I found out a secret my dad had kept hidden from me my entire life.  Dad had acted like my best friend for forty years.  I never would have believed, until it happened, that he would try to have me murdered.  That's how I ended up in the woods.  Looking back, there was foreshadowing.  Dad used to joke with my uncle (by marriage) and the men in his family about hunting each other.  I don't think I'm the only one.  Fortunately, God was with me.

In the heat of July 2021, a team of men hunted me for approximately ten days through the Oklahoma wilderness.  All I had were my shoes and the clothes on my back.  I drank urine to survive, swam across the Arkansas River, ate a raw turtle I forced open with a railroad spike, and otherwise endured Hell on Earth. 

Just before the men would catch up to me, I would find a feather, and the situation would spiral into danger.  Guided by my conscience, the will power to live, and life experience, I was able to get away each time. Every time I got away, I would reach into my pocket, and the feather I found would be gone.  It got to where after I found a feather, I knew something was about to happen.  After four or five times, I knew my ex-girlfriend was right about the feathers.

I know God exists.  There is no question in my mind.  That wasn't always the case.  When I was an undergraduate becoming a chemist, I stopped believing, but God brought me back around.  After making it to Texas after surviving being hunted, I called my dad a few months later.  I said, "I forgive you," and he just hung up the phone. He was buried the day before my birthday in 2022.  God is a buckler for those who trust in him.  Godspeed.