My story starts with other people coming into my life and bringing Christ with them. I had always been, what I thought, a real nice guy. My parents had always raised me to be polite, to help anybody who needed it, and to generally be a good father and friend. I was. I didn’t smoke, drink, or cheat on my wife. I was a hard worker, had a couple of great friends, and was there for my family. Sure, I had my demons. I loved accumulating stuff, spent money like I was printing it myself, and was pretty deep into porn, but wasn’t everybody? What more could you ask for?
My wife and I had been married 12 years when she was approached by her boss about going to a Christian Women’s Conference with her. She accepted and found Christ at the event. She knew I was pretty anti-religion, and pretty much kept it to herself for a while. She did start going to a Bible study once a week, but I was more annoyed that it meant I had to do extra chores on Tuesday night after work because she was there. It was being a pain in MY butt.
Over the next few years, several other people came into my life. I had a refinisher come to the house to look at stripping and refinishing our staircase. After he had looked at the job and given me a bid, he told me about his re-birth in Christ after having been busted for using and trafficking drugs. He had been clean for a couple of years and had returned to his family profession to stay out of trouble and clean. I was a bit surprised to say the least, but actually enjoyed listening to him. He got the job.
A contractor friend of mine whom I did work for told me one day he was going to school to become a pastor, and that he would be leaving the contracting business when his schooling was finished. I again was very surprised, and a bit bummed because he was one of my favorite guys to work for. How could Dan leave me in the lurch like that? I did hire him to redo our kitchen, and it was the last job he did before leaving for Peoria to start preaching. I miss him.
It was around early 2006 when my wife’s pastor, Tom, started calling me, asking if I would get together with him for lunch. ME? “Uh, no. I’m busy that day, week, month, etc.” Then he asked about breakfast before I went to work. He was flexible. “No Tom, I start real early, and don’t usually eat breakfast. I like to sleep.” Then one day he showed up on my porch, and asked if I would listen to a couple of cassette tapes he had made. I reluctantly agreed to listen to them, and I did. They were good, but kind of pointed. I knew where this was going.
Then one night he showed up during dinner. There was no escape. The kids, Julie and I were all sitting there. How was I going to avoid him in front of the kids? So I answered the door. He asked if I had listened to the tapes, and what I thought of them. I said they were good, and did he need them back? “No, no. You keep them. I want to ask you something else.” Great, another lunch request, I thought. “Have you ever heard of the Walk to Emmaus?, he asked. He said it was a weekend retreat for guys to get to know each other and God. There was a weekend coming up, he was going to be speaking there, and wanted to invite me. It wouldn’t cost me a thing other than a couple of days. He asked if I would at least think about it, and to let him know. I said I would and would get back to him. He left and I went back to dinner. My wife asked what he had wanted and I said that I had just been invited to the Walk to Emmaus. “Isn’t that what your Mom just went to last spring? “Yeah”, she said after she picked her jaw up off of the floor. “Are you going?” she asked, almost giddy. I said I didn’t know, but I would talk to her mom about it.
I talked to her Mom and got a little info, but not a lot. Then I remembered a friend of mine from work mentioned church from time to time. So the next day I asked John if he had ever heard of this weekend. He just looked at me and mentioned he knew a little about it. Why? I told him the story of our visit the night before with the pastor. He then informed me that he was on the leadership team for that weekend. So I relentlessly quizzed the heck out of him for the next couple of days. He was great and answered every question. I went home and told Julie several nights later that I would go. I had no idea why I was going, but that I would go. She was ecstatic! She had wanted to go for the longest time, but rules dictate wives are not to go until after the husbands attend (story on that later), so we scheduled my trip with hers to follow the next weekend.
Tom picked me up and took me to the camp where they hold these retreats on Thursday night. I won’t go into detail of the weekend, but lets just say that by Saturday afternoon, I was wondering what the heck I was doing. It wasn’t bad at all, but I knew I was in the wrong place. I did know another guy who was a contractor I work with and we kind of latched onto one another since he was there for the same reason, although he wasn’t as uncomfortable as I was. Pretty much everyone there knew I wasn’t a Christian, but were very outgoing and friendly.
Saturday night we had dinner and then a service afterward. I again won’t go into details, but something happened to me that night. I was sitting there in the chapel just watching and listening and saw guys going up to the cross they had there and kneeling at it and praying. It wasn’t really an alter call, but they had just let us sit and think and pray after the small sermon. But all of the sudden I just started crying. I tried with everything in me to hold it back, and even started getting a little ticked off because I couldn’t understand why I was crying, and why I couldn’t stop. The harder I tried, the more it came. I sat there for what seemed like hours, (but probably not more than 10-15 minutes) crying when Pastor Tom came over and put his arms around me, and I cried even harder. It is so hard to describe, but I believe I was filled with the Holy Spirit that night. I told Tom I had to go outside, and couldn’t be in the building anymore. He reluctantly agreed and I went out onto the grounds outside the hall and sat on a bench next to a fire pit, in the dark, looking into the dark silhouette of the woods around the camp. I started mumbling something about not knowing what was happening, and saying all the stupid, cliché things like “If you are trying to tell me something, give me a sign!” and of course, nothing happened. I finally went back to my cabin after I knew everybody else was in bed and went to sleep. I awoke the next day and everything was different. Everything that happened that last night was burned into my memory. I saw Tom before the sessions resumed and told him everything. He said that I needed to tell everyone what had happened, so at the end of the day, the speaker asked for comments about the weekend. A lot of people stood and talked about their journey to Christ, and some gave a mini-testimony of sorts. I stood up and told everyone that I believe I had found Christ that weekend. It was almost deafening the roar that was thrown up as everybody came over and patted me on the back and hugged me (awkward!), but it felt great. When I left, I walked by the fire pit again, and realized that the trees I had been staring at, and sometimes screaming at the night before had a wooden cross planted in front of them, staring right back at me.
I went home and my wife met me at the door with what can only be described as a beaten puppy look on her face. She was almost cowering, unsure if I was upset about being drug there or not. It is not a look I hope I ever see on her face again. I took her in my arms and hugged her, saying I had a great time and explained what I thought had happened. She also just cried and cried, but at least they were tears of joy. We stayed up until about 4 a.m. talking, crying, and talking some more. Luckily I was warned ahead of time that I needed to take Monday off.
I have since made some huge strides toward my walk with our Savior. I joined our church, was re-baptized (my choice), and have become heavily involved in the church as a whole. I still have some problems that I continually ask the Lord’s help with, and I still fall to temptation on occasion. But I know the He is always there with me, watching me grow in Him, and I know that when I need Him (and I know I will), He will be the first to lend a hand, dust me off, and get me going in the right direction. All I need to do is ask.
About a year ago, I had a friend from church come up and hand me something. It was a slip of paper Candace said she had found in her Bible and thought I should have it. She said she had received it at a service that Julie and my daughter, Aurora had been at. They were asked to write a prayer on that slip of paper, place it in a basket, and then draw out another and to pray for that person. I opened it up and in my daughter’s 10 yr. old handwriting was “that my daddy would know God”. I still believe that Aurora had more to do with my re-birth than almost anything else. Her prayers saved me.
Steve (zh)
