W Is For Would You Believe I Have Finally Written More Of My TESTIMONY? Part Four

In the last segment of this testimony, posted almost two years ago, I was writing about my high school and college years.  This was the critical period in my walk with the Lord because over those few thoughtful years I came to know both my sin and my Savior.  Through a progression of observations I had come to realize, contrary to my early presumption, that my neighborhood was not perfect, that my classmates were not perfect, that my parents were not perfect, that my big brothers were not perfect, and even that priests and the church itself were not perfect.  Ultimately, and you may find this hard to accept, but I finally came to admit that even I...was not perfect!

I came to discover later that the Bible would codify and clarify what I had observed for myself.  In Romans 3:23 Paul speaks of what God had long known about people: "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." This understanding is only the first step in the walk of faith I had begun to take.

As the following years came and went, my sinfulness--my natural bent--was continually apparent. But God's grace to cover my guilt under the sacrifice made for me by Jesus Christ, and his forgiveness and redemptive power could handle it.

Over 35 years have passed since I stood up at a convention in Chicago, in response to a challenge given by Bill Bright, the founder and head of Campus Crusade, and gave my life to God.  I accepted the free gift of salvation offered by God, which I could never have earned for myself, but which Jesus did for me.

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul says to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling."  This is not referring to some effort to EARN salvation; that is already accomplished.  But how do we APPLY this great gift to our lives? That is what we must be "working out" over time, and through the many challenges life brings.

My challenges?

Since my conversion that New Year's Eve in Chicago, so many and varied things have happened.

With my first girlfriend I sang at the Catholic "guitar mass" every week, but eventually broke up with her and the Catholic church.  My beloved Mom died about the same time, after just a few months struggle with cancer.  I met my wife, Kiki, at Mom's funeral.
I was flown to a couple of job interviews after graduating with a degree in Geology, but ended up working in a factory for a year. I then moved to Alaska and worked for a summer as a geologist in a mining exploration camp where I got to fly off to "work" every morning by helicopter, before joining the staff at a Christian school in Ketchikan.  Kiki and I were married there, that fall.  Victoria was born to us the following year, and one of the long term missions of our lives (parenting) had begun.
Through our nine years in Ketchikan we were members of a great church and found wonderful teaching, fellowship and ministry opportunities there.
I drove tour bus for two summers and was at the wheel when my bus load of 54 passengers rolled into a ditch. Several years of legal issues began (I was sued for ruining the sex life of one of the older couples!).  I began to work as a carpenter that year (1984).
We suffered a miscarriage in 1985, but Noah was born in '86 and gave us great joy!  We soon bought our dream home out in the country and near the ocean, and Josh came in 1990 to make our family complete.
A year later we decided to move back to Wisconsin, selling all and virtually starting over.  Dad died the next year ('92), as I was struggling to find the best work opportunity. We found another good church and rented several homes, including an old farm house we enjoyed for one year, and then moved again to a new town and a new church.
Raising kids and battling bills, and fending off medical mayhem filled quite a few years. The kids are all adults now so only two of the three issues pervade our lives today.

Through it all I have found that being a disciple of Christ and having a connected relationship with God is so very critical.  Temptations and threats and disappointments and failures and achievements and joys and drudgeries and pains and triumphs and peace.  These things all take their turn in relation to our bodies or our souls (mind, emotion and will), but when my spirit is in touch with God's spirit, walking with him in obedience instead of independently, the circumstances of life have little impact on the real me.

I have come to a few basic prayers that rather sum up my Christian walk:

"Lord, don't listen to me."

I pray along these lines to God when I recognize that what I might otherwise be asking him for is purely selfish and does not take into account what HE might see as the most important thing.  It is my way of confessing that my flesh is still sinful and greedy, and of saying, "your will be done, not mine."

"It's you and me Lord."

SO very often in this life we face frustration and disappointment because other people just don't get us. (Or is it just me?) Whether it's in the family or outside, there are always so many built in impediments to true understanding and deep friendship; basic linguistic blockages or hidden neurosis can interfere and leave a person feeling distant and lonely.  In a crowded room or on one distant edge of a shared bed, a person may feel horribly isolated, but our creator God would not leave us there.  GOD is never out of reach, or out of touch. Through the giving of his Son, Jesus Christ, and by way of our mere acceptance of this gift, God has opened a way for us to enjoy the very best of fellowship with himself!










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U Might Like To Read More of MY TESTIMONY: PART TWO

Continuing from yesterday's post.


And so I lived, thinking that my own natural status was the standard others should judge the truth by.
All on my own I decided that the Catholics were messed up, that my parents were overzealous and that I wasn't going to make some of the mistakes my brothers stumbled over either.

After four years of an all boy seminary boarding school, and I was finally exposed to GIRLS when I went to public college in Wisconsin, I began to discover how naive I was.  I invited one girl to my dorm room to "play cards" and when all we did was play cards (no quotation marks required) she tried dropping hints on my numb skull when I walked her home.  She told me she collected Playgirl magazines.  That was too much for me; and anyway, she was a Lutheran!

Most of my HS friends had followed our priestly examples and had learned to drink beer and mixed drinks.  I never could stand beer, though I learned to hold a full can long enough to blend in with the gang.  And I guess I could stand a screwdriver as long as it was mostly orange juice.  One time, our math teacher took a bunch of us (underage students) to the pizza place in town and I drank too much dark beer (which I could actually imbibe, probably because it was mostly sugar).  I remember getting out of his car and running across the front lawn of the school that night thinking; "So this is what drunk is!"  Even though I did fall down once (Egad!), I had to drum up the realization that I was drunk because it wasn't any more of a thrill than a good book, or a good grade on a math test might produce.  And that has been my only "drunk."  I have never experienced all the excitement of puking on a girlfriend or standing and peeing in my parent's bedroom garbage can.  I don't really get it when coworkers talk about such "exploits" or boast about their hangovers.  Woe is me!

But as a college freshman, when Wisconsin's drinking age was 18, I did fall for the marketing maneuvers of a certain company.  "Riunite on ice; that's nice!" they told me in their commercials, and I started buying and drinking wine all alone in my single room.  I felt no serious outside pressure from my friends to drink, nor any to abstain, from my parental home, though Mom and Dad never did know what I was doing in my isolated world.

Finally I found an alcoholic drink that I liked!  But as I was carefully experimenting with life choices, all on my own, it occurred to me that when I drank wine, I became different.  "Duh!  That's the idea right?"  Yes, but remember I was "born right the first time...blah blah blah" and I did not like my spirit being altered by other spirits, so to speak, and I quit drinking.

(Skipping ahead a bit: My first very serious girlfriend (and present first wife) told me about the trauma of her childhood alcoholic home.  I quickly resolved that, if we married, she would never have to fear a similar situation in her own new home with me.  Nor would she ever have the near temptation alcohol might provide if it came into our future family life.  "Thanks Riunite, for helping me settle the matter early!")

Then came the "knock on the door"!








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T Is For MY TESTIMONY: PART ONE

Some would claim that there is no better apologetic (a reason for believing) than a personal testimony.  I am not sure if that's the case or not, but an eyewitness account, given in terms common to all, and the testimony of a few generally reliable witnesses, can readily settle a matter in a court of law where the truth is honestly sought.  Here I offer my own personal story of how I came to believe that Jesus Christ came in the flesh of a man, though He was "one with God," and of how that admission changed my life.

Born in 1958, I was raised on Chicago's south side as the sixth of eight Catholic children.  Our folks were strong Catholics in the sense that not only did they bring all of us to church (where we filled our own pew), but they brought church home to us.  We knelt and said the rosary every night after dinner (unless we were made to sit at the table even until our cold mashed potatoes were all gone), and every year the 2 or 3 foot statue of Mary was brought to our home for a week and the neighbors came there for some special prayerful function or other.

Four of the five boys at least made a stab at the seminary high school.  I put in four years at the boarding school seminary over in Michigan.  The real reason I was there (I can admit now) was because I felt a calling to the 600 acres of wooded sand dunes and 2 miles of Lake Michigan beachfront the school owned.  I had told my Mom when I was 12 that "I either want to be a priest, or a construction worker," but early on my innate romantic nature determined that I would end up married, and not celibate.

Through those four years with a live-in, day to day contact with a bunch of priests ( fallen people) and a preponderant repetition of daily morning prayers, mass, and evening prayers (man-made religion), I lost any deeper attraction to Catholicism that might have been engendered otherwise.  Yes, I was molested by a priest in one short-lived incident, and I know that other boys were more victimized.  At least the one priest that "checked me" for a hernia when I reported sick one day was later kicked out of the priesthood.

Before I ever left home to go to school, my folks were somehow exposed to an "evangelical" group of Catholic friends, and they were "born again"   (John 3:3)  At various times my Mom tried to pin me down to explain what that meant, but perhaps because I was the sixth child I was very independent minded.  It seems that I pretty much took care of myself.  Even "spiritually."  I remember saying, not to Mom, but at least to my own stupid and insolent soul that "I don't need to be born again;  I was born right the first time!"

And so I lived, thinking that my own natural status was the standard others should judge the truth by.



To be continued.......





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