Amazing Grace

T'was Grace that taught

my heart to fear.

And Grace, my fears relieved.

How precious did that Grace appear

the hour I first believed.

Many Christians say they can remember the exact moment when they were “saved” (If anyone reading this is not a Christian, the moment you are saved is when the Holy Spirit enters your body; and He does this after you humbly accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and thus accept His sacrifice as atonement for your sin (allowing your entry to Heaven) and begin to act upon His, God’s, will and not your own). I, however, cannot say as much. Earlier, I said I read the Bible while my Pit Bull wannabe Saint Bernard ran free in a target rich environment (lots of people) without harming anyone. Well that moment was not exactly my “A Ha!!” time, though maybe it should have been. For me I needed a deeper touch, an actual quantum leap of a change in my parents’ behavior. And later as I saw the Billy Graham crusades on TV and said my prayers accepting Jesus, I can’t say that I felt a whole lot of conviction then either, just desperate pleas from my heart in wanting a “normal” family.

I also mentioned about God bringing you the desires of your heart. With that statement I must emphatically stress that we are not to walk around thinking that if we believe in the Lord, He will give us everything we want and that He is like a Santa Claus for adults. Yes, the Lord gives us gifts, but the greatest of all is His Grace. God allowed His son, Jesus, to die and through his death on the cross and subsequent resurrection it wipes away all of the sin that another man, Adam, brought sin into our world; all we need to do to gain this gift is to become “saved”. The goal of every human on this planet is to try and live their life in the manner in which Jesus did, i.e. to be servants of our God, and as such, do His will. It is in your fulfilling of God’s desires, that He does endow you with those of your own.

As I said in my previous blog, the summer at the end of my sophomore year of high school was the turning point in my life with regards to my faith and my fortunes. Though I would have many, many hard times after that summer, some which will be detailed later, the grandest part of that renaissance was my growing belief in Christianity and the anchor it played in keeping me from falling deeply and hopelessly into a personal abyss of hell.

My trip to summer camp and the flying I was doing had given me a glimpse of a life apart from the hell of my home and the wonders of a God inspired world. I thanked God for this genesis as it caused me to have an incredible, almost giddy, newfound hope of a better life as I matured. And, though I was not attending church on a regular basis, I carried deep with-in me a mustard seed of faith lodged with-in my soul; and the Bible that I received from my church when I first went to Sunday School? I always kept it by my bed, riding shotgun, in case I needed assistance and/or comfort.

My Junior and senior years built upon the exuberance of the aforementioned summer camp experience, though to the casual observer you might not have seen much of a change in me. I was not a good student by any stretch of the imagination, in fact I graduated high school in the bottom 10 percent of my class, though my IQ, according to my guidance counselor, was a 10 points short of genius level; I just did not care about grades nor did my parents. It was not, until I began to fly, where I realized I might actually want to attend college and though I tried to reverse a severe amount of personal apathy towards the learning institution in which I was immersed, it was very difficult to be at home and study. So I began to work as soon as I could just to be out of the house and I had a job, or jobs, in some form, for most of junior and senior years in high school; between flying, working, school and hanging out with friends, I was not home very much.

I also began to date girls more during this time, though that brought another, unforeseen kind of hell when dealing with my father that would haunt me for all of his natural life.

Self-esteem takes a huge hit when raised in a “farkle family” (dysfunctional) such as mine and I have to say I was amazed when I found that some girls may actually liked me. Now don’t get me wrong, I had some innocent little relationships while in my early teens, but deep down I felt so worthless and unsure of myself so as to defy description; though I may not have acted like it to the casual observer. I was compensating for that insecurity by being pretty obnoxious and arrogant to some people while charming and accommodating to others; in fact, because of the self defense mechanisms of living with my parents and their abuse for so long, I was beginning to become narcissistic myself.

The first real girlfriend I had that my father liked I met at work. The girl was a year older than me and she was very sweet and nice. One day after she and I went on a date we stopped to talk to my dad after she dropped me off at my house (I only had a motorcycle then, no car). I actually didn’t want to talk to him, my father, as he had been drinking and I knew he was inebriated. My friend, being polite, engaged him in conversation. For a solid hour my Dad and this girl chatted, while I stood by and witnessed for the first, of what would be many, times where my dad turned on his personal charm in the design to win a girl’s affections away from me. I know this because after this lovely lady left, my Dad began to bloviate about how great he was and how pathetic I was and that my dates all liked him much better than me; in fact, he believed, they dated me so they could actually see him.

It is almost inconceivable to think that a father could be this way, but welcome to my world; I witnessed it so many times after that, it became routine. I actually married my first wife because of my father’s love of her and his desire to keep her in his life, living vicariously through me. Had he not revealed his Machiavellian machinations to me after this lady left, I would have been none the wiser, just would have thought he was going over the top in being friendly. But, he did, reveal this trait of his narcissism, most likely because he was very drunk that night and proud of himself in thinking he had another conquest.

In spite of my parent’s behavior, I graduated high school in the mid 70’s full of optimism. Through lacking in academic prowess, I was dating a nice girl, had gone to the prom, something I didn’t think I would have been able to do 2 years earlier, and I felt like I was on a great career path thanks to God.

A major milestone in my Christian growth came about in a very unusual and somewhat painful way, and I am digressing a bit chronologically in order to tell it.

After the summer of my junior year in school I attended another summer camp, which was vastly different from the previous years’. (The previous year’s camp had to close its doors due to a lawsuit). The second Florida Keys’ camp I attended was much bigger than the first, more school like, and had a large female population. During the summer I met a lovely girl from Northern New Jersey and upon coming home we wrote letters to each other and talked on the phone quite a bit.

Soon a long distance romance developed. She lived about 3 to 4 hours away if I rode my motorcycle, or an hour if I flew a little aircraft to which I had access. I cannot begin to tell you how much I cared for this girl and very quickly she became my world. Her parents were quite wealthy but they were wonderful people and I swear if they had wanted to adopt me I would have let them. I so enjoyed going up to see her and it hurt bitterly every time I left to go to my house. You see my mother had left my father sometime during that summer and he had had been flying a lot so I was usually the only one home for my most of my late summer/early senior year in school. I had a job and friends so I was not lonely, per se, but this girl’s parents were so loving that coming home to my cold house, with all of it’s bad memories, was very depressing.

On one particular Sunday afternoon I was really lonely as I rode my cycle home from seeing her and I really wanted to talk to someone whom I thought might actually love me. When I got home my sister was in the house and I thanked God as I thought He was answering a prayer that I prayed while riding home. While she was going through the refrigerator and taking what food she could find to bring back to her place I told I really wanted and needed her company and asked her if she could stay and talk to me for a little bit. With a very cold shoulder she said, simply, “I don’t have time for you” and left. In my human existence, neither before, nor since, have I ever felt so utterly alone and abandoned. I cried myself to sleep that night while begging God for help from this loneliness. I did call the girlfriend and talked to her about my plight and though she could sympathize, she was on the opposite side of the state and could not really help.

I was really angry with God for that loneliness because I wanted Him to fix it in the same manner in which he fixed things when Brandy got loose…immediately. But, this is the part of my life where God was trying to teach me some more lessons: That His timing is supreme, His love is enough to fulfill/sustain us and that when we are alone, He is there with us…Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope”; Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven" (NKJV); Jeremiah 16:19 O Lord, my strength and my fortress, my refuge in time of distress.; Isaiah 41:10 Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

To add insult to injury, in a couple of days after the above my father came back from his overseas trip. I told him what happened and he could have cared less, instead he said I needed to toughen up, “Cest le vie” (such is life) was his famous saying when he didn’t know what to say. Later that day, my Dad caught me “chirping the tires” (or “laying rubber”) in his car as I left a stop sign; it wasn’t much, not a laying of rubber per se, just a quick throttle burst as his car was so nice…and powerful. My Dad had been drinking, and since my mother left, he had been in a really foul mood. With a catalyst for his anger available, he jumped into the car when I got home, the passenger side in the front, and demanded that I drive to Ocean heights Avenue, near our home; I cannot begin to describe the absolute fear the man could put me in when he was drunk and enraged…it was like looking at Charles Manson’s eyes. Belittling me as we drove and calling me pretty much worthless, he ordered me to floor the car once we got on a very secluded part of Ocean heights. Since his car was fast, it had a chevy small block 400 ci engine, we were doing 110 mpg on a very narrow 2 lane, limited access country road. The trees were flashing by so fast as to be a blur and I gripped the steering wheel hard enough to bend it: I was bloody scared to death. It was has to be one of the most turnabout surreal moments of my life, at 110 mph my father patted me on my arm and said ‘Wow great job son, you can drive fast, let’s go to the bar!” At the bar, as my old man got even drunker, I was suddenly a “good son.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were born with God’s rules programmed in our brains so we could understand all of the lessons that we must learn as we age? Well actually we kinda’ are because, as it turns out, that’s what parents are for. They are supposed to teach their children about certain types of emotional pains associated with growing up. Using conventional psychological wisdom and God’s rules and laws, we, parents, should teach our kids about the perils and pitfalls of puppy love and crushes, about proper boundaries and the hurt and pain that can be associated with those boundaries in addition to the fact that many times pain causes growth and the avoidance of it, pain, can cause stagnation in one’s psyche…so many things to teach our kids, so many responsibilities, but yet so few parents actually go about taking on that daunting task head on.

Had my parents taught me about this pain and God’s timing maybe that lonely night would have been more bearable, but as you can see, my parent’s were incapable of understanding anything but their own pain and it was horrible to feel so alone; I am firmly convinced, as I write this, that God needed me to “go there” that night in order to prepare me for future events, but at the time I didn’t know it.

A couple of weeks after that dreadful night I was talking to my girlfriend and we were coordinating on how we might see each other again. During the conversation I asked her if she believed in God. She said no. I was dumbfounded. I could not understand how anyone could not believe in God and so I pressed her immediately for her reasons. Being so sweet she delicately used her science based reasons (the girl was a straight A student and very smart) to support her view and I countered with my Bible. An impasse developed between us as we quietly shot volley after reasoning volley at each other and with each of hers (volleys) the damage got worse and worse in my heart. Because I felt such a kinship with God, I had serious trouble understanding how a person could not believe in Him and to be blunt, I just could not see myself with an atheist, as I knew it would cause issues in our relationship. Since she said there would be no changing her mind, I broke up with her. It was the most impulsive break-up I had ever had in my life up till then, and still is. I know to most people out there what I did may seem cold, and maybe, at that age it was, it’s not like we were getting married, but deep inside of me, God was my lifeline and I knew it. I had Him to thank for so many things and though my parents were still what they always had been, and were, and were always going to be, my life could have been a lot worse. In my heart of hearts, soul of souls, whatever, I could not date a person who did not believe in the existence of God. He was my father, my world, and He protected me and was taking me places that I thought I would never go; I was flabbergasted that this girl could not see God in the world around us and all of the wonders that abounded because of Him. Years later I would read the verses below and came to understand why I felt as I did: 2 CORINTHIANS 6 -14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” (I need to clarify something about this passage. God is not saying you can’t be friends with a non-Christian, etc, but what He does want is that your closest circle of friends and/or your spouse be Christian. Often times if one spouse is not a Christian they will drag the other Christian partner “down” with them as it seems to be easier to degenerate than remain fully committed to your faith. Additionally our closest friends are supposed to hold us accountable for our lapses in moral/ethical and Biblical judgment; though not all atheists, etc are unethical or unmoral people, in fact many are just the opposite, they do not have the Christian grounding that helps us to grow in our faith and ultimately closer to God).

I was not lonely after breaking up with her, but I was extremely sad and though I thought about trying to go back, there was to be none of that, I was on a different path than she and we had parted at a Y in the road of our lives.

As God’s timing and will would have it, a couple of days after breaking up, a girl that I had been wanting to date for almost 4 years was waiting for me at my locker at the end of school one day. This girl had dated a friend of mine for almost 3 years and they had broken up a little while ago. I always held a secret crush on her, but had given up on ever getting the chance to be with her.

In every way this lovely young lady was different than the other, hair and eye color, financial means, but what really separated the two was the spiritual. When God brought this cheerful young girl to me he also brought me to His church; she came from a devout Catholic family and they went to church every Sunday. Going every Sunday was new to me and I was amazed at her father’s zeal as he often went on Saturdays too. So began another kind of spiritual renaissance with-in me, and the seeds of this awakening have continued to sprout to this day; but, there have been many fruitless seasons God has had to endure in between then and now.

To be continued…

The Little Girl

Song by John Michael Montgomery

Her parents never took the young girl to church

Never spoke of His name

Never read her His word

Two non-believers walking lost in this world

Took their baby with them

What a sad little girl

Her daddy drank all day and mommy did drugs

Never wanted to play

Or give kisses and hugs

She'd watch the TV and sit there on the couch

While her mom fell asleep

And her daddy went out

And the drinking and the fighting

just got worse every night

Behind their couch she'd be hiding

Oh what a sad little life

And like it always does, the bad just got worse

With every slap and every curse

Until her daddy in a drunk rage one night

Used a gun on her mom and then took his life

And some people from the city took the girl far away

To a new mom and a new dad

kisses and hugs everyday

Her first day of Sunday school the teacher walked in

And a small little girl

Stared at a picture of Him

She said I know that man up there on that cross

I don't know His name

But I know He got off

Cause He was there in my old house

and held me close to His side

As I hid there behind our couch

The night that my parents died