A Personal Word [more honesty] June 8

I need to tell you a little about my salvation journey and discovery of permanent truth.

        Originally, I lived in a split-parent household. Up until 14 years of age, the only value, outside of myself, was going with a friend to a Boy Scout meeting in the basement of a local church. The only serious idea I had of God was that if he existed, he was just some form of goodness “out there” among the stars and galaxies. Usually, the only time I used the word “God” was to curse. I thought that exercise made me more grown up to use such language.

        As I approached more of my teen years, my situation got worse. It appeared neither one of my parents wanted me around. In fact, one day my mother told me I had been an accident of birth, not really planned. She thought she was helping by explaining things, but to a fourteen-year-old, it did not work. Her life was complicated with my then stepfather and I understand that now. But then, the reality was, I was an inconvenience. My parents did not want me around. Actually, I wasn’t that much of a problem, no drugs, or complications like that. I was just an active teen who was a burden because I existed. I even worked hard at making good grades, thinking that would win someone’s admiration.

        One hot summer day in Texas, my mother put me on a bus to go live with my Dad in California. I really did not know him. He was a man who really did not know how to relate to children. He had remarried and I was to go live with him and a new stepmom. I was truly crushed because I had just tied in my grades with another boy for valedictorian of the eighth grade and had been chosen president of my class. There I was, whisked away with one small tattered suitcase and a name tag on my shirt. Never in my conscious life had I been more than fifty miles from what I thought was home. I’m not after sympathy here. Just telling part of my story.

        Days and miles away, I arrived in an unfamiliar state, not feeling wanted there either because I felt like a homeless straggler to a new place and new people. For about six months, I stayed numb. I held to my little cubbyhole of a room I shared with another and daydreamed how someday I’d get rich and find people who would appreciate my talents. School became drudgery but I did play basketball and that saved me for a while. I had only one or two persons I called friends and I was never sure I could ask one to stay over for a night. As I look back now, because I was a burden to my parent and stepparent, my friends probably felt the ongoing tension enough to just stay away.

        After some time, an amazing incident interrupted my life. My parents took and dropped me off at a spin off Billy Graham crusade event. To this day, I don’t know why because I was not causing any obvious grief and they were not church goers. I suppose now I could say God is always after us because he loves us when we don’t know what is happening. [ more to follow]