I’ve Got a Little Six Inch Jesus in My Heart!

This is a term you would hear me say often after Sunday, January 25^th, 1981.  This is the date that after being arrested on five felony drug charges, being beaten in jail within an inch of my life and only released on the condition that I would be committed to an insane asylum, that I personally met Jesus Christ. 

After being raised in a Lutheran home and private school, I thought I knew all there was to know about Jesus, but boy was I in for a surprise.  I thought living as a “local”, on Galveston Island in the Gulf of Mexico, was a dream come true as a young long-hair hippie surfer in a tourist town full of young girls looking for a good time. 

While in private school I was a pretty good kid other then a few mischievous deeds like sneaking a few sips of the wine as an alter boy and skipping church several times in the Lutheran Church.  When I enter the public school system in junior high was when I began to allow people to influence me down a path that would lead to destruction.  I remember vividly to this day the first time I saw a bag of weed (marijuana) and it was all down hill from there.  I left home in rebellion over my desire for long hair during my junior year of high school and went to live with a surfer friend and his family.  I graduated from high school in 1974 after having lived and worked on my own for two years, and due to my proper up bringing, never considered dropping out of school. 

During this two years of high school I lived with multiple characters one of which ended up being a heroine junkie and thief.  I remember being home one evening when they came home with all this merchandise and I was thinking “I wonder who gave them all this stuff” and it was later I realized that they had broken into someone’s home and stole all the stuff.  Talking about a rude-awaking.  Later he would introduce me to my first encounter with two things, one was heroine and the other was “shooting-up” (taking drugs intravenously).  By the grace of God, I got fairly ill and realized that it wasn’t the smartest thing I had ever done. 

Through this fellow and others I would met “Ray” who would later be named “The Devil”, because on one of our many trips down into Mexico while standing on a street corner a group of Mexicans came by pointed at Ray and said “diablo” which translated means the devil.  From that point on Ray was known as the devil and boy did “I” allow the real devil to use Ray to influence my life for the worst.  Ray was a “BOI” (born on the island) and a very bold and radical guy and well known on the island, so by association I was considered the same although because of my religious upbringing I was inwardly rather shy and withdrawn. 

Obviously, living this kind of a life style will get you into trouble of various sorts so I encountered motorcycle gangs, gun wheeling drug dealers (I never did like guns, so when guns began to come out I always managed to remember something else I needed to do), prostitutes, drug addicts and the like.  After, getting into a few fights (usually as a result of trying to be the good guy and breakup a fight) and one time in particular being beaten and humiliated in the presence of a group of friends I decided that wasn’t going to happen again and began to take karate.  Think about it, karate and drugs, yes, you are correct that is not a good mix.  Oh, but for the grace of God!

I practically lived in clubs and would go out drinking and dancing every night.  It was the funniest thing I would go out to a rock and roll club in Galveston and have no problem getting a dance and then I would go to a disco club and might have a difficult time getting a dance and would go to a disco club off the island and usually couldn’t get a dance if my life depended on it.  What is the deal?  Well the truth of the matter was that I looked like an animal.  I had extremely long naturally curly sun-bleached red hair that I never combed I would just shower and shake my head and had a beard that started at my chest and worked its way up to my nose.  It is amazing how blind we can be when we are lost.  Later in life I realized why I could get a dance in a rock and roll club in Galveston, but couldn’t get a dance in a disco on the mainland.  I looked like an animal.  Duh! 

It was not too very unusual to find myself in jail after one of these nights out on the town.  On one occasion, my dad came and got me out of jail and asked me where he needed to take me to get my car and I had to tell him that was a very good question but that I didn’t have an answer for him because I had not remembered being arrested much less where I had been arrested.  I just woke up in jail.  That’s all I knew.  One year on one of our annual trips to Mexico, we were drunk and the owner of the car couldn’t drive so I took over the driver’s seat and wreaked the guys car and grabbed him and through him in the front seat since he owned the car and had the insurance (made sense to me), but the owner of the car we hit saw this happen and guess who ended up in jail just outside of Mexico (not good!).  My friends had to sell plasma (a chemical removed from blood after it is removed from the body) to get the money to get me out of jail and that was only after they went to great extremes to find me (it’s not easy to find someone in the small rural towns just outside of Mexico and people can disappear fairly easily).  Oh, but for the grace of God!

Another time I was thrown in jail for drunk and disorderly (I can’t imagine that) and realized after being in jail that I had a couple Quaalude pills (downers) in my pocket so I took them out and wrapped then some toilet tissue and stuck them in a corner near a bench in the jail cell.  Well wouldn’t you know it the next day, Ray (you remember “The Devil”) and I were on the beach introducing ourselves to the visiting girls and for some odd reason we got arrested (I never knew it was against the law to introduce your self to tourist).  Well we found ourselves in the exact same cell I had been in the night before and I told Ray that I even had a stash (a term for a supply of drugs) in jail and went over and got the tissue paper with the pills and Ray and I took the pills and made the best time we could out of a bad situation.  Oh, but for the grace of God!

Have you ever heard the term “You reap what you sow” or “What goes around, comes around”?  Well it does.  After living the life style mentioned above life has a way of catching up with you and it did.  My home was eventually raided and I was arrested on five felony drug charges.  Not a good day in the Lugenheim home to say the least.  Because I was arrested on drug charges I was stripped searched (I wasn’t going to get to have a stash this time). 

The young rookie sheriff that was in charge of the search was about to get on my bad side.  The first thing he did was throw my sock in the toilet (not good) and I let it slide with just a dirty look (but if looks could kill).  The second thing he did was kick me in the rear as I was leaving the room (not good at all) but I had been in jail enough to know that it’s their ballgame and they make the rules so all I gave him was another dirty look (you know the line “but if looks could kill”). 

Later the next day the same rookie sheriff came by my cell and there was this one other inmate that was going some pretty dumb stuff which is not all that unusual in jail because dumb people do dumb stuff and if you weren’t dumb you probably wouldn’t be in there anyway.  But to make an extremely long story short this rookie began to hassle this guy and I merely told the rookie to leave the guy alone.  (Not a good day in the Lugenheim family again).  I began to hear the gingle of keys as this rookie began to open the cell door and approach me (not good) and I proceeded to back up as far as you can in a 10’ x 20’ cell, and at some point I reverted back to my Karate training, and decided it was going to be me or him and it wasn’t going to be me.  Do you remember the part about me taking karate?  So I began to communicate in no uncertain terms that I didn’t like him throwing my sock in the toilet, kicking me in the rear or messing with my space (Definition: I began to pounce on his head).

Only one small problem, remember the part about “it’s their ballgame and they make the rules”?  It’s true.  The next thing I knew there were six or seven sheriffs playing the drums on my body with their night clubs (Not a good day in the Lugenheim family again).  Well, obviously I survived or I wouldn’t be writing this testimony, but it cost me a fractured skull, multiple broken ribs, damaged eye that is still affected to this day and many scratches and bruise.  Oh, but for the grace of God!

Thee were many other instances that happen during that stay at the Galveston County jail, because after an incident like that you are not very popular with the sheriffs department.  But I will spare you most of the details because I’m trying to write my testimony and not a book.  After that event, I experienced God for the first time in a very tangible and practical way.  I was punished for my actions by being stripped naked and placed in a small solitary confinement cell.  It was very cold when I first entered, and I do not remember praying or anything, but now realize that the glory of God came in that small cell and what had been a very cold and clammy cell became very warm.  I really didn’t know what to think and this began a series of encounters with the living God. 

Due to the withdrawal from drugs and from having the experience with the sheriffs I had become very stressed and fearful that I would not live to see the outside of that jail.  I remember thinking that they would have to kill me to keep me from being able to be seen from the outside because I had been beaten so badly.  I recall sitting in a cell with a group of people and I was so stressed it felt like my mind was going to break that I was actually going to go over the edge.  Sitting there I remember in an instant the peace that came over my mind.  I though my mind had actually snapped, but now I know it was the peace of God that passes all understanding.  From that moment I began to have a sense of the presence of God.

Initially, I thought I was going crazy because that was what the sheriffs were saying and the other inmates thought after seeing me attack a rookie sheriff.  I thought I was going crazy because of this sense of the presence of God, I didn’t understand it.  Your mind can begin to play tricks on you when you have a combination of things happen to you in a short period of time and not understanding the reality of the presence of God.

As earlier mentioned, with the devils help, I did not think I was ever going to get out of that prison.  I thought my dad had given up on me and had gotten me out of jail for the last time.  Little did I know that he was having to take ever measure possible to get me out of jail, but the sheriffs department didn’t want to release me because of my physical condition and appearance.  Eventually, I was released from the jail on the grounds that the sheriffs department transported me to the county insane asylum (otherwise known as the “funny farm”).  As bad as it was, it was a ton better then being in jail.  Boy, could I tell you some stories about being in that place.  I was examined and determined to be sane, so I wasn’t about to tell anyone about my experiences with the Lord.  They would have thought I was nuts for sure.  I still had a strong desire for God so I asked for a Bible and felt that would be relatively safe to request and waited to be released in a week or so.

After being released from the “funny farm” I still thought the sheriffs wanted to expose of me, so my brother and I moved to Louisiana and started a bass boat fiberglass repair business (there are a lot of tree stumps in the swamps of Louisiana and we had learned the fiberglass repair business from repairing and building surfboards).  The presence of God was still with me but I didn’t understand it or wasn’t taught about it, but I cleaned up my act for about a year and then moved back to Galveston.

The scripture “bad company corrupts good morals” is true and not long after returning to Galveston I began hanging around the wrong people again (the devil, remember him?) and doing the wrong things (surprise, surprise!).  Sometime during all that, an old roommate of mine named Kenny Rutherford came home from the Navy and everyone was saying that Kenny had become a “Jesus Freak”.  It was just a matter of time before Kenny and my path crossed and he began telling me about how Jesus had changed his life for the better.  I had always respected Kenny because when all my other friends were running around on their girlfriends, Kenny was always faithful to his and it had left an impact on my life.

When Kenny would tell me about Jesus I would just agree with him because even though I wasn’t doing the right things I though I was a good person (can you believe that after reading what you’ve read?).  As a matter of fact, if you had tried to tell me I wasn’t a Christian or that I would have split hell wide open I would fought you over it.  (Go figure!)  It never ceases to amaze me how blind I was, but the Bible says that “the god of this world (the devil) blinds the minds of the unbeliever” and so he did.   

Eventually, Kenny invited me to church.  I was actually excited and accepted the offer, but on the Sunday Kenny was suppose to take me I never heard from him and was so disappointed.  I do not remember the details of why he didn’t show, but the next week we were in church together.  It was quite an experience, because I was accustom to the Lutheran Church with an organ and these guys had drums, guitars and everything (I remember thinking “Were do you sign-up?  This is cool.  This is going to be my new church.”). 

After attending for several weeks, the Pastor was having a salvation alter call and I was sitting there listening.  Kenny reached over and asked me if I was saved and I said “Yes” (because I had been taught in the Lutheran church if you believed in Jesus you were automatically saved) and he looked at me eyeball to eyeball and said “I do not believe either one of us believe that” and when he said those words it was like my life flashed before my eyes and I saw all the sins I had committed and I realized that even though I had thought I was saved in reality I was a sinner and needed a savior (Jesus) and salvation. 

Being the “cool dude” that I was, I wasn’t about to go up front in front of everybody and God new that.  I had never heard him do it before and I had never heard him do it again but this time the Pastor asked if anyone wanted to be saved in private and before I realized what was happening I looked over and to my surprise my had was raised responding to his request.   Oh, but for the grace of God!

I went in the back and the worship leader, Steve Cantini, lead me in a prayer and part of it went something like this “God help me not to sin any more”.  When he said that I remember saying to myself “Crap, I didn’t know he was going to say that.  But, if I’m going to ask God to help me not sin anymore, I’m not going to sin anymore."  The moment, I said that in my heart a tear came to my eyes and I remember wondering why I wanted to cry. 

Leaving the church that day the Pastor, Robert Dowdy, asked me if I felt any different and I recall thinking “Why should I feel any different?  I’ve prayed before and nothing had ever changed.  I left the church that day and my life has never been the same since, the sky was bluer, the grass was greener and life became beautiful.  I recall going and sitting on the seawall watching the waves roll in and just crying realizing that God held those waves back from destroying the island.  I woke up the next morning and several morning after and would weep uncontrollably because I had a new love in my heart.  I would run around and tell people that “I have a little six inch Jesus in my heart”.  Jesus was so real and alive that his Spirit in me actually felt like there was a little six inch Jesus in my heart. 

Another way I knew I was saved, and Jesus’ love was in my heart, was that I literally could not kill the roaches in my house, I would just throw them out the back door.  Because of the humidity and moisture of living on an island, Galveston is notorious for roaches, so even the nicest luxury homes have a roach battle.  I also realized that my language cleaned up, and lost all desire to drink alcohol, smoke and do drugs.  My life was transforming for the better before my vary eyes.  I knew there were changes happening, but I didn’t have the boldness to tell any of my old friends.

I had gone to work after getting saved and asked my best friend to meet me in the parking lot for lunch because I wanted to warm him of my changes and how it may affect our relationship.  We talked and he shared that he had been saved and was backslidden and had been praying for someone to come along to help him in his walk with Jesus.  This was very exciting but I still lacked the boldness to tell everyone about Jesus.  I worked in a sheet metal shop with pipe fitters, welders, machinist and other rough and tough kind of guys and I needed some serious help to tell them about Jesus.

A few days into all this, I was running a drill press, minding my own business, and just thinking in my heart that I had the answers to all these peoples problems and how I needed to be able to help them.  Low and behold the Glory of God came down in that sheet metal shop and filled me with the Holy Spirit and the boldness of the Lord came on me and I turned off that drill press and began walking through that shop telling everyone about Jesus.  They thought I had flipped my every living mind.  I got me a piece of aluminum and put it on my desk and proceeded to write a new scripture on it every day.  I learned there were some closet Christians in the shop so we got them out of the closet and started having us a little Bible study at lunch.

All this rented space in my bosses head, because it was the grace of God he hadn’t fired me years ago.  He was a pretty rough guy and had fired many a person for doing a whole lot less then I had done.  I would regularly either go home early or come in late and most of the time still be drunk or hung over from the night before.  I would talk back and argue with him and for what ever reason he put up with me.  I do not know if it was totally the grace of God or if my work, when I was there, was so good that he couldn’t afford to fire and have to replace me.  Anyway to say the least my salvation and complete change of attitude was a real testimony to him all the way up until I left to go to Bible college at Christ for the Nations Institute (CFNI).

Over the coming days as I looked in the mirror the beard (for a lack of a better term) wasn’t me anymore so I shaved it off and as time went on likewise with my long unruly hair.  I actually cleaned up pretty good from what I hear.  I began going back to the beach where I surfed and outdoor roller skated and began a beach ministry telling people how Jesus could change their life for the better.  My Pastor, was the Jail Chaplain, in the same jail that I had been beaten up in and I started going with him to minister to the inmates.  I eventually took over the jail ministry and could walk freely in and out of the same county jail I had been arrested for felony drug charges and placed in.  If they had ever figured out that I had been in the jail on felony drug charges they would have had a “hissy fit” (that’s Texan for a cardiac arrest).  Oh, but for the grace of God!

I attended and graduated from CFNI in Dallas, TX, attended and worked at Shady Grove Church in Grand Prairie, TX for seven years as the Missions Administrator, worked at Shady Grove Christian Academy for four years as their Business Administrator, served at Gateway Church in Southlake, TX for five years as the Director of Resource Ministries and am currently the Director of Operations at Fellowship of the Sword in White Settlement, TX.  I have been married to my gorgeous wife, Terri, since Feb. 14, 1992 and happily married since 2002.  We had a rough first 10 years (you can read Terri's testimony on the homepage).  We have three handsome young men named Christian, Caleb and Joshua, who are becoming Men of God in their own rights.  We are currently awaiting God’s next assignment for our family.  Oh, but for the grace of God!

Serving the Lord with gladness,

Frank Lugenheim

(Oh, by the way, Yes, I still do have a little six inch Jesus in my heart) 

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