Horns of Light Chronicles: 4

Welcome to the Horns of Light Chronicles. Peter Berbalis chronicles his family story, prophecy, and testimony. God's story unfolds, from his grandfather in Lithuania, Nazi Germany, the Russian Revolution, to Ronald Reagan in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the gospel spreading across Eastern Europe, how God called Peter to Petra, Jordan, and so much more as prophecy and testimonies unfold.

And now, the Horns of Light Chronicles. It works through families and through generations, not to get wrapped up in needless genealogies as the Scriptures warn, but just to see how God desires to work through generations as he did with Isaac, Abraham, and Jacob. And with that kickoff, I guess I'll kind of start into the story of the Lord in my life, and Laurie's brought me in and kind of just want to emphasize and lessen the power of forgiveness and the power of restoration. I guess my story starts out kind of grew up in a charismatic-type church. My dad was a deacon and just a really commendable man. I'll never forget kind of the first time we were the family that always had to be in church, so on Sundays when Animal Kingdom came on, you might watch part of it, but you knew it was going to be interrupted because you had to get to church Sunday night. And so I'll never forget, I can't remember if it was Sunday night or Wednesday night, just looking over at my dad and just there was a time of beautiful worship to the Lord, and he had had his hands up and was just praising God.

And I saw tears running down his face, and I just thought, well, why don't I do this? So I just kind of closed myself in with the Lord and just lifted up my hands towards heaven and just started praising Him, and it was just beautiful. I don't know fully how to explain it, but it was kind of like the way the worship was that night. It just entered into a place where it almost seemed like angels were singing along in the choruses that were sung.

It was just a beautiful time. So from there, I kind of had given my heart to the Lord at a very young age, and kind of the negative parts of war had kind of come and crept into our family's life. My mother, her dad, when they were fleeing in the midst of World War II, trying to leave Lithuania in the middle of the night, he was taken in front of her eyes and very likely executed. His fate is really unknown to our family. But more than likely, that's what happened to him.

He was a police officer, and that was obviously against the governments that were coming in. So he was likely taken and executed, and this was done right in front of her very eyes. And then her mother had to navigate as a widow through the war with some relatives and can only imagine some of the things that they had to endure, that stuff that didn't really know that much about.

My grandmother really never talked much about those things. So after I was born, my mom started searching for her father, and unfortunately insanity set in, and it was just a difficult time. I mean, through that time she became very abusive verbally, physically, and my dad kind of had a decision that he had to make, and he had agonized and stayed in this marriage for a while, but he had to, for the sake of us, separate us and move on, and he ended up divorcing.

And from there he kind of quickly went into an arms of another, and my stepmom, he ended up marrying my stepmom, and that was kind of a difficult transition, and it was a situation that wasn't always healthy, I guess, from my perspective. So that's kind of where I start to go off the tracks, kind of that seventh, eighth grade, started using self-medication, started experimenting with drugs and alcohol, but yet in the very midst of all that, God still would not, his hand was still there, and I could not stray too far. In one instance where I was heading down a path of sin, boils broke out on my body, and just heat, there was just typically consequence that followed pretty rapidly in regards to sin for me. So that kind of takes me through the high school years, and in that there were times of going to a youth group, there was a great Bible church going on, a Bible church at the time, got involved then, so it was living a life of sin, half in, half out, and kind of a life of compromise, really, up until my last year of college.

And that's when the Lord really started to work, and for those that have children that are not following the Lord, I just encourage you to pray. My salvation didn't take place in a church or an evangelistic outreach, it took place in a bar in downtown Chicago. I'll never forget at that time I was kind of living in an animal-type house, a party house from that movie, which I don't recommend anybody seeing.

And we had gone to a bar in downtown Chicago, and we used to call them death bars because everybody was dressed in black, and there was quote-unquote art, but was really mass pornography that was all over the walls. And I just was sitting there with a friend, and the Holy Spirit just really hit me, and I just knew at that moment that I was going to hell. And I turned to him, and I said, we've got to get out of here, we're going to hell, and called a cab, and that evening fully surrendered to the Lord, and it's still just such a beautiful memory and a beautiful moment.

And maybe didn't handle things the best, but went to that party house where I was living in, told them all that rock music was of the devil, and they were going to hell, and I was going to hell, and I was moving out, and asked my dad if I could come back and live with them, and he allowed me to. So that kind of brought me back to my final year of college down in Southern Illinois University, and I'll never forget there was a church that I would pass by on my way to class, and when I was living that life apart from God and sin, I just always knew that I couldn't enter the doors of that church until I was willing to surrender to the Lord. And so once I had surrendered, came back that school year and started attending that church, and that's when the Lord started to really begin his work of healing in my life. I'll never forget one of the meetings that I was there, I think it was an early Saturday morning, this pastor had just an incredible ministry, the Lord had called him to a campus ministry, and he had to raise up leaders every four years to send them out, and his story's amazing.

And the Lord just used him mightily, and Southern Illinois at that time, many of the nations had come to that church, so they would get saved and then go back to their nation, and many of them went on to be evangelists, and just used mightily by God in the nations. So anyway, I was sitting in a Saturday morning discipleship class, and he was preaching, and I had just kind of come out of his life and remembered just wanting to hit the back of the head of the person in front of me, and just everything inside of me just wanted to get up and walk out and leave. And that pastor stopped in the middle of the sermon and just said, I sense somebody's really struggling, is there anybody here that fits that, and just raised my hand. And he asked for people to come along and pray, and again, a little choked up at the memory and the beauty of the pursuit of the Lord.

Sorry, having to get it together here a little bit, but he's so good, and he's so faithful. So anyway, then there was a deep pain inside of me, and a lot of work had to be done as a result of the abuse that had taken place. And I'll never forget, again, at that church, I had gone on a Sunday morning, and we had a guest speaker, the guy was a man by the name of Clint Glenny, and he had run drugs, even for political figures, many years ago. And then he had come to the Lord, and he just shared his testimony, and it was just a beautiful story of what the Lord had done in his life. And I left and walked out the building, and there was the prompting of the Lord to go back inside after the service was over. So the church had kind of emptied out, and I went back and just sat down, and he came up to me, and he just said that I just prayed that if the Lord wanted me to share this with you, that he would bring you back inside. And at that moment, he basically said, you were an abused child. And that was something that I had known, and I'll never forget my response was, thank you for sharing that with me, but what do I do with it?

What do I do with all this pain? And he basically said to me nothing. He said, just give it time, and let the Lord reveal what he wants you to do, and just be obedient to him when those moments come. So some more time had gone on, and there was a special speaker again on Friday night at the church in college, and he was just a man who would just give. He'd buy buses and vehicles and give them away, and then the Lord would provide him with finances to do the same thing all over again.

He just talked about the way that the Lord had used finances to give to many ministries in his life. And he talked about his mom, who had gone through a very difficult life, and how the Lord prompted him to buy her a car, and so he did. And I'll never forget, there was just kind of a prompting of the Holy Spirit, and I just said, God, I can't afford to buy my mom a car. And he just prompted me and said, well, I want you to go and buy your mom some roses.

So the next time I was back up north in Illinois, I decided to go ahead and be obedient, just bought my mom a dozen roses, and brought them to her and just apologized for anything that I had done wrong in the relationship. And even in her insanity, she had moments of clarity, and you could just tell that that administered to her, and she had thanked me. And I was just so thankful to the Lord, and I just remember walking back to my car, and the Lord just prompted again and said, now I want you to go and do the same for your stepmom. And that was difficult, because for me, my mom was, you know, there was a reason very clear as a result of her mental illness as to why she behaved the way she did. My stepmom had gone through a very difficult life in and out of foster care.

And so, but was was very lucid. So I kind of fought that but said, Okay, God, I'll, I'll do that. So I went and bought my stepmom a dozen roses and went to give them to her and did and said I'm sorry for all the things that I did, and was expecting an apology back, and I didn't get it.

And she just kind of said, you know, thank you and you did do things and. And so that's kind of where that conversation ended and I left there kind of dumbfounded and asking God why. And the why was that the Lord still had a work of healing to do within my own life and years later, she did pull me aside, and she apologized for what she had done and I'll never forget that there was nothing but sorrow. Not sorrow but just yes sorrow I guess would be the word for for the situation and there was no need for me anymore, even for her to forgive, I was just, just so I was ready and prepared to extend forgiveness whereas if she had said that before.

Who knows what the response would have been might have been keeping condemnation on her. Lord only knows, but just the timing of the Lord. It's just, just such a beautiful thing. And from there, we could start to Well, from there we're going to have to go to another episode. Boy you covered a lot of ground very emotional stuff for a lot of folks I'm sure who can relate. Thank you so much for your transparency and all that Pete. And again, I look forward to, you know, where we go the next time on Horns of Light because I know a little bit more of the story so I think you're going to be excited on where all this is lead as it has in all our lives, right?

God leads us on these amazing paths. Thank you so much, Pete. God bless. God bless you.