Lyle Hurst

Crapped Out Lyle Hurst

Crapped Out (The Death of a Las Vegas Craps Dealer). Unfamiliar with casino gambling? Crapped out generally means you lose everything! All your bets. All your money. After a lifetime of chasing excitement, and money, I finally ended up losing everything in life that most people would consider important, necessary. It has been said that our character can be determined by the way we respond to our circumstances. My response to "losing everything" was to choose to take my own life. I figured I'd lived a full life and that there really wasn't much more for me here on earth. My wife and I were in very poor health with zero possibilities (and even less desire) to try and reestablish ourselves during this national period of recession, so we decided we might as well "roll the dice" and see if things were better on the other side. We came to the conclusion that suicide was our best option. Apparently, God didn't agree with our plan ("If you want to make God laugh, just tell Him your plans").

As a (grudging) favor to my sister, I attended her church one Sunday. I hadn't been involved with formal religion for over thirty-five years. The ensuing "epiphany" was life changing. God chose to change me. Why? I had no idea at the time. He took away the pain, the hate, and the anger that I had carried for so many years. Hopelessness was erased, and a sense of peace invaded my mind and heart. These weren't things that I was familiar with. It was a supernatural experience that words cannot adequately express. The Las Vegas craps dealer died that day. This is a story of how I arrived at that day.