By REY FLORES
Part 1
As a columnist, I sometimes get the opportunity to meet some really interesting people and listen to some very moving and powerful stories. In this week’s column, I’d like to share the story of one man’s journey out of the darkness and into the light of God.
His name is Kurt Filla and he is now running a terrific new company which is very much what I have said the pro-life movement needs. Since his testimony is somewhat lengthy, I am sharing here part one of two in a two-week series. Here is Kurt’s story.
“I grew up Catholic in Washington, Mo., a small town just outside of St. Louis. I was adopted as an infant into wonderful Catholic parents who loved their faith and loved their family.
“I am also an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I was abused over a three-year period prior to adolescence by someone unrelated to me or my family. No one knew, I hid the abuse from everyone, and I tried to pretend it never happened. But those traumatic experiences encapsulate so much of who I am today and what I went through to get here.
“I was a musical youth who loved the piano, theater, and arts. I loved to swim, dive, and was voted most spirited of my class. I loved my school, my friends, and family, but I was a survivor and my teenage years were spent trying to run from the pain of abuse. In seventh and eighth grades I started to smoke cigarettes and marijuana. Those habits continued sporadically through my high school years and into college. There were times I wanted to get caught and for someone to know, but I hid my secrets and my drug use well.
“After graduation, I went to Illinois Wesleyan University to study musical theater and piano. Instead of thriving, I fell into a year of darkness consumed with alcohol, pot, acid, and sexual promiscuity. I was running and running fast, not wanting to feel any pain. I was broken, wounded, and confused and while I grew up knowing the Lord through 12 years of Catholic schools, my faith was far from my heart and I slipped into a world of darkness to try and find myself and to cope with my pain.
“By the end of my first year in college I was smoking pot six to seven days a week, four to five times a day and dropping acid every other week. I was dating a girl at the time to whom I became very attached. As our drug lives spun out of control, we both realized we needed to change and stop the madness.
“We turned from our individual drugs of choice to each other and traded one lie for another. We became dependent on each other for several months and our physical relationship was out of control. Eventually she became pregnant during the summer of 1988. Not only did she become pregnant, but she also told me that she planned to abort our baby.
“My life was crumbling, and my heart was crushed. While faith was often far from my mind, I knew without a doubt that I did not want my baby to die and I began to hope, and in a feeble way, pray, that she would not kill our child. God began to answer my prayers and sent me an angel, Nancy.
“Nancy was a young Protestant, spirit-filled, evangelical who loved Jesus more than breathing. She was consumed in her faith and radiated a heavenly glow that could not be missed. She both drove me crazy with her constant talk about God and wildly inspired me to search for Him. While my life began to crumble around me, feeling alone and scared, I knew things had to change. I thank God today that Nancy was there for me to point me to Christ.
“Nancy had encouraged me to read the Bible, so I had begun with Genesis and made it to about chapter 35 before I put the Bible back under my bed for a few months. I joined her for a few of her campus ministry meetings and while I was deeply moved by them, I was not ready to make any kind of faith commitment. Towards the end of my first year in school I started to go back to church as a worship leader. Although I was high most of the time, I managed to be cleaned up and clear headed for Sunday morning services. It was a tumultuous time and things were changing fast.
“After much soul searching about the pregnancy and my girlfriend’s decision to terminate the pregnancy, I decided, contrary to my conscience, to pay for the abortion. While I wasn’t necessarily praying, my heart was breaking, and I knew this was all wrong. My girlfriend and I broke up as I was emotionally crushed by this decision.
“The tension between her decision to have an abortion and my desire to have a child were irreconcilable. I wrote her several letters pleading with her not to kill our baby. Well, God heard the cry of my heart and within a few months she began to show, and I heard from a friend she could not go through with the abortion. We got back together as the fall semester of my second year started.
“Unfortunately, after about a month of school, the pressure was too much, and I made the decision to drop out and move to Champaign/Urbana, Ill., in order to start a new life with my girlfriend and our future baby. I planned to get a job and do the right thing, to support her and the baby, and eventually she planned to move to Champaign as well.
“It was October 9, and my parents were coming to visit. Nancy prayed with me to be honest with my parents and I found the courage to do just that. My parents drove three and a half hours to come visit and we went out for dinner and I shared with them everything that had happened, even the fact that I was stealing money from them to support my drug habits.
“They were deeply grieved by all of my lies, mistakes, and failures. They dropped me off at my dorm and told me they never wanted to see me again. It was probably one of the most painful decisions they ever had to make but I knew how much I hurt them, and I understood.
“On October 10, 1988 I was having lunch with Nancy in the school cafeteria and walking there I had this sense of peace. I told Nancy what had happened with my parents and that for the first time in a long time I felt like I did the right things for the right reasons. I had hope that things would get better, but I knew I could not do this on my own.
“I looked at Nancy and her eyes were glowing; it was a heavenly glow and I knew that she had something I wanted. I asked her.
“ ‘Nancy, I want what you have, whatever it is, I want to be like you.’
“ ‘You know it is Jesus, Kurt, he wants to be in your life and wants to be Lord of your heart. I want to pray with you that you would accept Him as your Savior. Will you pray with me?’ she said.
“I can’t remember even saying yes before we were joining hands and praying. As we started to pray, I heard voices in my head, demonic voices. I know it was Satan and his army of demons, ‘Don’t do it!!! It’s a lie. He won’t save you. Stop. Don’t. It won’t work.’
“Lie after lie became like a ringing in my ears and I felt as if the walls of the cafeteria were closing in on me. But I tried to focus, and I could hear Nancy saying, ‘Repeat after me…Lord Jesus…Have mercy on me…I surrender my life to you…I am sorry for all my sins…please heal me and take my life and be Lord of my heart…I give everything to you to serve you all the days of my life.’
“The prayer took quite some time as I was sobbing so deeply. With every word I felt a thousand tons of weight being lifted off of me. Chains were loosed and I was being set free. I saw a vision in the form of a dove. The Holy Spirit descended from Heaven through the ceiling and fell upon my head and rested in my heart and began to gently flap its wings.
“A cool breeze filled my whole body and I felt electric, alive, vibrant. I saw each limb of mine being removed. Each leg and arm representing a sin or a vice that I had clung to throughout my life and especially through my years of darkness was torn away from me. But as I lost a limb and gave it to Jesus, a new limb was given to me and the word of God was planted in my heart. I had no idea that as a Catholic I had any Scripture committed to memory, but the word of God filled my heart.
“ ‘Whoever is in Christ is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come.’ Over and over and over it filled my head like a broken record.”
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Part 2 is next week. In the meantime, if you run a pro-life organization that is interested in finding new ways to reach women in crisis pregnancies, or donors who can help support your pro-life work and ministries, I strongly encourage you to visit Kurt’s website at www.fillalifemedia.com.
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(Rey Flores writes opinion and book and movie reviews for The Wanderer. Contact Rey at reyfloresusa@gmail.com.)
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