My spiritual journey (Part 3)

It's 1976, the bicentennial year and I find myself in radio broadcasting school at a community college in central North Carolina. School is great, my social life is ok and I'm rolling right along. One day I remember going into the student commons area and there were stacks and stacks of these pocket New Testaments lying on a counter. You must understand these were times when it was still not politically incorrect to have bibles in a public education building. I believe they were placed by the Gideons (you know, the bibles in the motel rooms) and actually, looking back, I am surprised they were allowed to do it. I guess that "backward" small southern college just did not see the harm in it or maybe the long arm of the ACLU had not reached that far yet. Well, I took one and actually read it some. Also during that year I became friends with our assistant instructor who was an alumni of the broadcasting school. He worked third shift at a powerful FM station several miles away and invited me down one weekend. It was a Christian station that played southern gospel music, which did not turn me off at first because I was just excited to be in a "real" radio station of any kind. I listened to some of the music and liked what I heard. I say all of that to say this....the bible reading and the gospel music started me thinking about God and my spiritual condition. I believe I may have even made a "profession of faith" during that time, but I don't think it "stuck" or was real, because I returned to my partying ways eventually and pushed thoughts of God and Jesus out of mind for another two years. But, looking back, it is evident the hounds of heaven were hot on my trail.