I am engaged to a Lady who lives 7000 miles away from me. We are planning to be married in May of this year. We have a relationship beyound what my heart could have imagined. It will be 2 years for us this January. We met here in this site.
Here is my path God ordained for me leading up to finding my hearts desire.............
If you have yet to learn trials in life and hardship are good for you. My life was one hardship after another from the very beginning.
I was born into a disfunctional home. I am the 5th born of 5 boys. I was born to a mother who lived in depression and fear and to a father who was controlling and dissconnected.
Esentially I was born into a home as a orphan. Devoid of love and tenderness. Full of strife and contension. We were shunned by our neighbors. Shunned by our relatives.
I was born alone into this world. Isolated..........
My only escape and comfort in life was the television. The TV is were I began to dream about the life I was going to have when I grew up. The tv is where I began to develop what my wife and home would look like. Of course it would be a perfect life.
The life in the real world was vastyy different. A crampted and cluttered house filled with all kinds of junk. Older brothers who invited me at the age of 9 to have alchohol and pot. Older brothers who invited me into their world of escape.
But God...........As I look at those two words BUT GOD. It brings great emotion into my heart.
When we are alone and hurting. When we think no ones cares. BUT GOD.............I sure hope you the reader has may experiences that you can say personally. But God........
I have been here in this site now for the greater part of 3 years and always wanted to write my story. I have tried to be an encouragement to you and i hope my story is the greatest of encouragement.
Because this is a love story. The love of God for a little lost boy who was hopeless and helpless.
So now I am around nine years old. Tv is my life and drugs are part of my escape. The only way I know how to communicate is through yelling. I am now part of this wild pack of animals called boys.
In that day their was this small local group of people called Baptists. They used to send a green bus around and this bus found my older brother. The eldest of us. He was introduced to church activities and another lifestlye he never knew. What I am told is the our dad found out about this and began to attend this baptist church with his family including me.
My dad grew up in a chatholic home one of 12 children and a twin at that. I latter found out he rebelled against the chatholic church and had great hatred for it as well. Something must have happened to him that created such hatred in his life.
We were all filled with hatred toward the world and eachother in the house I lived as a child.
A hatred that even at the age of 9 was beginning to cause me to be hard and without emotion. Having walls around my heart so great to protect my self from pain and further suffering. Dead inside........A young dead child.
Well I have to go for now. i will pick up latter for you.
So here I am a young boy still living in the late 70's. My head is all jumbled with life. Many of my childhood memories were repressed because they were just to painful to deal with growing up. Every now and then I remember something and can process the emotions in a healthy way.
I am attending this baptist church with some of my family not sure if all were there. I do remember our dad cramming us into the car on a hot day and going back into the house for some reason leaving us to burn up in the car. This happened quite often.
Needless to say the beginnings of church life was not that great for us. But when we got to church i really enjoyed the crafts and the teacher interaction with me. I am not sure how long we attended there because all i remember is moving from church to church.
Its funny, the other month I was working in a area where we attended a Messianic fellowship called Beth Emaneul. My mom was Jewish and my dad German. I was remodeling this bathroom and on the way I was telling Jason my helper about this fellowship I used to attend as a youth.
One day we went out for lunch and walked to Mcdonalds for lunch. It was only a block away and parking is difficult to find in the city especially for a truck with a trailer.
You know when you are walking you nottice things that you might not other wise. Well I did that day....Would you know this fellowship I attended as a youth was just on the next corner from the house I was working on? I also have a picture with my mom and brother by some water and now I think I know where it was taken.
On city ave their is a resivour of water. It is fenced in now but I believe it was the place we had a memory together and captured a picture of it.
God is good!!!!!!
So here I am attending this baptist church and you know churchs have basements and basements are great places for refreshments. Refreshments and sunday school. But our sunday school was held in an annex trailer. I think the basement was small at least that is my childhood impression.
So here I am in this church basement surrounded by adults. It was quite threatening of a feeling to be surrounded by so many. I probally had a panicked look on my face come to think of it. This man came up to me. I always though him to be a usher for some reason. Maybe he was a angel sent from God.
Either way he is a faceless memory. I remember he wore a suit. I think grey in color. Maybe a bit thin in the hair line on top. I remember looking up at him but I dont remember him crouching down to me. I am sure he must have though. Their were lots of noise I am sure unless we are the only ones left after everyone had left.
Or maybe he cought me woundering alone in the building and that was why he approached me.
Either way this man introduced me to John 3:16. He introduced me to how much God loves me. He introduced me to Jesus Gods Son. He introduced me to the sacrifice Jesus made for me due to my rebellion. He explained to me how if i believed in God and His Son I would have everlasting life.
Now everything of what he explained I did not comprehend except for one thing. Someone loves me....................
How could anyone love me because I am worthles and broken. A outcast and a mockery. Just writing about it and feeling it again I am brought to tears.
I am loved, I am loved. But what is this love of God I thought and I wanted to know this God who loves me. This day was a BUT GOD day for me. The first BUT GOD day.
It changed my life and my path for good. The expressive love of God told to me by another.
So here i am left with two paths laid out before me. The worlds path and Gods path. Their must have been 10 or 11 years of my seeking to determine what path was best. What path I wanted for my self. What path had more to offer?
What path?
The world around me seemed to be having such fun. The indulgences of sin was very appealing and I indulged my self. But everytime I indulged in something that was suposed to fulfill my life after it left me empty and alone still. In the end I was left to my self and all the pain I had inside of me. Nothing ever made a difference in my suffering and pain.
So I decided to give my life to the church and bible reading. We dont realise this but we try so hard to make our selves lovable. We try so hard to be what people might want that we wont be rejected.
That was my life of partying and the same went for my life of church going. I thought maybe I had a better chance of being accepted by these people if I knew my bible and looked a certain way. This was not a concious thought but unconcious. That deep need to be accepted and loved still plagued my heart.
Their was only one problem......Me....My hard and lifeless heart prevented me from really being able to receive love and give it. My fear of being rejected and hurt. My need to protect my self prevented me from having the very thing I so desired.
So again I took another path. This path was the worst of them all. This path could have left me dead forever. The path I took was being a good christian.
I would learn from the bible how to become a good christian and then I would be accepted and loved. I would learn the bible and have all the answers that I might be the one people would value and come to for answers.
You see being dead inside I was able to pretend very well. I was the best at trying on masks of various colors and disguise. Was I concious of such a thing? No I wasnt because I was dead inside.
So again as before i developed my own covering. I covered my self with the face of religion. My ego and pride grew and grew. My self righeousness grew. But I knew how to appear humble. At least I thought I did.
Well it worked well enough for me to meet some girls and have confidence enough to persue relationships. Not only was I good in hiding I was best in manipulating. I was living a lie. I was lieing to myself and lieing to everyone around me. Lieing is a pretty good coaping mecanisim.
In fact I was much like a robot always performing diagnostic checks on my self. Making sure i was remaining good.
41There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. 42And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most? 43Simon answered and said, I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most. And he said unto him, Thou hast rightly judged. 44And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. 45Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. 46My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. 47Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. 48And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven. 49And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also? 50And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.
You see .......I had not discovered my heart and the great debt I owed as of yet. I knew I was a sinner because I had done bad things.
I had stolen, cursed, done drugs and abused alchohol. I realised all of these outward actions that made me guilty before God. But something was still missing..........
I had yet discover my heart. I had yet discover how deep the rabbit hole really went. How deep the hole in my heart was and is. How great my need was for salvation. But that is another time.
I am now a young man or so I thought. In my early twenties. I am attending a church on a regular basis. Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia. I am a good christian man or so I thought and things just are about to get good.
They are because God is gearing up to do some difficult work in my life through one person. Work I was incapable to do on my own.
God was going to allow me to find a young lady and marry her.
What a great feeling to look back and see who I was and what God has made of me today, Glory to God.
Jesus teaches about 2 foundations One foundation is of sand and the other is of stone.
As we know stone is unmovable unless you have some explosives, haha But as you know if you ever been to the beach whenver you stand and the waves come in it undermines your footing and you have no choice but move your step to another place of risk falling down.
M journey began as a young man standing on stifting sand. You see house is our lives and what our lives are built upon. The building of our house is FAITH.
Faith in what? Exactly
As a young man even reading the Word for years now where was my faith? What is faith?
Faith is a trustful experience with God. Trusting God.
Fear is the opposer of faith. So we have faith and fear. Faith is the solid rock and fear is the sifting sand. Faith draws us to God and fear causes us to hide from God.
So what do you think my life was filled with as a young man? Faith or fear? Fear fear fear..........
How can a young man lead a wife on fear and how can a young lady follow a fearful young man? So here we have two young people me and my wife now begining life together. Both of us filled with fear.
Every young couple including us are well meaning when they marry. We just hoped that things would work out. Well things started off rocky and got even worse. We played our parts of husband and wife and we tried our best. But something was truly lacking.
Honesty.................Neither one of us knew how to be honest with eachother out of fear of rejection. We decided to have a child together after a couple years of marriage thinking building a family will help us find what we were looking for.
Many of our thoughts were unconcious and we didnt really know what we were getting our selves into. Neither of us knew how to walk a right path se we were the blind leading the blind.
I tried to lead our family according to scripture but my example was a dad who used scripture to manipulate. So what do you think I did? I was sincere in my efforts but I ws clueless to the destruction I was causing in my wifes life.
I was not guilty alone because she had her own ways of manipulating through word and expression. So here we are a young couple using eachothers weakness to manipulate eachother to get our selfish needs met.
Go figure it didnt work out for us, right?
But God..............God had other plans and He used the very situation to begin to develop the sandy foundation into a rock. Its funny ..........
I had the rock but it was in my heart rather than under my feet. A hard heart that needed to be made soft.
Time passed and we went about our lives together the best we could. Our daughter began to grow. We strted out living with my inlaws for a year and then got our first apartment together.
Like young ladies do she made it nice and frilly to the best of her abilities. We had a couple of dogs.
We went through some hardship together but seperate if you know what i mean. Our trials we experienced as a couple never brought us together but it just developed a greater wedge between us. I had great difficulty taking responsibility for my actions and so did my wife.
I dont know if she ever did this but I would have to say one of the most destructive things was my sifting blame to her. I think she tried to connect with me over things but I would turn it around on her. She only wanted to express her self but I was always defensive due to my insecurities.
My wife wanted to move closer to family. Not that we are that far away but I agreed and we found a new apartment closer. It was small....Even smaller that the last one. It was one bedroom. So our daughter took the room and we set up a bed in the dining area. It was a gloomy apartment not like the bright one we left.
It was all we could bearly afford. We both had issues managing money but I did something that really contributed to her leaving. I was not honest with her about a tax debt that i had prior to marriage. I brought into our marriage over 10,000.00 in tax debt that she was not privy.
I was afraid to tell her and you can imagine the break down in trust that caused with her when she found out about it.
So here is this young lady married to this lieing, manipulating, controlling, legalistic, fearful, clueless man. What do you think she did?
Packed her things and ran for it. She took our daughter and moved then to North Carolina where her mom was now living seperated from her dad. We were in Pa.
I had all this pent up anger inside of me. Rage if you will. I didnt yell, I didnt hit, I didnt curse. But it was there and the wall of my heart kept this animal caged until........
You know if we go back to the beginning to Adam and eve and see that everyone shifted the blame on someone else. God the woman you gave me. It was the serpent who made me.
Well I was good at blame shifting as well and God knew this. BUT GOD also knew I had all of this anger inside of me. Just writing about the beauty of Gods interaction with me here brings tears to my eyes.
wiping eyes and moving on.
Jesus not only was He strong enough to endure the wrath of God victorious but God knew I needed a outlet of my anger and wrath.
