June 17, 2007

• A Time To Be Thankful Again....

  This weekend marks yet another important event in my life. you see it was one week after my 16th birthday, that I became a Christian. I know I have been promising this for a while, and I thought that this would be an appropriate time to share some of my story.

  My mother took me to church ever since I was a year old, because it was then that she became a Christian. She faced quite an uphill battle with my father for quite a few years because he didn't like her to go many places, including church. but while my mom was pregnant with me, even though she wasn't a Christian yet, she had made a promise to the Lord that she would give me to Him, in thanks for allowing her to have me. Well, after I was born, my folks fell on hard times, and just barely got by. After several months the promise that she had made to the Lord began to come back to her mind. Naturally, she began thinking to herself about all the reasons why she couldn't take me and go to church, the two biggest reasons being my father, and the fact that she didn't feel that she had good enough clothes. Well, thankfully God knew Her thoughts, and began setting things in motion. Not too long after my mom had these thoughts, a package showed up on the doorstep. My great grandmother from Virginia decided to box up a bunch of nice dress clothes that had belonged to one of my aunts that had died. I guess she was close in age to my mom. My great grandmother had no idea of my mom's need, but yet she felt led to do that. My mom said that she realized that her reasons for waiting were being dealt with, so she called up one of my aunts and asked her if she could go with her to church. Soon after, she went forward and accepted Christ. And despite my father's complaining, she kept going whenever she could, taking me along. Fast forward sixteen years, we are living in Florida by then. My mom and I had flown to Michigan for a week to visit family, and celebrate my 16th. That following Sunday we flew back home to Florida. I remember when the plane touched down in Tampa I thought about how thankful I was to God that we had made it safe. We got back in time to go to church that night, and so I wanted to go. I loved church. That night we had a guest speaker, Rev. Mickey Winters. His sermon was about two identical twin brothers, Ron and John. He said that they were exactly alike, and all through their lives, they did everything the same, but in the end, one was saved, and one was not. Till this day, I don't know why, but something in that message really got to me, and I remember feeling really strange, like God was trying to tell me something, like maybe, just maybe, I wasn't ready to meet Him. On the way home mom let me drive the car, and I remember as we were heading down the road, I heard this voice in my head, and it said, "If you're not really saved, then you can do anything you want!" And that really bothered me, because that was NOT something I would consciously think for myself. That night when I went to bed, I could not sleep for thinking about that. I tossed and turned, and then around 2:00 in the morning, I finally prayed, "Lord, if I'm not ready to meet you, then please help me to get up and find my mom". And you know, it felt as if the covers were lifted right up so that I could effortlessly slide out of bed and go to my parents room. I woke her up and asked her to come to my room for a minute. When we got in there I told her, "I need to do it right." Oddly enough, she knew what I was talking about, and together we prayed, and I made things right, by making sure that I had accepted Christ. And you know??? Till this day it still brings tears to my eyes whenever I think about it, because it showed me how much God loved me, and I pray that I'll never get over that.

  Of course things were not all peachy after that. My um, "issues" didn't really surface until about two years later. You see, when it came to girls, all the males in my life always equated liking a girl or girls to having erotic thoughts or feelings, and to me, who had spent most of my life around females, found that to be horrifying!!!  And as my delayed adolescence began to finally kick in again, I began to figure out that if I felt the need to have any of those "kinds" of feelings, that I could feel and think them about guys, and no one would have any idea what I was thinking about. I guess I must have thought it was a good idea, because well, look where it got me to today   But let's not forget that even though I had no idea what "gay" was all about, and couldn't figure out why all the guys in school called me "faggot", "queer" and "gay". Looking back I guess I had quite a few, though not all, of the typical characteristics, I was shy, soft spoken, had no interest (or exposure much) to sports, learned to play mainly with girls, and wanted to be an interior decorator. Dad wasn't around too much the first 12 years of my life, because he worked and drank a lot. He got hurt at work and had to retire at age forty, and also had to quit drinking and smoking at that time, or die, the doctors told him. So he then went from hardly ever around, to becoming a stay at home dad, and by then, my personality was pretty much set in stone. To say that we were, and are, opposites, would be quite the understatement!!!

  Now, for the sake of time, let's fast forward several years to today. Daddy and I still are opposites, and he still thinks I'm about sixteen or so, but thankfully he is beginning to soften up a bit, in that I think he is realizing that I am not going to change in my personality, and that if he wants to keep me around so to speak, then he is going to have to learn to express love, which is something he did NOT get from his father, for my grandfather (whom I never met, he died about seven years before I was born) was really mean to my dad. But thankfully since my dad became a Christian a little while back, I can see where God is doing a work in his life, and I'm so grateful!!! 

  And now for a small bit of irony...Thankfully, my parents have never noticed, or found out about, my little bitty problem, you know, ssa.  So yeah, I don't know how I'm ever going to tell them about what I feel I have been called to do!!!

  If you all could, please keep me in prayer. Despite everything, the devil has really been throwing temptation my way lately. A lot. And I don't want to return to it.

  And finally, on a more upbeat note, I have less than two weeks till the XANGA SUMMER TOUR '07 BEGINS!!!   Or in other words, till I get to visit with Danny, Jonathan and TM, I can hardly wait!!!  To the three of you, you all have no idea how much I am looking forward to this, because this is like, seriously, going to be the highlight of the year for me!!! The friendship I have found in each of you had blessed me in so many ways. I truly hope that our time together will not only be fun, but fruitful, in that I hope that within all the laughter and tears, blessings from God will flow, and we will all come away with something that will help us grow, not only as friends, but in our walk with God. So be prepared, because even though as of now I'm not sure where we will meet in that fair city of Chambersburg, PA, I do know that great bonds of friendship will be forever sealed, because as Michael W. Smith once sang, "And friends are friends forever, if the Lord's the Lord of them..."

  I love all of you sooo much, seriously.

  Oh, and one more thing, for those of you getting ready to leave for Exodus, have lots of fun, take lots of pictures, and prepare for Heavenly rain to fall down upon you there, because I'm praying that God will move mightily there. And if you could, tell Casey and the rest of the guys that I said hello!!!

  Next week I plan to tell you a little about what I got to experience up here in the "Corner of Nowhere", AKA the Tawas's. It should make for a good story, so stay tuned.....

  With Love,
  Your Friend,
  -Richard.
  

  • 2:29 am
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