A Wounded Soldier In GOD's Army

An Autobiography by William Joseph Swoffer

Chapter One - Quarry of Death

My spiritual journey started very early on in life. GOD has great plans for me even still today, so much so that Morningstar and the rest of the fallen angels actively pursue my demise. I am thankful for GOD's personal hand of protection on my life. It began at my birth, my umbilical chord chocked me to death as I was being brought into this world. The nurses had to revive me as soon as I was born. I've even had to live my entire life with asthma because of this happening to me. It was as if the negative forces in this world knew the didn't want me here. 

As a small child I had a highly vivid imagination, super curious about things. I was getting injured in all kinds of strange and unusual ways, bruises and scratches everywhere all the time. It was so bad that neighbors called Child Protective Services on my mother. I remember it even today, the day the lady showed up, talking to my mother on the porch. Personally at that moment I was on my three wheel plastic big wheel tricycle, remember those? I was staring at the tree in our front yard, determined that I was going to ride that big wheel up the tree. As my mother was trying to explain things to the lady on the porch about how I behave, desperately trying to keep me and my younger sister from being removed from the home I shouted out "I'm gonna do it this time mommy!" and I started full force straight at the tree. Needless to say I didn't make it up the tree, flipped over, cracked my head hard. My mother rushed over followed by the C.P.S. lady to check on me, after seeing I was not to seriously injured the lady said "Never mind, case closed." to my mother and we never heard from them again because of my bruised up body.

In elementary school I had my first incident that some would call paranormal, this is the incident that actually sparked my interest in all things strange and unusual. It was during gym class, I don't remember what we were playing, I just remembered that I collapsed because of my asthma. Suddenly I was floating at the ceiling of the gymnasium looking down at my little body laying there, a couple of kids were freaking out, the gym teacher rushed over and did something to revive me because suddenly I opened my eyes and I was back in my body. I didn't fully understand what had happened until a few years later.

At this point in my life, about age eight, I had my first experience going to Vacation Bible School, I was introduced to GOD, Christ and scripture and I was hooked immediately. Thankfully GOD's protection extended beyond the physical to the spiritual because from an early age I was protected from the negative effects of narrow minded denominational thinking. Anyway, that summer I had become great friends with the boy next door. One day we were playing a rather daring game in his apartment stairwell. It started with him standing on the bottom step and jumping down, then I would go to the next step and jump, then he would go to the next step and do on, back and forth until one of us chickened out. He gave up at the fifth step and of course I was teasing him so he dared me to do it, the problem with this was at that time I was a rather cocky little boy so I proceeded to the fifth step. However, I didn't stop there, I climbed all the way to the top step! There were thirteen stairs in that stairwell. I remember it clearly to this day. I jumped! My friend screamed because he thought for sure I was about to break my neck. What I felt next was an arm scoop up under my legs and around my back and carry me down in a fast gliding motion then dump me out on my feet in a plopping motion. Without missing a beat I smiled at him and said "I win." He went running up to his apartment screaming. I was never allowed to play with him ever again after that, he was terrified of me and his mother always wondered what he meant by I "floated" down the stairs.

At that point in my life I began to understand that I had angels watching out for me. That was the last time I purposely did something that stupid, but not the last the angel of death tried to take me. A couple years later I was playing in my back yard, rolling around in the back yard in a discarded cardboard refrigerator box. I was rolling over a pile of garbage bags and had a broken glass bottle slice through the box and into my back. It punctured so deep it literally came just a couple of centimeters from puncturing my lung. The screams thankfully got the attention of my mother's attention and I was rushed to the hospital. Several hours and a lot of stitches later I was back at home thanking GOD I did not die that day.

A couple years later I did probably the dumbest thing a kid could ever do, so before you absolutely agree with me on that point let me just say that I was very tired and in a hurry, so I made a very stupid mistake. I was getting out of the tub and I went to plug in the night light for the bathroom in, just above the sink by the mirror, my feet were still in the tub, yes there was still water in the tub, and yes my hands were still wet, and yes the water dropped down onto the outlet. I woke up in the hospital, pain throughout my whole body, wondering what happened. The doctor told me that I was lucky I had used my right hand because if I had used my left hand he could have been having a very different convywith my mother.

As I have gotten older these close calls have become less obvious to me, other than two severe car accidents I was thankfully able to walk away from as an adult. As I get closer to half a century in age of course I am dealing with normal things people deal with around this age, cholesterol, blood pressure, diabetes and I do still deal with the asthma. I have also been diagnosed with a few different and difficult ones that I must deal with as well. Anxiety and depression along with being bipolar with a touch of OCD. I've also been diagnosed with something called immune thrombocytopenic purpura, my body has trouble producing white blood cells, so I basically take longer to heal when sick or injured. While in the hospital when they discovered the ITP they also discovered I have something called monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance which is pretty much pre-cancer.

Am I scared? No. Why? Because I know that when I was eight years old I said a salvation prayer and then was baptized into the Independent Fundamental Baptist Denomination. Even though I didn't understand it at the time, I had started down the path to fully dedicating myself to GOD.