Timothy Kline: Thoughts and Reflections

Jesus loves me, or so the song says...

As a child, I used to sing the song Jesus Loves Me. The words went, “Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong; they are weak, but He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me; for the Bible tells me so.”

But that innocent joy had left me there in Lake Odessa. I gradually left off from desiring to go to Sunday School, although I was forced to go from time to time, when my mother needed a break from three rambunctious boys on the weekends. I no longer looked forward to it like I used to. That feeling of emptiness did not diminish even after we moved to Hastings, Michigan, shortly after I had started the fourth grade (my mother always seemed to choose to move AFTER I had started a new school year).

It was a difficult transition to Hastings. I had suddenly been torn away from my friends there in Lake Odessa without so much as a goodbye. I had to figure out how to “fit in” to the new school, although it did not go well. My fourth grade teacher seemed to single me out for cruelty. It was the year that I also got eyeglasses and had to deal with the teasing of classmates. To adults, such teasings seem trivial and benign, but any child that experiences it can tell you without a doubt that it is definitely NOT trivial. It is haunting, devastating, and downright scarring.

The move to Hastings also saw the greatest escalation up until then in my mother’s depression and dark moods. The slightest thing would set her off and there were countless times when she inflicted whatever pent-up rage and frustration she was burdened with on one or all of us boys. We learned to spend a great deal of our time out-of-doors to avoid her, which helped to minimize the abuse.

I don’t quite remember how, but at some point, I had made the acquaintance of the Buehller family down the street. They were an older couple who attended the Hastings Baptist Church, and invited us to go, which we did–probably at the behest of my mother. We went Sunday mornings to attend Sunday School, and on Wednesday nights to participate in AWANA.

A part of me enjoyed going, but it was a small part and I still could not regain that love that I had back when I was still an innocent child. I did enjoy the AWANA program, however. It was an outlet of energy for me. We had races and other contests to start off the evening, before going off to our assigned groups where we would work our way through handbooks, learning scriptures and principles and earning merit badges–similar to Boy Scouts, yet spiritual pursuits rather than nationalistic ones.

As I said, I enjoyed the activities immensely. However, the studying portion of the AWANA meeting was tedious and boring for me. I couldn’t see the point in learning all of these things, even though many of the other kids seemed to enjoy the challenge.

In looking back, I think a part of me felt that way because none of it seemed to apply to my reality. It was all too neat and tidy and warm and fuzzy. It didn’t reflect what I knew.

I mentioned earlier the song Jesus Loves Me. It is a simple, succinct song meant to inculcate in children an initial love and appreciation for God and for Jesus. But the words had come to mean nothing to me. Somewhere inside me, I couldn’t seem to shake the anger. If Jesus loved me, why did he let such terrible things happen to me? Why was I raped by a molestor on numerous occasions? Why was my mother always angry at everything I did, and always hurting me? Why, if Jesus loved me, did he not protect me when I was weak?

I didn’t dare ask anyone for the answers. Part of the reason was my shame. I felt dirty. Violated. I felt like a wicked child who, as my mother would often tell me, “Had it coming” to me because I was “worthless” and “good-for-nothing.”

But even though I didn’t ask, the fact was that even then I was wrangling with the things I was being told that I needed to believe. I wanted to believe them. Of course I did! But I couldn’t seem to bring myself to. It just didn’t match what I was having going on in my life. If Jesus loved me, why wasn’t he protecting me–first from that molestor, and now from my mother who, it seemed, wanted so many times to outright kill me for some reason beyond my comprehension.

The fact is that domestic abuse and child abuse has as one of its “rewards” a sheltered life. What I mean is that it becomes the family secret. As a consequence of that perverted “honor system,” my perception was that all families were like mine. That left me even more confused, because I’d see other kids and they always seemed so happy and carefree. They were obviously hiding the misery of their lives far better than I was managing. And that made me prone to quick tempers and schoolyard fights.

That’s not to say that I don’t have any fond memories of those years, times when I was happy. I loved my sixth-grade math class, for example. The teacher introduced me to “whiffleball” where we would all–at the end of class–get to sit on our desktops and throw a plastic ball to one another, while trying to do so in a way that got the receiver to drop it. It was sort of like a conservative dodgeball contest, without the whipping of the ball at one another. Dodgeball, too, became a favorite activity of mine. I’m sure I was especially drawn to it because it was a release of pent-up frustration and a way for me to face up to others in a constructive way–even the teachers. At the risk of boasting, I will go so far as to say that I was one of a handful of players who could take out pretty much anyone–even the teachers. There was Andy R., Doug C., Lyle G., and a couple others. We threw hard and everyone knew it. On the girls’ side there was Kim G., Amy A., and Sue K. who were the consistent champs. Dodgeball was really good fun, but always too brief.

It was in Hastings that I also learned that I had a gift for writing. That wasn’t discovered until I met Mark Anton, who wrote these short story mysteries that were somewhat modeled after The Hardy Boys mysteries. Mark had become my best friend during my time in Hastings, although we didn’t get to spend much time with one another outside of school itself, due to my mother’s controlling nature and need to not have us boys more than a house or two away from home.

That was my start in the world of writing. I decided to try my hand at writing these short mysteries, but with Mark and me as the stars. I kiddingly referred to them later as a cross between Scooby Doo mysteries and a very lame version of the Hardy Boys. Mark’s stories were far more based in reality than mine, and more interesting, whereas mine tended towards the fantastical usually. But they did serve to awaken in me a hunger to hone that gift.

It would be my 7th Grade English teacher who would prove to be my greatest motivation to explore writing as a gift. Her name was Mrs. Hund, and the impression that she had on me has lasted down to this day. I admired her and I marvelled at this teacher who was able to bring words to life. I can’t say that I always enjoyed having to write themes and essays or book reports (few kids do!) but she always encouraged me to pursue my avid love for writing, all the same. It was during her time as my teacher that I came to love words, too. Here, at long last, I had found a way to say what did not know how to say. I could put together words and express myself that way.

Too, I had discovered fantasy as a genre. J.R.R. Tolkien was my first exposure to the fantasy novel and I was enthralled almost immediately by the possibilities. In fact, I left off from writing mysteries and turned to fantasy instead. It became an escape for me as I wrote about imaginary people in impossible situations. Too, it gave me a way to let out some of the emotions that would often swell within me, by having my characters have them. Mostly, such emotions were uncontrolled of course. And, my characters were linear; each would be representative of a specific emotion and their identity would be derived from that emotion.

It was very basic stuff really; but all the same, writing came to me at a period in my life that I most needed it, I think. And in spite of my mother’s every attempt to humiliate me about it and take it away from me, I think it made me ever more determined to continue. I had found the voice within me, and nobody was going to take it away from me. Not ever.

My propensity towards dreams returned while living in Hastings, as well. The more disturbing ones were those that actually happened later, just as I had dreamed them. Others were event-based, accompanied by a sense of terror and dread. These were of an apocalyptic nature, and even though I was no longer a child, per se, these were no less frightening. As before, I kept them to myself, afraid that if I spoke of them aloud, I would be thought of as crazy or, worse still, they would happen.

It’s hard to relate how we rationalize things while we are young. Our life’s experiences are so limited, and therefore what we experience must be contextualized by our mind’s limited prior experience. It’s like the way we recognize that an apple is an apple when we look at one–because we’ve seen one before and our brain has stored that visual and the accompanying facts so that the next time, we know it’s an apple.

But how does a young child’s mind explain otherwise illogical, irrational dreams that then actually occur. Especially given the fact that adults respond with “It was just a dream. It wasn’t real.”

Again, it goes back to what I was talking about earlier with the song that sings about how Jesus loves little children, and how that declared fact is incompatible with the reality experienced by the child undergoing molestation and abuse. The two do not synchronize, and therefore the mind is left fumbling for context. The two facts are incompatible with one another, yet our mind tells us that one of them must be true, even if they are not mutually true. And, of course, the experienced reality takes front stage. The molestation and accompanying pain, guilt, and shame are tangibly and verifiably real. If Jesus really loved me, if Jesus really was strong while I was weak, then he would protect me from harm until I no longer was weak and could protect myself from bad things. Again, this is how I as a child fought my way through the dilemma.

It was the same way with the dreams. To be told by people that they were just dreams, that they weren’t real, did not match with the reality when I, as a child, saw those dreams become reality. It brought into question the dreams which had not yet happened, had not become real. Would they? And how could I, as a child, know which was which?

I’m not referring to the dreams of a typical child as the sleeping body gives way to the powerful mind that files and stores information through that marvel-inspiring means that we call dreams. My dreams went far beyond the normal, sometimes to disturbing degrees. Especially the apocalyptic ones. I won’t relate them here, but suffice it to say that if they are to come true, the world as we know it will become a much different one than we know today. At the same time, there is nothing to say that those dreams cannot yet come true. While they were very specific in detail, there was no indication as to time of occurrence.

Still, in spite of the return of the dreams, as well as my resumption of Sunday School attendance, my spiritual side remained far off from myself. And it would be several more years before it would be reawakened in a whole new manner that would take me onto a new path in my spiritual journey.

The dreams, however, would continue, darker and more terrifying than ever before.

I am a survivor of child abuse and molestation

I could never have imagined that within a year or two of my declaring that I had accepted Jesus as my savior in the warm, gently lilting waters of Jordan Lake at the tender age of 7, that I would have forever taken from me my childhood. I would never have imagined that it would only be a year or so after I had publicly and proudly declared that I loved God and wanted to live for Him that I would have my innocence stripped away, replaced by a mantle of shame, self-loathing, and deep-seated pain.

Now, some 33 years hence, I can talk about it. But it wasn’t always that way. It was a long, difficult, often errant path to this point, actually. I kept the incident my shameful secret, and at times I was convinced that I had deserved it; that I was a wicked, wayward child and therefore had no reason to complain or question the matter.

It cast a pall on my life and a dark shadow across my intimate relationships as I grew into maturity. It skewed my perception of love and normalcy, although there would be additional factors that would exasperate the situation still more.

I am, as you may have surmised, a survivor of child molestation.

Because of a child’s limited vocabulary (thus their lack of a means by which to express the heinous act) and their lack of capacity to process such a brutal, insidious crime against them, only another survivor can possibly relate to the level of shame, self-loathing, and disgust that results from molestation. However, the very nature of sexual abuse is such that it becomes a very private secret. A violation of cataclysmic proportions has occurred, against nature itself, and yet the child is left with the conviction that they either deserved it, or they are flawed to such an extent that there is little to no redeeming quality to be found, no matter how hard one looks.

For example, much of my younger life was filled with responses to my express hunger to grow in knowledge and learn all that I could. I applied myself vigorously to school and to reading from a very early age. In some ways you might say that I was precocious–although I don’t think I would go that far in describing myself. The response from the adults that surrounded me, however, were, “You’re the one that’s going to make something of himself some day,” and other similar commendations. I never believed it for a minute. For me, it always came back to “If you knew this about me, you wouldn’t be saying that. You’d be disgusted and never look at me the same again.”

And Oh how I wanted people to like me, to approve of me. Because I sure didn’t like me.

For survivors of child sexual abuse and molestation, it’s an incomprehensible feeling of one’s own filthiness and abhorrence. We feel it within ourselves and are absolutely convinced that everyone else can see it when they look at us. We sense that they’re patronizing us with their commendations and appraisals and pats on the head and back in some pathetic attempt to help us to cover over the pervasive sense of filth that oozes from our very core.

Some become so scarred and damaged by the experience that they become victims of sexual abuse and molestation. Others manage to somehow muddle their way through the trauma and go on to have functional lives. They are the survivors.

But although they are survivors, they are no less traumatized than the ones who become victims of such an insidious violation. Lasting happiness may forever elude them. Relationships become difficult. Trust becomes near impossible. They manage to find a way to function in the real world, nonetheless and in spite of the perpetual turmoil that goes on within them. But an inner sense of peace, while constantly sought, always remains painstakingly elusive.

I can recount the details, even to this day. I remember the threats made as I protested. I remember experiencing the onset of terror in a very real and tangible way, and then subsequently sodomized on several occasions. It became, or so I was told by my rapist, the price I had to pay if I wanted to continue to be able to visit with my grownup friend Bill. Because if anyone found out, they’d never let me come over there again. And I cherished that friendship too much. I cared for that father-figure of a man too much. On some of the occasions, Randy threatened to even kill Bill, and if that happened, it would be my fault. Of course, I still felt a tremendous sense of guilt for what had happened to the neighborhood bully that terrible night, and so I bought into the threat.

It’s ironic, though. I say this, because my mother was so suspicious of Bill and worried over my being around him too much. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out that word had gotten around that Bill was a homosexual. She had been worried that he might or did try something with me, she finally confided when I was an adult. My response was simple and concise: “No, mom. Bill never did anything to me. Never even intimated such a thing. Randy, on the other hand, raped me over the course of several months.” She was aghast.

Much later, I learned that Bill had died as lonely as he had been when I knew him during my early years. Randy, on the other hand, had been arrested several times for selling narcotics and drunk driving. Some part of me for a very long time wished that he had died like that neighborhood bully had died. Violently and with finality. I never felt guilty about that wishful thinking.

I was molested again years later, by another male who had succeeded in winning his way to my heart and managing to become a father figure to me at a time when I so sorely needed a father. But it would be the last time that someone would ever get away with imposing their perverted lust on me. I was older and more hardened by the ongoing duresses in my home life, and thus better equipped to put up a fight and get away with at least some of my dignity intact.

But it convinced me more than ever that I could not trust anyone. To allow myself to become a friend to someone was to leave myself exposed to hurt and potential exploitation. In an attempt to make sense of the futility of my existence, I turned to drugs and alcohol.

I was the perfect candidate for drug and alcohol abuse, actually. As I mentioned earlier, my mother had taken a turn for the worse following the initial separation from my father and subsequent divorce. She was a single mother trying to raise three rambunctious boys who were very much lacking the direction and discipline of a father. Following her attempted suicide, she took to bouts of anger and frustration. Much of it was exhausted on us boys as she resorted to physical abuse and oral berations. It continued to intensify for years, reaching extraordinary yet horrific levels by the time I had reached my teen years. It was always so unexpected, yet expected. She’d be having what she termed a “bad day” and one of us would be the “last straw” at which point the beatings would begin, along with a string of hatefilled epithets about our worthlessness and being just like our father, etc.

Even that, like the attempt to rape me by another molestor, came to an abrupt end, when I was sixteen years old.

We were living in Ionia at the time. It was the beginning of my rebellious period, which was set into motion by the sudden, unexpected surprise one day as I was coming home from the bus stop. We were living in Hastings at the time. We’d moved there from Lake Odessa, and we had a small yellow cabin up on a hill overlooking Algonquin Lake. We’d lived there since my 4th grade in school, and I had made one good friend and also established quite the reputation for both my absolute rage (unleashed one day on the playground upon a fellow classmate named Troy, whom I to this day am absolutely convinced that I was on the verge of killing in response to boyish teasing or bullying or some other forgotten motivation). I had a few other fights after that, usually instigated by a bully named Tony, but over time the fights diminished, henceforth committed to the annals of childhood I imagine.

In any event, and before I digress further, I was convinced that I would graduate with my friend Mark, and we’d go on to college and live happily ever after with our other school pals, etc etc etc. Such are the dreams and aspirations of a child in denial, I suppose.

It was my ninth grade year of school. I was a freshman in Hastings High School, daunted by the enormity of the school and the lofty expectations of the faculty and curriculum.

It was only a few weeks into the start of that school year when I got home that afternoon and was told that we were moving. Where, I asked? Why?

To Ionia, I was told by my mother. And the why was not for me to worry about. Just get in the car because we had to go.

She had managed to have everything packed up and moved out while we were gone to school that day. There had been no warning, no hint, that it had been in the works. I was, to say the least, absolutely floored by the sudden revelation. I never even had the opportunity to say goodbye to my friend Mark, or anyone for that matter. It was as if, in the minds of everyone who had ever known me, I had vanished from the face of the world.

I didn’t take the upheaval of my life very well, either. I became despondent and rebellious. I hated everything about Ionia. It had been a huge source of misery for me, and here I was right back there again. Well, I decided, I’m going to make her regret it.

I started skipping school, for one. I would, instead, go down to the city library and essentially hang out in the upper floor pretending to research papers. I did that the majority of the time, actually. The rest of the time, I’d sneak home and hide out in my room.

My resistance was not met with well by my mother, of course. Her frustration escalated and the abuse became more and more volatile in nature until one day the following summer she had managed to corner me in my room with a board flailing in the air and landing on me a few times as I wailed and tried to run away from her in terror.

It was then that something welled up within me, and I turned on her like a frightened, cornered beast. I shoved her down hard on my bed, climbed atop her, pinning her down fiercely, and roared at her: “Don’t. Ever. Try. To. Hit. Me. Again.” I felt the rage pouring from my very core, and I’m sure I looked like a wild beast, but I didn’t care. I wanted to make it suddenly and unequivocally clear that IF she ever tried to hurt me again, she would be sorry. Very sorry.

Miraculously, she never did try to hit me again. Not with her hand, not with a belt or a paddle, not with a steel flyswatter, not with a switch or a board. She never laid a hand on me after that day–even though to this day she swears up and down that I tried to kill her. I know that I didn’t, although I’m sure I could have–if I had been so inclined. I just wanted to make it clear that I would not be her target any longer, and I did not want there to be any mistake about my determination to ensure that it never happen again.

It was like something went off inside me. I snapped, I admit. And who wouldn’t, after enduring years of parental physical, emotional and mental abuse–not to mention the molestations I had endured. Human beings have their limit. I had reached mine.

Somewhere amidst it all, I drew away from God as well. My initial joy and love for spirituality and God and Jesus and worship was stolen from me through the events following my baptism. The abuse, the rapes, the upheavals and uncertainties had all managed to erode me. My soul. That part of ourselves that can’t normally be hindered or meddled with. I had my childhood stolen from me by the time I was 8 years old, and I spent the next 8 years after that trying to make sense of my perception of a twisted, dangerous world.

I had thought that I wanted to serve God because He was loving, gracious and kind. Yet He didn’t do anything to protect me, either. What sort of God allows that? I didn’t know and I wasn’t so sure that I cared any more. What mattered was survival, and the only person that I could depend on for that was me.

[End of Part 3]

Life changed forever after my baptism

It was within a year or two of that momentous event of my baptism that I described in the earlier entry that my young life was filled with an unimaginable turmoil. I say “unimaginable,” because to the mind of a seven and then eight-year-old child, some things are beyond comprehension. Some of the events I related in a separate work titled Welcome To MY World, but to bring context to this account I will repeat some of the details. The events that follow are etched in my memory and I only relate them here because they remain so clear to me as when they happened.

There was a neighbor boy who would constantly taunt and harangue me. Every chance he had, he would try to pick a fight with me, until one day he finally provoked me to the point that a fight ensued. I remember being held by his larger brothers so that he could beat on me mercilessly out in the front yard of the duplexes. I was pummeled pretty good that day, and when it was over I felt nothing but rage and hate. It was blinding, seething, pent-up yet boiling over. I picked up my bike that I had been pushed off from, turned to the boy and raged, “I hope you die!” and ran home before he could catch me.

That night, as I lay there feeling sorry for myself and hating the bully, I fell asleep and nearly immediately fell into a dream where I saw the boy riding along in a car with a man during the night. Suddenly, the car door opened and the boy fell from the vehicle and was killed as the man drove over him with the rear tire of the car. I remember waking up in a cold sweat, everything had been so intense during the dream. So real. And eventually, finally, I went off to sleep again.

The next morning, as I was about to go outdoors, my mother told me to leave the neighbors alone, to stay away from them. I asked why and she told me that there had been an accident and something bad happened. She said that the boy had gone to visit with his father for the weekend, and had fallen from the car and was killed. I remember my initial response, coming from the mind of a frustrated, angry eight-year-old boy, “Good!” But that glee was soon replaced by dread after the initial shock of the announcement set in. I remembered going to sleep that night wishing that he’d die. I wanted him to die so much. Had I caused his death by the sheer extent of hate and rage that I had?

I wish I could say that an eight-year-old child could answer those questions, but I couldn’t. To this day, I sometimes wonder whether I didn’t play some part in the tragedy that befell him. I am left wondering what really happens when we allow our darker emotions overpower us to the point where our will becomes steeped in primal barbarism and instinct. Nearly everyone I’ve ever told this to has told me that it wasn’t my fault, that it was a coincidence. And I want to believe them, I really do. But there remains that part of me that can’t help but think that in some way, I did play a role, even if it was peripherally. The family of the boy certainly held me responsible. They had nothing but spite and disdain for me after that day, remembering what had happened to me, what I had said to him, and what had happened. But they never bothered me again after that day, either.

It wouldn’t be the only time that I was given to dreams that eventually “came true,” either. They seemed to come at regular intervals in those days following my baptism, plateau during my teenage years, resume from age 17 onward, and then diminish to irregular occurrences since my early 30’s. Today, they are fairly irregular, but no less intense and fear-inspiring.

On another occasion around that period in my life, my mother tried to commit suicide.

It was on a night that she sent me and my brothers off to bed earlier than usual. Maybe it was something in her tone or her voice, but whatever it was, I remember lying there in bed afraid. I kept wanting to go check on her. One time, I actually did. She was lying on the couch, no blankets or anything. I asked her if she was okay, and she told me to get back to bed, which I reluctantly did.

I don’t remember how much time passed, but I went back out to check on her and George, the man that she had been dating, was there. He was shaking her, trying to wake her up. I asked him if she was okay and he told me that she was “playing possum.” Somehow, I knew it was more serious than that. The next thing that I remember is riding in the station wagon in the thick of night, my brothers and I still in our pajamas, George driving really fast, and mom asleep at his side. It wasn’t until many years later that I would learn that she had tried to overdose on sleeping pills.

See, my mother had recently divorced my father. Our place in Lake Odessa was what she had managed to get as a single mother with three boys after the initial separation from my father. Most of it was kept from us boys, of course, but there clearly was angst and distress going on with my mother. Apparently, enough to drive her to the cliff of despair and willing her over the ledge. But we were young, and we didn’t understand all of that stuff. We just knew that on various weekends, dad would come visit us, and the rest of the time he didn’t.

In any event, that suicide attempt was only the beginning of the turmoil which would consume my home.

Actually, maybe I had been more aware of it than I was consciously aware of. My brothers and I took to loving to be outside. For me, bike riding was an escape. It was a sense of adventure and independence and soaring around the world at breakneck speeds. At least in the mind of an 8-year-old it seemed like that. Back then, the world was so big, and the possibilities endless.

As I would ride my bike up and down the sidewalk of Second Avenue there in Lake Odessa, I would see an older gentleman every weekend carry from his house armfuls of boxes. He would then bring out several tables and pull the contents of the boxes and place them on the tables. There was oodles of stuff, all of it priced. Every weekend he would do this, and every weekend people would stop and buy from his array of items. At one point, I finally allowed my curiosity to get the better of me, and I stopped to see what he had. And I kept doing that for a couple weekends, and each weekend he’d talk to me and ask me if there was anything that I saw that I liked. And of course there was! There was a treasure trove of memorabilia–at least in the mind of a young boy. But I always had to tell him the same thing, I had no money.

One weekend, he asked if I’d help him. I could carry out the boxes for him while he set things up on the tables. In exchange, he’d pay me and then I’d have some money to get whatever it was that seemed to catch my eye every time I stopped by. Of course, I readily agreed. He told me to make sure it was okay with my mom, to get her permission.

So, I raced home to ask. My mom seemed awfully reluctant when I told her about the man, but she finally relented after much Please mom! and other boyish pleadings, but only after she made it clear that I was to come right home afterwards. That was enough of an answer for me, and I profusely told her Thank You Thank You and raced back to let the man know.

And so it began, my weekend adventures in yard saling. The first few times I was absolutely awestruck by the number of boxes that he had stacked there in his bedroom all along the wall. I had never seen so many boxes. I would find out during one of our conversations that he went to auctions all of his free time, and would then try to sell the items in his yard sale to the locals, for the extra money. He seemed to do really well, too.

He was my first real adult friend. I admired him. He was the most kindest-hearted person I had ever met. In many ways, he became a father figure to me in the absence of my own father. Like my dad, I could only see him on the weekends because he worked the rest of the week. But in many ways, he seemed so lonely, too. He seemed to enjoy my company, and he tolerated my endless chatter in ways that my mother didn’t seem to have the patience for.

My mother still expressed her disapproval of my ongoing associating with “that man” but never stopped me from going over there. Nor did she ever tell me why it was such a worry for her. For me, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong, apart from the man’s loneliness, as he lived alone. And even then, there were sometimes weekends when he had a much older kid stay over on a Friday or Saturday. The term I’d use nowadays would be that the older kid (early 20’s?) crashed there. In spite of that, I always got the impression that the older kid was not liked by the man, who’s name was Bill. But for whatever reason, he tolerated letting Randy (the older kid) stay there from time to time.

The most exciting times for me then were when I rode along with Bill to the auction sales. I had never been to bazaars and auction sales before, and they were a whirlwind of activity and bustling people and a cacophony of voices above the stir. People would gather around a man standing on a platform and raise their hand in beat to his cries, it seemed. Afterwards, I’d help Bill load his purchases into the car and we’d take it all back home to store for the following weekend’s yard sale.

It was only after doing that for the entire summer that I finally managed to get my mom to let me stay at Bill’s for a night. The deal was, I’d help him with his yard sale the entire day, and at nightfall, I’d help him carry it all back in and help him count his money. Afterwards, he’d feed me dinner, we’d watch tv, and then it was time for sleep. In my mind it was an exciting new adventure. As always, my mom expressed her reservations and I wore her down with my typical boyhood reassurances.

The one thing I remember most about Bill’s house is the absolute quietness of it. There was none of the chaos that I was used to at my home. It was smaller than my house, about half the size. A small kitchen, a sitting room with a television, a bathroom, and the bedroom with no closet. The only closet was the one out in the pseudo-hallway that led to the bedroom and bathroom, off from the sitting room.

I wasn’t always allowed to stay the nights at Bill’s, though. I’d sleep on the sofa when I did. Occasionally, Randy would show up and ask if he could stay a night or two, and Bill would reluctantly but graciously allow him to. I found myself liking Randy less and less over time. He’d tease Bill and berate him in ways that reminded me of when that neighborhood bully would taunt me unceasingly. But I enjoyed my time with Bill, as well. So I put up with Randy so that I could see Bill every chance I got.

But something would happen shortly afterward that would change all of that, and forever change me, as well.

Take of life's waters free

I first became familiar with the Bible when I was very young, as far back as my memory will carry me. I remember the large, oversized ivory-colored family Bible on the table in front of the sofa, with its holographic picture embedded into the cover, a portrait of a long-haired Jesus that would shift to another picture where Jesus was standing at a door and knocking.

I remember pulling back that thick cover to reveal the pages, and I remember being captivated by the pages of red-letter text on many of the pages toward the back of the Bible. I was too young at the time to read, so it was the coloring that first grabbed my attention. That, and the utterly beautiful illustrations that had been placed throughout that Bible.

I remember staring into those pictures for the longest time, taking in the exquisite attention to detail. A whole story unfolded from each singular moment captured on canvas. Some were joyous, others were evidence of despair; yet all of them together constituted my first impressions of the book that so many hold dear: The Holy Bible.

In time, I learned to read, as children often do. I remember unmeasured hours poring through the pages of a series of books called “The Bible Stories,” published by the Seventh-Day Adventists. I was living in Lake Odessa, Michigan, at the time, and apparently, the Seventh-Day Adventists–who were based in Battle Creek–were going door-to-door selling their various books which included Ellen G. White’s thick volumes of exposition about the Bible, the aforementioned Bible Story books, and the Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories collection, which were stories with a moral or lesson to be learned. That was around the same time that my mother purchased a complete set of World Book Encyclopediae.

The Bible Stories collection was a remarkable piece of work and in many ways it still is. The artwork is stunning, and the writing level makes for very accessible reading to a wide range of ages. They capsulized much of what I had always been drawn to in that family Bible. I learned about Creation, and Adam and Eve, as well as the story of Cain and his brother Abel. I learned about the Flood and a righteous man named Noah. I learned about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who were the founders of a great nation called Israel. And, of course, I learned about David, Solomon, and Daniel. Not to be forgotten were the stories about Jesus and the men who believed what he taught about God’s Kingdom, men who faced hatred from their own people yet stayed the course in order to teach others about Jesus and the promise of God’s Kingdom.

Of course, the more I learned, the more questions I asked. A lot of them, apparently, because my mother decided that attending church as the answer (at least for her, because she was an agnostic and had no interest in all that “religious” stuff.

The first church I attended was the Nashville Baptist Church, in Nashville, Michigan. It was their Sunday School, to be more specific. The bus would come by early on Sunday morning and pick me and my brothers up and take us–along with a few neighborhood kids–off to Sunday School. There, I learned how to look up verses in the Bible, the books of the Bible, and how to read the accounts in the Bible straight from the source rather than from books like The Bible Stories. It was a lot different, reading raw text and having to visualize things, and I would often summon up the imagery from the books and use them as a foundation, and fill in the details from there using the Bible.

Of course, Sunday School also included child-friendly sermons on such subjects as being “saved,” who Jesus was, baptism, and other niceties. But it was all taught at a level that matched the comprehension of children, and I was one of the few that seemed to appreciate it while other kids fidgeted and found pageflipping to be a worthwhile distraction.

One particular memory that I still have to this day is that of a challenge that was presented to my Sunday School class. We were to memorize the 23rd Psalm, and in exchange for our hard work we would receive our choice of 1) a fishing pole; 2) a gift certificate to some restaurant; or 3) a metallic cross, in either silver or red, on a chain necklace. Each subsequent Sunday, one of us boys would take our turn at the recitation. The Sunday School teacher would help the person when they faltered, until the Psalm was recited. Afterwards, the boy would be given his choice, and upon making his decision, the reward was given.The majority of the boys chose the fishing pole, probably because it was the most expensive “prize” being offered.

When my turn came up, a few weeks later, I blushed and stammered and stuttered my way through it. It was harder than I had imagined it would be–my first evidence that I did not have the gift of public speaking, that’s for sure! But I muddled my way through the ordeal, I was asked to make my choice and I timidly said that I wanted the cross necklace. Several of the boys snickered because a necklace was considered a sissy’s prize, but the Sunday School instructor ignored the snickers and asked me if I had a preference for color: the silver or the red. I said that I wanted the red one, because it represented for me the shed blood that Jesus gave up that I might live forever. The instructor told me that I would receive my prize the following Sunday School, because he had only brought the fishing pole and gift certificate with him, since those were the only ones everyone seemed interested in.

Sure enough, the following Sunday I was handed a small gift box, and inside it was the metallic red-colored cross hanging from its lightweight chain necklace. I wasted no time in putting it on; I didn’t care what the other boys were whispering and giggling about, and I wore it all of the time. I was very proud of that piece of jewelry, because deep within my heart I knew what it represented to me, and that was all that mattered.

That same morning, the instructor also handed me my very first personal Bible, a red-leather King James Version, complete with Jesus’s words in red text. It became my companion for a very long time.

That summer, the church pastor was arranging for baptisms to be carried out at the Jordan Lake in Lake Odessa, and inviting the public to the sermon that would be given before the baptisms were performed. Without hesitation, I made up my mind to be one of those who were baptised.

The day arrived, and it was a perfect day. The air was warmed by a slight breeze, the lake was welcoming the crowd with its gentle wake upon the beach. The pastor spoke from one of the pontoons, and when he was finished, he invited all who wanted to be baptized to step forward. I was one of the dozen or so who stepped forward, and if memory serves me correctly, only one of three children.

I won’t soon forget how warm the water was that day. It was like entering a bathtub. The breeze that had been blowing earlier was now stilled, as if the whole world was watching this scene of people getting baptized in Jordan Lake, myself included.

I was led out into the water with the person holding my hand and arm to give me stability. When we were out to the proper depth, the person asked me if I accepted Jesus as my savior and had repented of my former sins and was dedicating my life to serving God. I told him yes, and he told me to pinch my nose closed, and that he would be tipping me backwards into the water until I was fully submerged. I did as instructed, and a few pounding heartbeats later I felt myself plunged beneath the waters of Jordan Lake. All sound went muffled as I found myself in a state of sudden weightlessness. And then, just as suddenly I was raised back up.

It was an immensely powerful moment in my life, one of those moments when I felt closest to God. It had such a deeply spiritual impact that I now look back at it with a sense of appreciation that I could never have had before now. In that moment of my coming up out of those waters, at the tender age of seven, I felt renewed to such a degree that I think the majority of people could never possibly relate to. From being that young tyke who was first drawn to the family Bible, to having access to the Bible Stories books, to Sunday School at the Nashville Baptist Church, it all played a role in my life, in establishing a foundation upon which I would build my Life. That moment when I rose up from those waters, I felt such a sense of being clean and approved and alive! I felt, dare I say, the very presence of God’s holy spirit. It was a comfort beyond the words of a seven year old, but no less real.

Years later, there would come a time when some would try to belittle that experience and convince me that it meant nothing, that that moment when I said without reservation that yes, I did accept Jesus as my savior, that I did repent of my sins and that I did choose to serve God with my whole heart, mind, and spirit–that that moment amounted to little more than a lie.

But the reality of what happened to me the day I was baptized at the age of seven, the witness that was borne to me by my God when I was but a child yearning to learn about Him, could not so easily be undermined. To this day, it stands as a testament to my profound tenacity, even as a child, to take the need I have for God in my life to be as serious–if not more so–than anything else. And it was not an experience that was duplicated at my second baptism many years later, a baptism that I underwent at the behest of those who insisted that my earlier baptism was insufficient and invalid. But I will touch upon that more in a future entry.

In any event, in spite of the learning, probing, and questioning that went on up to that day at Jordan Lake, the day of my baptism proved to be only the beginning for me in my ongoing quest for insight and understanding about myself, others around me, and about the God that I serve and worship.