 1970, I was granted emergency leave—from the U.S. Air Force—to attend my stepfather’s funeral. He had shot himself in the head with a 357 magnum. One month later—at the end of my four year hitch—I was honorably discharged. By 1972, I was well into the three cases of beer a week routine and mental depression was over whelming. I had lost all hope and decided to follow in my stepfather’s foot steps. Being financially destitute and unable to afford the price of the same kind of revolver, I wrote a bad check. I wrote it knowingly and without care. Who could punish me once I was gone?

I remember sitting on the edge of my bed, with the muzzle of that revolver against my skull, and I can still hear the click as I pulled the hammer back. At that moment I heard the Holy Spirit say very audibly and clearly, Rog, you have done nothing to deserve this. I laid the gun down and wept as a child. Long and cleansing was that cry and when I regained my composure I returned the revolver and bullets for a cash refund, which I took directly to my bank to cover the check that I had written.

Many had been my inspirations of the Holy Spirit. However, this was my first encounter in which I recognized a care and voice that was not my own, but that of my God! It was He, my God, that I wanted so much to be in harmony with. Sadly to say, the heavy drinking continued for several years, but the words of the Holy Spirit were not forgotten and my search for the Truth was well on its way.

TRUCKS, TRAINS AND RELIGIOUS ORDEALS

In the spring of 1978, I met Dockie at the drive up window of the bank, where she was a teller and where I had little business. I was a chain smoking truck driver, had somewhere around three dollars in my bank account and about that much to deposit. She seemed to like my smile and would greet me ever so cheerfully each time I drove up to the speaker at the pneumatic tube. Soon I mustered up the courage to ask her for a date. She accepted and before long, we became the best of friends enjoying very much each others company and long conversations about the Bible and spiritual things. One of the first times we visited in her apartment, I remember sitting on her sofa, and noticed what I thought to be a Holy Bible under her TV. I referred to it as a Bible as I headed our conversation in that direction. To my surprise, she said that it was not a Bible but a Book of Mormon! I was shocked! She had the book of the devil?! My reaction stemmed from what the Baptists taught me as I was a youngster and it was firmly etched in my mind. Somehow—I really don’t recall how—we got beyond the issue of the Book of Mormon. Our visits about spiritual things grew as did our friendship.

I think it was along about our third date that we were sitting at a table in a lounge visiting. I told her how much I was attracted to her and how much I desired her. I feared that she may think something was wrong with me for not making sexual advances. I told her that, after having lived so recklessly, I wanted most of all to be obedient to my God and save what ever was left of me for my bride to be.

Soon I asked her to marry me. She accepted! I think she recognized my genuine dedication to our God and appreciated the freedom to enjoy our friendship without feeling obligated to provide sexual favors to keep the relationship going. Closer to our wedding, we discussed the option of living together and agreed that it would be a violation against our God and it likely would be disgraceful and stressful for her parents. We concluded that we would wait to play house until we were married. I have never regretted that decision!

I was driving a fuel tanker at the time and asked my dispatcher for the next trip to the town 200 miles away where Dockie’s parents lived. I thought it proper to ask them for her hand in marriage. Soon I found myself in their home, not only asking for her hand but also for her Dad to marry us—as he was a Priest in their family’s church. In November of 1978, her Dad officiated at our wedding.

For years I had been reading The Holy Bible cover-to-cover and jokingly yet truthfully the sequence went as follows: The first time I read from Genesis 1:1 thru Revelation 22:21, I was sober. The second time I read it, I was drunk. The third time, I was sober. The fourth time, I was stoned and the fifth time, during which time I met Dockie, I was sober and she joined with me in my reading. At the end of each date, we would read the next chapter and kneel together in prayer. This continued into our marriage and together we have read The Holy Bible cover-to-cover many times.

I was really quite a heavy smoker when we got married but Dockie never said a word about it. She kept those ash trays sparkling clean. Somehow I felt like a dirty rat every time I crushed out a nasty ciggy butt in the pretty ash tray that she had cleaned so carefully. It was two weeks after we were wed that I was west bound on Interstate 90 driving a cab over freight wagon pulling doubles in the middle of the night. I remember descending the west slope of the continental divide and seeing the lights of Butte, Montana out ahead in the distance. It was then that the Holy Spirit and a very demonic spirit began to wrestle within my chest. The power of their twisting and grappling was excruciating! Their voices were loud and clearly understood. The demonic spirit insisted that no harm would come from continued smoking! The Holy Spirit insisted that the devastation from continued smoking would be more than I could bear! I was having flash backs of high school when a huge classmate sat on my chest and slugged me in the face. The Holy Spirit assured me that these flash backs were only child’s play and a mere sample of the agony I would face if I continued to smoke.

Suddenly I became aware of the lights of Anaconda, Montana off to my left. I had traveled about thirty miles under the influence of these spirits. The fear within me was so extreme that I took the package of cigarettes out of my pocket, threw them out the window and have never had one since. That was not my first experience with the Holy Spirit, but it is one that I will not soon forget.

Dockie and I had been married a few months when I felt compelled to prove to her the error between the covers of her Book of Mormon. So I sat at my desk with my Scofield Reference Bible, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and her Book of Mormon. I prayed that the Lord would guide me in Truth. I then proceeded to read her book, start to finish, as I had read The Holy Bible so many times and as anyone would read a document of importance. I remember, as I was reading her book, how the Holy Spirit carried me into a realm of peace that I had never been before. My eyes were opened to new horizons in God’s creation and I sat in awe as I wept over the years that this had been withheld from me by well meaning religionists. I finished reading her book, cover-to-cover, and since, during the years of our marriage, we’ve read it clear through together. I don’t recall how many times; suffice it to say that we have read it completely together. It has been our practice to read together at bed time. We read one chapter in consecutive order and then kneel together at our bedside. We alternate, one reads and the other prays. And then it’s nighty nite time.

About a year after we were married and after considering that Dockie’s dad had traveled 200 miles to marry us in her church and that her book was sweet to my soul, we decided to try attending her church. The welcome seemed warm and soon I decided to join. About a year later, I was ordained a Deacon. Deacons are primarily responsible for the physical well being of the church—with such concerns as: providing hymnals, making the temperature in the sanctuary comfortable, clearing snow off the walk ways, mowing the grass, considering financial needs among the membership, etc. Then in 1984, I was ordained a Priest. A Priest has a very different role, being more concerned with the well being of each family and providing ministry that promotes healthy homes. I sometimes wonder about the validity of my call to the office of Priest because of my background. Because of my background, you ask? Yes, my background! Here’s part of that saga.

At the age of about four, my mother and father divorced. I lived first one place and then another—here, there and who knows where else—until about the time of my eighth birthday when I was taken from New Jersey to Wyoming. There I would live with my mother and stepfather. They had a 1 year old daughter, Sis, and within a year had a new born son, Bud. It was clear to me that I was unnecessary baggage; however, the environment seemed much less hostile than living back in New Jersey with my father and the proverbial stepmother who had five, then six, seven and then eight kids of her own. And she damn well didn’t need another snot nosed kid under foot!

With my mother and stepfather, there was a different kind of violence—the kind that was for my own good. The beatings! Oh mercy, the beatings! Not very often did I get whipped by my stepfather; but often he would come home drunk in the night and beat my mother. She in turn would vent her anger by beating me sometime within the next few days, for my own good, of course.

The only time I ever man handled my mother was when I was about fourteen. She had been beating Bud with a belt until he had welts across his back from the top of his neck all the way down to the bottom of his knees. He had cried until he was no longer making a sound. I grabbed her and forced her to stop, for which she never forgave me. If there is any humor at all in such an ordeal, it had to be the intricate floral design in the bruises across Bud’s back that exactly duplicated the fine workmanship of the hand tooled western style leather belt that she had beaten him with.

My mother was from a very wealthy family. Her father had a $5000.00 savings account for my college education. In the 1950’s, that was a large chunk of change. My stepfather’s parents, on the other hand, were poor farmers, in Texas, and thought it only right to provide their grandchildren with a college fund too. Each year they would raise a calf for each of their grandchildren and send photos of the calves along with a progress report: Sis, your calf is growing and now weighs X pounds. Bud, your calf is growing and now weighs X pounds. Rog, we love you too. Then the calves were hauled off to market and sold. We’d receive a letter from Grandmother and Granddad and we’d all sit around to listen as the letter was read: Sis, your calf weighed X pounds and sold for X dollars and the money is now in your account which is now up to X dollars. Bud, your calf weighed X pounds and sold for X dollars and the money is now in your account which is now up to X dollars. Rog, we love you too. I harbor no resentment toward my siblings, as they may have recognized advantages I had over them, and without a doubt, their circumstances were very difficult, too.

There was another paradox that plagued me as a child and which I still ponder at times. It regards fight or flight. In the transition from childhood to manhood, when do we hang up the boxing gloves? What is the difference between self defense and going to war to defend our country? With the right to bear arms, when do we use them and so forth? As a child, my stepfather insisted that I fight. He made it clear that he would whip me for picking on a smaller kid and that the beating would be worse for running from a bigger kid. Or maybe it was vice versa. Either way, I remember vividly a lashing for pretty much anything I did. I remember my stepfather making me fight a huge kid that pounded on me until I was pulp. He then gave me a quarter, a lousy twenty five cents, for my bravery. So, I guess at the age of ten I was already a prize fighter! Ha. The paradox surfaced at report card time. The school didn’t seem to agree with my stepfather’s philosophy and graded me poorly with regard to obeying playground rules. Every six weeks, I’d bring home my report card with the big N in the box for Obeys playground rules. Off came the belt! And my mother would black and blue my back side.

During my youth, there were some good times. It became clear to me that I was safest when I was alone, out in God’s creation, fishing or hunting and during those rare occasions when Christ was at the center of our home. We attended a Conservative Baptist Church and from time to time some of my friends in that church invited me to spend the weekend with them. At bedtime in their homes, they had Bible reading and prayer together with their parents. I wanted that in my home and when I asked my parents if we could start, it was agreed. We had bedtime worship for a while and then began skipping until we weren’t doing it any more. Again, I requested bedtime worship. We did for a time, until again we were skipping until it no longer happened—ever, in that home!

I wanted Christ in my life, so, at age ten, I chose to be baptized in the Baptist church. That church scoffed the Mormons and emphasized that good works are nothing but filthy rags before Almighty God. They taught me that you can’t earn your salvation; you’re saved by accepting Christ and NOTHING else! Soon I was in high school, had a car, liked beer, and enjoyed sex. After all, I was saved. I had accepted Christ and nothing I could do would add to or take away from my salvation. So, party hardy!

During Christmas break of my senior year, my family moved one hundred miles away from my home town. That was pretty much the end of my relationship with them. I lived with a friend and his parents and graduated from high school in 1966. Vietnam was raging and the U.S. Air Force looked like my best option to both serve my country and acquire some education. The $5000.00 college fund that Grandpa had set aside for me had vanished somewhere in his estate, never to be seen by me. So, after graduating, I entered the Air Force and headed for basic training on Lackland Air Force Base at San Antonio, Texas, leaving behind the steady girl that I loved very much. We wrote almost daily for nearly a year, until I broke it off with her. It was my fault, not hers. She was a wonderful girl. Soon my best friend, with whom I had lived my senior year, married her. Their relationship expanded until there was not room enough for them and me in my home town. I virtually never returned. I went through my years of anger and hatred with the help of a quart of Seagrams Seven a day and three cases of beer a week. Believe it or not, through it all—I continued my daily Bible reading.

In 1970 I got out of the military, went to Denver for a two month class to refresh my electronics education and obtain my Second Class FCC license. I lived there four years. In 1974, I moved to a smaller city where I couldn’t seem to hold a job. Why? It was most likely my pot smoking. While trying to escape life, as it was, I decided to live like a hermit and bought a five acre place at the foot of the Bear Tooth Mountains in Wyoming. I