Born Dead Buried Alive

By Larry Lent

Words alone cannot describe the story written in all our hearts. Words... and the tears that accompany them.

2015 Oregon Christian Writers finalist.

By 12 yrs old Larry was incarcerated for strong arm robbery, felony burglary and possession. After years of drug abuse and three near fatal overdoses he desperately reached out to God. After 30 years of faithfulness his life fell miserably apart. Larry had lost everything, including his 21 yr old son, dead in 8 minutes from an overdose of the Opioid drug Fentanyl. He was now faced with the biggest decision of his life. Run to God for help. Or run from Him, angry and hurt!

Edited by

Mick Silva acquiring editor for Focus on the Family, WaterBrook Multnomah, (Penguin Random House) Windblown Medias The Shack (with over 20 million copies sold) and Anne Vosckamps best selling memoir One Thousand Gifts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Aug 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512754674

Larry Lent

With thirty years’ experience as a Pastor and Evangelist for the “Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministries International,” “The First United Pentecostal Church International,” and lay Minister with the “Assemblies of God,” from the playgrounds of California to the deserts of Iraq Larry Lent brings the background necessary to tell this, his own harrowing true story.

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Copyright © 2016 Larry Lent.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-5468-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5469-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-5467-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016913911

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/30/2016

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Home

Words and Music by Amy Foster-Gillies, Michael Buble and Alan Chang

Copyright © 2005 SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC., ALMOST OCTOBER SONGS, I’M THE LAST MAN STANDING MUSIC and IHAN ZHAN MUSIC

All Rights for ALMOST OCTOBER SONGS Controlled and Administered by SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC.

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All Rights for IHAN ZHAN MUSIC Controlled and Administered by WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP.

All Rights Reserved Used by Permission

Reprinted by Permission of Hal Leonard Corporation

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Words and Music by ARTHUR HAMILTON

© 2005 I’M THE LAST MAN STANDING MUSIC, IHAN ZHAN MUSIC

SONGS OF UNIVERSAL, INC. and ALMOST OCTOBER SONGS

All Rights for I’M THE LAST MAN STANDING MUSIC

Administered by WB MUSIC CORP.

All Rights for IHAN ZHAN MUSIC

Administered by WARNER-TAMERLANE PUBLISHING CORP.

All Rights Reserved

Used By Permission of ALFRED MUSIC

Recording artist, speaker and author Nancy Grandquist… Writer Larry Lent uncovers a plethora of raw unabated true life experience, that begs us all to take a deep look into our own hearts. We are challenged to remember the grace that binds us to Jesus Christ Our Lord… Thank you Larry

Terry Hancock, Christian leader and award winning Oregon businessman… An insightfully truthful look at the complexities of this life and the perfect Hope that is to come. Larry Lent offers wisdom, guidance and friendship through the peaks and valleys of his story. A genuine privilege to read.

Dr. Rob Oberto, OCW award winning author of Intimacy With God… Born Dead Buried Alive is proof positive that God never runs out of grace, or love."

With fifty years of ministry, Pastor and Emergency Services Chaplain R.L. Trask… Larry’s passion is evident. He inspires us in his struggle to overcome grief. I believe all who read this account of Larry’s journey will be inspired to continue their own walk of faith.

Evangelical Worship Pastor Keith Rosentrater… Larry’s story is indeed remarkable. The transformation of a man, by a loving, merciful, powerful God.

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With thirty years’ experience as a Pastor and Evangelist for the Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministries International, The First United Pentecostal Church International, and lay Minister with the Assemblies of God, from the playgrounds of California to the deserts of Iraq Larry Lent brings the background necessary to tell this, his own harrowing true story.

IN HONOR OF

Richard M. Grandquist

DEDICATED TO

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All of the theology in this book is a product of two very fine Pastors, and their Pastors before them, and the great heritage of Bible colleges they attended and taught in. Other than the high standards already set by Westbow Press none of the editors that worked on Born Dead Buried Alive influenced those parts of the story.

CHAPTER 1

I knew something was wrong, as if some unseen spirit was whispering into my ear, Don’t answer it. I knew it startled Kelly, too, because neither one of us got up to answer the door. Who is it? I hollered across the kitchen, without leaving my seat.

Kelly was the one who got up. I slipped into the living room to grab my pants, listening as she answered the door. I could see the porch light go on from where I was, and out of the corner of my eye the two policemen nervously making their way in toward Kelly, who’s hand now covered her mouth, straining not to gasp.

What is it, Kelly? I yelled from around the corner, trying to get my pants the rest of the way on.

All I could make out from their hushed conversation from the porch was the word dead. I heard it twice.

What? I gasped. Who’s dead? I finally yelled.

I am going to tell you a remarkable true story. Without exaggeration it happened exactly the way I’m about to tell you. But to help you understand we’ll have to go back to the beginning. Do you remember when you were a kid, lying in your backyard, or on your roof, or in your sleeping bag next to your tent, looking up at all the billions of stars, wondering where they all came from? Maybe you were with your cousins, or your brothers, or your little sister and together you wondered, in your little kid wisdom, why we were all here, or where we were before we were born, or where does someone go when they die? And one by one you’d take turns articulating your well thought out theories, amazed at your brains’ ability to figure it all out.

My grandmother, my mom’s mother; Edwina Prouty, was an Irish Roman Catholic and when she died a few years back at the age of 93 she had 112 grandkids, counting the greats. Her and my grandfather’s family immigrated here from different parts of Europe, and settled in the Astoria area, where my Grandmother and Grandfather’s parents both built homes right across the street from each other. None of the family lives there anymore, but a couple of the houses are still a part of a historical tour there, one of them a four story bed and breakfast up on the hill, overlooking the bay.

I can still see my grandmother’s old leather Bible sitting on the coffee table, in front of her old velvet covered couch. You know the kind. The family Bible with all the old pictures in it of people you don’t know, and the family tree going all the way back to the old days, of even more people you don’t know. To me that old Bible just seemed to emit some kind of power, not that any of us knew what it said. We just knew in some way it had come from God.

As far as I could tell though, as a little kid, we were all just down here to figure it out for ourselves. Ghosts and goblins, angels and martians, the boogey man. There were all kinds of movies, television shows, and comic book stories to draw inspiration from. Far more interesting than whatever that old dusty Bible had to say.

I easily came to terms with all that, in my little 10 year old mind. There were Catholics, with big Bibles in their living room, and then there were non Catholics, without. It was as simple as that.

It was nature that freaked me out. All the wild, beautiful, and dangerous animals we kill and eat, that would kill and eat us if they could. And all the creepy bugs and reptiles that can kill you, and each other, and the blind and ugly bats, and germs, and diseases that kill you a hundred different ways, and sexual reproduction, and babies coming out, and body fluids, and gas and bowel movements, and intestines a mile long. Life could be a real horror show for a little kid.

But after a few 5th grade science films there did seem to be some kind of design to it all. Photosynthesis. The sun’s rays beating down on all the trees and plants, creating our oxygen and food. The rhythm of the sun and moon, the seasons, the bees and the pollen, and seeds, planting and harvesting, the rains, and the tides, and the fish and the birds on their yearly migration around the planet, returning somehow to the exact place of their birth. And the bear and other animals, sleeping for six months, until it was warm enough to come out.

It was all so beautiful. Those nature films in science class, and on TV Sunday nights. Wild Kingdom. Mutual of Omaha. The rugged beauty of the Grand Canyon, Mount Everest, or the Everglades. It all amazed me, and I remember thinking what kind of crazy God would make all that danger and beauty and put us down here with it all, with all the brilliant and different colored flowers, and fish, and trees, and insects, and birds, and peculiar ways they all gather food and reproduce, surviving even the harshest conditions.

But the evil we saw in history, was far more terrifying. Hiroshima, the Holocaust, Vietnam. Pictures and graphic films of 146,000 Japanese bodies strewn across the rubble of a city the size of my hometown. And German soldiers bulldozing piles of shriveled naked bodies into a giant open pit, some of them buried alive, or burned together in huge ovens, or in showers, poisoned or gassed to death by the millions. Six million in all. And Vietnam, pictures of a little man on his knees, wincing, as another man points and shoots him in the head.

I knew right then that if there was a God, the little red guy with the pitch fork was just as real. And then, at a particularly vulnerable point in my life, a friend told me there was no God, and I believed him. I felt naked and betrayed. Without hope. What future do we really have, if after all this, in the end, we simply cease to exist.

So I decided, in my -11- year old mind, that if there was no God anyway, then what did it matter, and if the world wasn’t capable of loving me, cold and violent, indiscriminately removing entire cultures, then why should I love it.

Death had not yet come knocking its ugly head around my front door, like some angry Nazi. I had not personally lost anyone. And as cold and horrible as death looked, it always seemed to happen to someone else, and I was determined to keep it that way. Because as far as I was now concerned, once we breathed our last… that was it.

CHAPTER 2

In 1782 the Congress of the United States passed a resolution regarding our public schools. The Congress of the United States hereby recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.

Thomas Paine wrote: It would be an error of the schools to teach astronomy, and all other sciences, and subjects, and philosophies on nature, as being our accomplishments only, they should be taught theologically, with reference to the being who is the author of them all: for all the principles of science are of divine origin. Man cannot make, or invent, or contrive principles; he can only discover them; and he ought to look through the discovery to the author of them all.

On June 25, 1962, in the Court vs. Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the United Sates Supreme Court declared prayer in public schools unconstitutional.

I went to