Be warned: This is the first of four posts published today. Even though this is just the first part of the longer story, this post itself is quite lengthy. It contains personal information without going into extreme detail, but it is a transparent biographical account of portions of my life to demonstrate the transforming power of Jesus Christ, out from darkness and into His light, to the glory of God the Father.
The Beginning
My father was an ordained minister, and my mother was a wonderful and godly woman. I was born the youngest of four surviving children. My siblings are older than I am by a range from ten to seventeen years. My mother had a miscarriage of a child that would have been born prior to me. Aside from my parents, my siblings have always been my best and strongest supporters and encouragers.
Raised in church and in a Christian home, I loved Jesus from an early age. I was quite young when I wrote a little song for Jesus. Whether it was my own idea or at the urging of my parents, I don't recall, but I was to sing it for my church during a service. I was called forward, and I sang my little song. The well-meaning congregation received it enthusiastically and with kind encouragement.
I learned being at the center of such attention was not to my liking. I was too shy and introverted for such a public spotlight, and I began down the road of settling into a life of avoiding attention as a general life-rule.
The Fear
Growing up, I was very nervous, naive, and innocent. I used to attribute that to being raised as a preacher's kid, but by contrast, my siblings were confident and socially adjusted. Whatever the cause, I especially hated attention brought on me by my naivety and not knowing something that seemed liked common knowledge to others of my age. Even in instances I wasn't teased or mocked for it, it still stung me that my ignorance had been laid bare for all to see. As situations revealed my naivety, my insecurities increased and I became very self-conscious about myself. All combined - shyness, introversion, naivety - that made me a natural target for bullying and teasing in my neighborhood and in schools. Even my father's teasing would at times make me uneasy.
My self-esteem continued to wane as I grew older. Then there came a day I was speaking with a family member about a subject of great interest to me. While I was mid-sentence, they turned away and began a conversation with someone else. I don't believe that was the first occurrence, but it was the one that I reasoned that even my opinions and interests were inconsequential. I began to stop talking even to family members except for my immediate family or family I saw frequently.
Self-conscious, shy, and withdrawn, I began down the road of reclusiveness.
I was generally comfortable with close family and in gatherings of small numbers though I usually kept to the periphery. I would rarely have more than four or five friends at a time. I struggled socially at school. From kindergarten through fourth grade, I attended public schools. All the while, I hated being in crowds and among strangers to such an extent, I was even uncomfortable standing in the school cafeteria line until I was able to sit at a table and could hide myself. If I was in familiar settings, or could "hide in a crowd", I was usually okay. But I was often nervous, and though I generally got along with my classmates, I frequently felt out of place and tried hiding my naivety. As a result, I was often sick and missed quite a bit of school, but not enough to be held back a grade level.
During my fourth grade, an incident occurred in which my teacher slapped me for what she perceived as me talking back to her when I was trying to explain my position. After my parents, the teacher, and the school administrators met over her actions, my parents enrolled me for the following hear at a very small private school that taught grades one through twelve. My education while there may have been minimal due to its bare-bones offerings, but my health improved in the smaller setting. That is not to say that I never found myself truly comfortable or exempt from teasing and bullying at that school either. I continued at that school until the founding church's decision was made to close operations at the end of my junior year. My senior year reintroduced me back into public education. The high school I found myself in had a graduating class more numerous than the entirety of the private school I had attended at any given year. I dreaded it.
Over the years of growing up, I had learned to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I learned to walk softly to make minimal noise or disturbance, to stand aloof from others and out of the pathways of people walking so I was more of a fixture, and carefully conditioned myself to not say or do anything without first considering their effects and responses. I would observe; watching and listening in order to later be able to understand. While not perfect, it greatly reduced bringing unwanted attention. It seemed to work as people generally ignored me. I had learned to become practically invisible. [For example: I was in the school courtyard one day with over a hundred other students. I stood with the three friends I had while they were speaking with three girls I did not know. I was standing outside their little ring near a column. I became sick and left the contents of my stomach on the ground near the column I had positioned myself beside. Because of positioning, three directions had unobstructed view of me. No one in the courtyard noticed including the six people I was standing near.]
In my mid-teens, my parents separated. My father filed for divorce, but my mother countered with "separate maintenance". My mother was granted the three-year moratorium after which a divorce could be granted without declared grounds. Because of the reason of the divorce, I resented my father, and it took me a full year to forgive him enough to even talk to him. At the end of that three years, with me then in my late teens, my parents divorced.
I remember the day it was finalized. My siblings were so supportive of our mother. I had seen my mother cry before, both from sadness and of joy but when she came into the room, it was the only time I recall my mother ever sobbing as we hugged and held her as that finality descended.
After graduating from high school, I knew that a college campus setting was not for me. I enrolled at a vocational school to study computers and digital electronics, and then began working as a cook at a restaurant. The school was small, the class enrollment was no larger than my high school classes had been, and the cook's line kept me away from public scrutiny.
It was also during this time that my father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. At the time of discovery, it had already spread to his sternum and several ribs. He underwent chemo and radiation. The radiation damaged his kidneys. Over a short time, I watched him waste away from a slightly-weighty man to a withered man of weakness and frailty.
The Stage
I was twenty-two when my father died. That night while I was working at the restaurant, my mother appeared in the lobby. She told me she had received a call that my father had been rushed to the hospital. I immediately left work, and she and I sat in his hospital room all night; the woman he had become involved with was absent. When we arrived, he was lying in the bed unresponsive and remained so.
That night I watched my father die. I watched his last few minutes as he gasped for air. As he passed, whether it was my perception or reality I can't say, his face seemed to register fear as he gasped his last breaths. That visage of my father, my last moments of ever seeing him, haunted me deeply for well over a decade as the only image of him I could ever bring to mind when I thought of him.
That night I also witnessed one of the greatest examples of forgiveness I have ever encountered. As my father lay there in his last moments gasping for breath, my mother leaned over close to his ear and said, "Jim, I forgive you. I forgive you."
More that 30 years later, that moment still chokes me up.
After graduating from the business college, I got a job at a local hospital working alone on the midnight shift in a secluded office. During this time, my mother became the primary caregiver for her father who had advanced emphysema. A short time after that, he was homebound and on constant oxygen. I lived at the house paying a bit of rent to help with bills and groceries. It proved to be beneficial that someone was with him all the time: me during the day/evening, and my mother during the evening/night.
After some time, my mother began experiencing a mysterious ailment that would make her severely ill, and I was able to make the transition from the midnight shift to a day shift. Her condition was cyclical over that year; she would be hospitalized for a period, improve well enough to be released to continue recovery at home, and the relapse to begin the cycle again. Then came the hospital stay during which I received the midnight-call from my eldest sister who had just been contacted by the hospital.
I was twenty-eight when I lost my mother. Each time she would be hospitalized, I would visit with her each night by phone or often in person. I recall only two exceptions. The first was when elderly neighbors had been burglarized and brutally treated by the intruders. The second was this night because Mom said she was tired and didn't feel like receiving company.
Although battling this unknown sickness, her death was unexpected. The nurses had checked on her late in the evening and she had been resting peacefully. When they checked on her again an hour later, she had passed away during the interval. I met my eldest sister and brother-in-law at the hospital as we reached the ER entrance, and we made our way to the floor our mother's room was on. Her physician met us in the hallway with tears filling his eye as he spoke to us briefly. I refused to go into her room. My father's image still haunted me, and I would not let the image of my mother's body in a hospital bed haunt me in a similar manner. (Nor would I later view her lying in the casket for that to become a haunting memory either.) After her passing, with incalculable help from my siblings, nieces, uncles, aunts, cousins, and Hospice care personnel, I lived with and cared for Granddad for another year and a half before he passed away at home, not waking from the night's sleep, unable to breathe.
After these events, I began to withdraw even more. I would intentionally limit my appearance in public in order to avoid crowds and to not be seen. Leaving home to work in my secluded office and then returning home was my daily routine. Generally, I would only venture out in the company of my best friend. I would grocery shop at late hours when stores were mostly empty. I would use vacation time from work on weekdays while my neighbors would be at work in order to do yardwork unseen. I did become involved with amateur astronomy, but the group was small and the activities were in remote locations after dark.
And so life went.
The Volatility
I inherited a few things from my father. One was his anger. My father had a fiery temper, as did his father before him. I have been told that his father (my grandfather) had been a cruel and brutal man in his past. I only knew him as a very old man from occasional visits while I was a child and early teenager. It is partially because of my father's anger that he and my older siblings did not have great relationships.
I can't say exactly why, but my father's relationship with me seemed to be different than those between him and my siblings. That didn't exempt me from some of his angry outbursts though. On several instances, I recall begging my mother to punish me before my father got home and learned of my misdeeds. I recall one time of receiving a spanking that resulted in welts on my legs, back, and rear. Whether or not it was the same incident I don't know, but I was once told me of a time he had punished me so severely that it so scared one of my sisters to the point that she called my mother away from visiting my grandparents. Upon seeing what he had done, she confronted him and warned him, with threat, to never treat me like that again.
I also recall a time of getting out of the car to board the school bus after angering him. I don't recall the situation or what I said to him. In response, he hit me in my shoulder with enough force to knock me and my schoolbooks sprawling out of the open car door into the parking lot. My fellow students witnessed it and showed me a rare moment of compassion when I boarded the bus in embarrassed and angry silence.
Understand, I do not mention these instances to disparage my father. I loved him and forgave him long ago. I only present these examples to demonstrate the exact type of anger I dealt with in myself. It was actually more than anger; it was rage. I would hit things (trees, walls, telephone poles, whatever - but never people; I was too frightened of them and of my father's retaliation). I had no knowledge of how to control my anger much less how to keep from getting angry. It would simply grow in intensity and fester as I dwelled on what had angered me. My mother often told me to take a walk to cool off. One night when I was in my teens, I got angry and hit my bedroom wall leaving a hole. Deciding to leave the house to be alone, I passed through the carport and punched the ceiling. At that moment, I decided to finally take my mother's advice. I walked roughly sixteen miles over the following five hours and returned home exhausted, with my legs burning intensely, and still just as angry as when I had left.
On another instance, my mother was trying to talk to me about something I didn't want to discuss. She was in the right, but I didn't want to deal with it or hear about it just then. As I finally turned away and just started ignoring her, she grabbed my arm to turn me back to face her. Reflexively, I drew my fist back. I didn't hit her, but for all my shame I might as well have. I fled the house, filled with anger at myself and shame at my action. I drove for a long while and wept as I begged God to take that anger away from me.
Praise the Lord, He did! I may still get upset from time to time, but that rage has been completely gone since then because He answers prayers whether they were mine or my mother's!
The Darkness
There was a second major trouble area with me. Born and raised during the latter portion of the "sexual revolution" of the sixties and seventies, another problem I acquired at a very early age was of sexual issues. A full-colored lingerie ad in the Sunday newspaper or a National Geographic coverage of partially clothed "primitive tribes" were as good as a Playboy magazine layout for a five, eight, or twelve year old. For as far back as my memory recalls, I was fascinated by the female form.
In my early childhood, new neighbors moved into the house just two doors down from our home. This family had children my age and slightly younger. They were more worldly at that age than I was in my innocence. They spoke often of their dad's adult magazines, of various sexual acts, and even brought around pages and pictures they'd sneaked from their dad's collections. I didn't have any idea of what they talked about, but I had an inquisitive mind. To avoid mockery at my naivety, I never let it be known I didn't have a clue. Too withdrawn and frightened of embarrassment to talk to my parents about such things, I sought my own answers through listening and assembling the knowledge shared on the street.
It wasn't long before I began the descent into the world of pornography and sexual activity. A friend and I once walked through a field near my home, and one of us tripped over a partially buried board. We kicked at the board and discovered it was the covering of a large hole in which a black trash bag was hidden away inside. We opened the bag and found a large stash of pornographic magazines. In an instant, they changed ownership.
Although reclusive, I did manage to have girlfriends, mostly because they pursued me. Some were primarily of the worldly mindset that offered attention that met my enthrallment. The spiraling effect of addiction is that when something just doesn't satisfy any more, like a mild narcotic, you need something "stronger" to meet that old level of satisfaction. Over time, the pornography and sexuality increased as sin is inclined to do. Through the years, I delved into disturbingly dark areas of pornography of which some utterly repulsed me and others that by all rights should have. I had seen the disgusting underbelly of the pornography world on the internet and its earlier predecessors.
The Walk-Away
When my father had filed for divorce, the church we were members of dismissed him from the pastoral position. It would be the last pastoral position he held. This was also around the same time that sexual problems with many high-profile pastors were coming to public knowledge. Reflecting on my own activities, I reasoned "If these men of God act like that, then I'm not that bad." I would use that as my excuse.
Although the pornography began early, I found myself now thirty years old, both parents gone, and my grandfather had passed away leaving me with no responsibilities apart from to myself. I had walked-away from Christian fellowship after my father's dismissal as a pastor, and I was mostly reclusive in my home. It was abundantly clear I could freely seek out pornographic material at any time of night or day and from anywhere in the world thanks to the abundance and ease of availability provided by the internet. My inquisitive and curious mind took me down many dark paths (details of which I do not discuss with people because such filth does not need to be injected into their minds).
During that period of life, I still believed in God, I was still a "good person", but I was living life my own way and for my own pleasure.
The Run-Back
The timeline around this event is a little fuzzy. Sometime around 2002 to 2004, I found myself engaging frequently in email conversation with a friend named Steve (whom I now claim as a brother as if related biologically) while we worked. Steve had once been married to one of my nieces, but we hadn't really met until later in their marriage, and then we became close friends after they divorced.
One day, we found ourselves discussing a theological issue. I do not recall the topic, but I was convinced I was correct and he was in the wrong. But then it dawned on me: whether right or wrong, he was supporting his position by using scripture; I could not not.
I then started trying to recall some of the scriptures I had been taught from my earliest years: John 3:16-17, Psalm 23, "The Lord's Prayer", any of the "Beatitudes". I could not recite any of them.
At that moment, an immense fear filled me with the realization that I had forgotten God's word. With that realization, my eyes were also opened to just how far I had wandered into utter evil of pornography and sexuality. The discomfort and heartbreak was palpable, and the end of the workday could not come fast enough for me to leave that place.
That very night when I got home, I destroyed all of the hardcopy and all of the digital collections of pornographic material I had amassed. I gathered all of the discs of photographs and videos I had collected, piled them on the kitchen floor, and smashed them with a hammer as I wept and begged God to deliver me from that filth. With opened eyes, I resolved to ensure their destruction would not allow that material to find its way into the hands of another wayward person as had that massive collection of magazines my friend and I discovered decades before.
Not only was that addiction broken that night, the fear that had been a defining characteristic of my life was broken too.
The Search
I began attending church again. Steve quickly became like another brother and his parents became like new parents to me. I eventually settled into the church Steve's parents were attending, and became a member there myself in January of 2006. Beginning at that church, I began relearning things about scripture and doctrine that I had forgotten.
As financial needs arose, I began to look for additional part-time work. I prayed to God: "Father, you know my situation. It is my intention to get a part-time job. If it is Your will, place me where You will use me." My personal desire was to work at one of the two local Christian stores.
Wednesday afternoon I put in an application at Lifeway Christian Store and was told they were not hiring. That evening I repeated that earlier prayer.
Thursday afternoon I put in an application at Mardel and was told they were not hiring. That evening I repeated that earlier prayer.
Friday evening I prayed again, but now telling God that I would give those locations two weeks and if nothing came through, I would begin submitting my application everywhere.
March 2006, on the following Saturday morning at 9am, I received a call from Lifeway Christian Store's manager asking if I could meet him for an interview at 11am. By 11:15am I was a Lifeway Christian Store employee. I stayed with Lifeway until we closed the store (as part of the chain closure) in June 2019. After a group of us finished cleaning out and double checking the emptied building, the manager and I walked out. Last out of the building, he turned locked the door for the final time closing that amazing chapter in my life.
God mightily answered that prayer for part-time work. It stabilized my financial condition, but it had a greater effect on me than that. During my thirteen years of working at Lifeway, I grew personally and spiritually with leaps and bounds because of the vast amount of resources I had access to; the deep Christian fellowship with many mature Christians, seminary students, and seminary graduates; and wonderful Christian friends, coworkers, and customers. I made good friends with both coworkers and customers that I still have contact with today. That experience was truly a God-send.
During that time, around 2009 to 2010, a large number of us left the church we were attending due to internal strife that was spiraling out of control. A group of us settled at a different church together. After several years there, my new parents moved to be nearer to Steve and his new wife as they were having children of their own. I continued attending there for a while, but I had not connected at this church, and I wasn't feeling growth within me there.
One of my coworkers at Lifeway, Mike, had moved his family from Michigan to attend seminary and had taken a staff position at a local church. Aware of my not connecting at the church I was still at, he asked if I would attend the church he was with his family. He was still new and making acquaintances, and said he'd feel more comfortable having another familiar face to help him settle in. I happily agreed. Several months later, circumstances arose that necessitated Mike to move his family back to Michigan.
At that time another Lifeway coworker, Dannah, asked if I would start attending church with her. She and her family had moved to the area from Oklahoma a few years prior, and they were moving back home. In the meantime, she had gotten engaged so she was staying. She hadn't made connections at her church, and didn't want to go by herself. Since I had not connected at the church Mike had been at, I agreed to join her. Her attendance became sporadic until she finally just stopped attending.
A short time prior to these two events, my very dear friends Pete and Dodie (another Lifeway coworker) invited me to check out the church they had started attending. It was a newly established church, and the lead pastor was one I had listened to a few times and whose teaching method resonates with me. I started attending this church called Christ Community Church in late 2016.
Home
Christ Community Church was almost instantly "home", but simultaneously wasn't. I was keenly and uncomfortably aware of the very different socioeconomic level that I came from compared to the people at the church. While it was bothersome to me, not a single person treated me les than anything but an equal child of God. And it only took a sermon or two from the lead teaching pastor of the time, Tim Lundy, for me to know beyond a doubt that I was to be at this very specific church.
But that difference (sizeable in my eyes) between me and everyone else kept nagging me and prompting me to ask God often, "Why do You have me here? These aren't my people."
From January through March 2017, I was attending a special series of classes at the church on theology. It was being taught by one of the staff pastors at the time. My thought was what better way to make sure that the beliefs of the church were solid and biblical than to sit through a sanctioned series on theology. I was not disappointed.
In May of 2017, I went through the process of becoming a partner/member of the church, and I participated in the symbolic tradition of signing the "Family Table" on May 21.
People had been recognizing and greeting me warmly for some months already. My feeling of becoming part of this church was strong, but I was still asking God "Why?" and still waiting for an answer. Little by little though, I was starting to get plugged in.
After confessing my questioning why I was led to this church, a wise friend, told me: "No, they aren't your people. But they and you are His people. That's why He has you here." I have been at peace since.
The faithfulness to biblical teaching, intentionality of Christian living, and the absolute authenticity of every person I have met at Christ Community was what made it "home".
Service
On August 13, 2017, I officially became part of what was called the "Pod Squad". Some weeks prior during the annual Spring volunteer recruitment, I had volunteered for any and everything. One of the pastors on staff contacted me about working on that team.
Currently (2024) the church is in the process of constructing its own building on its own land. At the church's inception, small services were held in people's homes. As it continued to grow in membership, it began meeting in a Christian School. As part of the lease agreement, the school allows the church to use a number of its classrooms for the children's ministry.
Early every Sunday morning before church (and for special events throughout the year), the "Pod Squad" team photographs and diagrams the classrooms allotted for church use. The team then pushes all of the school furnishings to one side of the room to open up the floor space. We then bring in children's ministry furnishings from a storage pod situated near the building to the designated classrooms. These furnishings include wall panels, changing tables, folding tables, children's chairs, tubs of toys, rocking chairs, jumpers, walkers, strollers, and all sorts of imaginable items required for children ranging from babies to older elementary.
After the church services and events, the "Pod Squad" team returns the classrooms to their original arrangement. All of the church furnishings are returned to the storage pod and the classrooms are set back how they were found based on the photographs and diagrams made that morning.
While a team group performs either the morning set-up or the afternoon tear-down every other week, I and the Squad leader are there each Sunday for both set-up and tear-down. Being a regular with this team of servants has resulted in me making genuine connections and strong friendships as well as being recognized by and connecting with other church partners as a whole.
Not The End
That was a really long post, but it covered a fifty year span of life.
The most important part though is that God was not and is not finished with this story. As if the personal transformation He worked in me to this point isn't staggering enough by itself, there is even more!
Check out a mind-blowing continuance in Part 2!
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