NewsBreak is a news source I get notifications from daily. There are sometimes events that go against my Chrisitan faith and I will comment. Without fail, I will get assailed by non-believers for my stance.
The comments come in a wide range of thoughts from the idea there is no God to I need to take my meds. One comment was there is no God, just Mother Nature. Who is Mother Nature anyway? Oh, could I run a rabbit trail on this mist of an entity. Every known civilization has their version from the Norse, Greek, Roman and even the Algonquian Indians take on Mother Nature.
What we need to know is God does exist. This statement can be spoken and that really is all that is needed for some, but I can cite time after time that God has proven Himself to me in my seventy three years of existance. Wanna go for a mental ride with me for a bit?
From my earliest years I grew to know my mom’s dad who was a Baptist preacher. He lived a good existance to almost eighty years. He was a man of small stature. At just a little over five feet tall I
found him a giant behind the pulpit. He knew God. When he had come to the point of not being able to get around without a walker he still held his head high. Then one morning upon his rising from bed he said God spoke to him to put aside his walker. He would no longer needed it. In his faith he rose not to use the walker ever again.
When I was about twelve or thirteen I heard God speaking to me that I was also called to ministry. From then on I knew it was to be an evangelist. My problem was I did not know exactly the truth of what that entailed. From that day on until I was sixteen everytime an altar call was given to give my heart to God would bring upon me an unrelenting need to answer, yet I held back. Then at sixteen I finally let go of the back of the pew in front of me and walked down the aisle to the preacher one June night in 1966. It was phenominal how it happened as I took my first step from the pew, but I don’t remember the rest of the walk. I seemed to regain myself awareness once I stood before the preacher and answered his question as to my coming forward. From there I told God before I went to sleep that night He better come right then because I knew I could not live up to the Biblical standards I had heard of up to that time referring to perfection. Remember that word.
I quickly let my hormones take hold of me and that propelled me for many years. I had many misadventures with a girl that might lead one to a jail term in this day and age. I thought I loved her and in my own way I did, but it was more from lust than love.
The next step came when God separated me from this young girl by taking me in the draft during Vietnam. Even then He saw to it I did not go to Vietnam. I was kept safely away in Germany during my active duty time. Then came another mistake.
During my time overseas I had met a young lady that I deemed safe from the woes of life. It was another mistake. I should never have married her, yet merely two months after active duty I married her anyway. For the next thirty seven years I tried to make it work, but my jobs kept me from really getting to understand kept me from actually coming to a conclusion. During that whole time I was looking for a woman that met my standards.
Even at that God worked in me to lead me to commit to Him at the age of twenty seven. I had been unknowingly suffering from depression and He brought me out of it by making me aware of His desire for me to let Him lead me. The following years were tumultuous. God molding me was a very hard thing for me to endure.
During that time in my thirties my dad had suffered heart attacks and strokes. During one of those times he told me I would not live past age sixty. I knew God had other plans for me and I told him so. Sixty was not my end. He made it to age sixty and died two months later from congestive heart failure. I, being the eldest of five sons, then proceeded to see the loss of three of my brothers in their fifties. One remaining brother is now in his early to mid fifties and tells me that he is old for his lifestyle. My decision on this alone tells me God is with me since I am now seventy three and I am still a functioning adult.
When I was thirty seven I was diagnosed with high blood pressure due to mental stress. The doc telling me that 195/126 was too high made me sit up and take note. From that time on I sought regular doctor visits and my health maintenance years started. Still I was not easy to live with. Life was still not coming into full focus for me.
Then God blessed me with a Federal Civil Service job that I would spend the next twenty eight years in until I retired. There was a lot of rushing might waters that ran under that bridge. I was tested with my first hospital stay as well as financial ruin. Surprisingly I found myself growing more able to handle situations I would have folded under in my earlier years.
Through my forties was the most foundational in growth. I worked two jobs for sixteen years finally paring back to just civil service in my early fifties. I was learning to cope, but I suffered from my inability to stop looking for the woman I thought I should really be with. By this time I had young adult sons (two). My wife at the time and I were beginning to see the erring of our marriage and we constantly argued. She attempted to leave me a couple of times and I talked her into staying thinking in the fashion of my upbringing of “once married, always married”. I should have let her go. Still my wandering eye kept me looking until I found myself in trouble and tried to settle with where I was to serve some unknown sentence for the rest of my life in a loveless marriage.
Then one December day I received an email from a woman that I did not know. Seems she had been reading my blog by the entreatment of her friend. It was because of entertwining past events that brough this to pass. God was at work again. The friend was a mutual school classmate from decades before. This woman had been a high school friend of my brother. We hit is off right away. Both of us being in deadend marriages left out spouses shortly afterward. Some of you reading this will have negative feelings about this, but take note I was not too sure about this direction in my life either.
This time in my life from age fifty six to oh say around sixty I was totally torn apart and rebuilt. I was told I’d had a heart attack only to find out it wasn’t and there was absolutely nothing wrong with my heart as had been alluded to in my early fifties. I still carry a false positive for a left inferior infarct to show for it.
Now after almost fifteen years later I can look back and see God’s hand in it all. As soon as I became separated I was taken from a dead end civil service job and practically given a position that lasted the remaining seven years of my career two grades higher. Through a series of manuevers I did not instigate I regained my home while my first wife moved back to her hometown. I didn’t get out of this divorce without judgment however. I ended up with a decree to pay alimony for the remainder of my first wife’s life. Still, God has blessed my “now” wife and I with financal security to live above even that judgment. I did loose all my savings in the divorce, yet God even blessed us with financial blessing beyond the loss.
My wife of now and myself have been married now for eight years. Happily I might add. During our time together we started back to church and after a time in two other churches we settled in number three. In this church we have found ourselves in God’s hands. We have both corrected our ways and sought forgiveness. Presently we have both been ordained to full rights of ministry in the state and our church. I have become an accredited Chaplain and she has been in charge of a ministry in our church.
I counsel with couples and help with people in situations that have overcome them. My wife leads a group of people called the 50+ Group. I see whoever as necessary and her group if well over thirty people.
If you tend to think I’m not worthy of my calling remember Paul was Saul till his blinding call on the road to Damascus. He was going to deliver a fist full of warrants to Christians. Being stopped cold in his tracks he came to know Jesus. I’ve surely not lived that experience, but rest assured my wife and I are solid in our walk. What we’ve been through has given us a spiritual backbone that does not bend to the world’s view of Christianity.
There are so many sub-stories to this one I haven’t the time presently to write here. Those experiences are the mortar in the brick foundation of our walk. I have to laugh at people who rail upon me for being a believer. Go ahead. It doesn’t move me. I will not bow or bend to the level of the spiritually destitute of a dying world.
Even at that my heart is heavy for the lost, but I can only present the truth and hope God sparks life into it to move these naysayers into a real life.
Livin' Small 