I have another blog. It's called 'Remains of the Daze' and when I started it I wasn't sure where it was going to go. There are many facets to my life; I'm a homeschooling mother of seven who also helps her husband run his contracting business. Life here could go in any direction at any given moment. So it ended up being a posting of my musings and writings, many of them reminisces of my past. It takes me a bit of time to post on that blog as I always want it to be perfectly polished and have accompanying photos so it is sadly lacking in number of posts. I still wanted a blog that sums up my daily life and focuses more on the spiritual aspect. In the past year I've really begun to understand more (as if we could ever really understand) fully the function of God's grace in my life. If I can be a blessing or lend insight to one person in their spiritual walk then I've exceeded my goal. I'm a Born Again Christian and this is my story.
It was almost Easter of 1988. My live in boyfriend, Builder, was raised Catholic. Since I had been raised in the United Church, I had been bringing our 2 girls, Gwen and Mandy, to a United Church Sunday School. I'm not sure what it is, about turning to spiritual things after having children. You can live like the devil, yourself, but you want your kids to know God! Anyway, I had been asking Builder to go to church with me on Easter morning but he hadn't answered me yet.
A few weeks earlier, a friend of his had called and asked to visit. He was one of the many young people from Ontario, along with my boyfriend, who had migrated out west after high school. Although Ken (not his real name) had not finished grade nine he had an entrepreneurial spirit. After leaving high school, he and a friend had bought farm equipment and had done custom harvesting. He was able to buy several farms before he was twenty. Out West he started a trucking business which had done really well until his partner left the business unexpectedly. They decided to return to Ontario. He was older than I, but had grown up a few miles from me and I had gone to school with his wife, so I knew who they were. I thought the visit was just intended as a catch up. Our home was often a drop in center for our stoner friends who stopped by regularly to smoke up or who showed up drunk in the middle of the night to crash. However, Ken had a different reason to drop by. When he arrived, after making small talk, he began to talk about God and being saved and how it had made such an impact on his life. Builder was interested, but I left the room. I had heard it all before.
The first time I heard the gospel was in high school when a Christian band named Free Fare performed at an afternoon assembly. They were funny and used volunteers from the audience to impersonate characters from Star Wars. It was 1977. The show was well attended because it meant an afternoon out of class. It also included a gospel message and a free poster.
During high school, I took a job at a local restaurant as a waitress. It was next door to the Pentecostal Church. You have to understand the spiritual climate in the small farming community in which I was raised; if you attended the Pentecostal Church, you were just plain weird. As my fellow waitress and friend, Marg stated: the locals were all God-fearing Presbyterians. Not completely accurate. Hometown was a town that boasted three, huge, century-old churches on one corner, not three miles from where I was raised; United, Presbyterian and Anglican. There was a Catholic Church and school on the other side of town and another small white building that said “Church of Christ” on a small sign in front, but no-one knew anyone that actually went there or what they believed. The Pentecostals were a recent development in the community. There was an incident of a local vandal running down the middle of Main Street, naked, with his head shaved, at 5 am, who had supposedly been converted and that pretty much scared off anyone from going there, so we God fearing _______, steered clear! The Pentecostals invaded the restaurant where I worked every Sunday evening. What was wrong with them that they had to attend church two times on Sunday? Couldn't they get right with God in one hour on Sunday morning? In lieu of a tip, they left me tracts. Little pieces of paper that warned me of hell fire and the end of the world!
My next experience with a Born Again Christian was in another small town where I worked for a short time at a roadhouse, pumping gas, waitressing and making pizzas, all in the same shift. It’s a good thing the health inspector didn't eat there! I met Donny then; a young man who was infatuated with me and romanced me until I agreed to date him. He turned out to be a Born Again Christian. He took me to church and introduced me to Bob Dylan’s album, Slow Train Coming, which was written after Dylan had a religious conversion and before he converted to Buddhism. I have a distinct memory of going to a Gospel meeting with another couple in a rickety car. The man drove by pressing on the gas and letting off so the whole trip seemed to be spent lurching forward and alternately thrown backwards. Strange! Needless to say I was not in a receptive mood when we got there! On another occasion I was taken to Donny’s Pastor’s home; sat down on the couch and given the gospel, straight up! I can remember saying that I was not yet ready to give up my drinking and drugs. I knew that there would be some change in my life by getting saved; either by choice or supernatural intervention. The only thing I accomplished in that relationship was to cause Donny to backslide which is a good reason for a Christian not to date an unsaved person. Donny bought me a car to drive around and paid for me to attend some creative writing classes at Fanshawe. It was a green Impala. A huge car with room for about a dozen of my closest friends! I used it mostly to party when I should have been in school. The relationship ended on a dreary spring day after a drinking spree; he and his friend climbed high power line towers while I watched, sitting on the roof of the car on the side of the road. Those two could never spend time together without getting into some kind of trouble. I drove off and left them there!
The next time I met a Christian was at a local factory where I worked in 1984 during my first marriage. They seemed to lie in wait for me! She gave me the gospel message as we sewed shoes in an assembly line. I brought my white Bible with a zipper and mustard seed in a little plastic ball that was given to me by my Grandmother and poitnted my finger at a passage were it said she should not judge-whew-that was a close call! She nearly had me! I left the factory to attend college where I began a three year course in Fashion Design. I left to calls of, “You’ll be back”, but I swore I would not work there again. During the time I worked there I left my first husband and an abusive marriage, to be with Builder. I was the subject of the gossip mill for many months after that!
Arriving at college was scary-I had been out of high school for 5 years. I had to do this. Going to college had been my goal for many years. Still, everyone there was several years younger than me. I was able to pick out the one Christian in the room on the first day! I was thankful that she never witnessed to me, but later we became friends. I was also able to pick out the wildest girl in the group-a lanky, German girl from up north named Laura. I made friends with her first. My brother had worked in a northern town, so I felt a kinship with those from the North. You could live in White River and have buddies in towns scattered from Winnipeg to Wawa. Laura and I took off to Florida for spring break with my car, a case of cassettes, a cooler of food, a tent and $500 American. My poor mother was distressed-she was convinced that we were going to be raped or stabbed! I left Builder at home where he began construction on our first home! It was really not very considerate of me. We had no real plans as to where we were going. At the Georgia state line, we ran into a gas station to change into shorts. While there, Lana inquired as to why we were seeing so many bikes on the highway. The man informed us that it was Bike Week in Daytona Beach and that was it-we were off! It was incredible! There were over 100,000 bikers in the small resort town. Sitting at a stop light, listening to the sound of rumbling Harleys was amazing! I visited 15 years later and it was just not the same. Floyd’s Spidey Shack: a house turned into bar, where you could drive your bike up on the porch, was gone. As was the Iron Horse Saloon, Hootin’ Nanny’s-the Bar with half a Chevy over the door and many other highlights! We lasted about 2 minutes at the Iron Horse and were ushered to the door. Apparently it wasn’t a nice place for girls like us-it was actually kind of scary! We found a camp ground where I had to talk my way into getting a site. They didn't want college girls. It was apparently too much hassle with them getting into trouble with the Bikers. I had to explain that we were actually not really college girls (even though we sure looked like them and were attending college!) but had hung around with bikers our whole life. Not actually 100% true, but I did know some guys who were belonged to a club and my brother and his buddies all had bikes. So we got our site and spent the week lying on the beach, drinking, doing cocaine and watching the constant stream of bikes and cars cruising up and down. Daytona is one of the few places where you can still drive on the beach. Our nights were spent at bars open til 3:30 am-a new concept for Canadians back then. We had a blast. I could out drink those guys because Canadian beer has way more alcohol than American. I saw things that I will never forget and a few things I wish I could forget. As it turned out, thankfully, God followed me there. I was sitting in a bar at 2 am when a seriously overweight biker named Spike came up and introduced himself. We talked for a while, and then he gave me a card with an invitation to a breakfast meeting of Christian Bikers. I was shocked and scared! God had followed me all the way to Florida! And I was worried about going to a hotel room where a bunch of Christian bikers were meeting? That was crazy-I had been partying with bikers all week! Needless to say, that made quite an impression on me and I went home seriously thinking about things. I felt for the first time that God actually cared about me and perhaps it was Him seeking me, not all these weird people that seemed to be chasing me. And knowing that God had probably protected me in a few situations there, which we had stupidly gotten ourselves into!
Oh, yes, and there was the tattoo. After a day of smoking up and drinking on the beach, Lana talked me into going. It was in a shop in the front of a guy’s house. I remember sitting and watching his console TV, then suddenly realized that it had been converted into a fish tank and I was watching a bunch of fish-not National Geographic! The guy, Floyd, had a beard and long hair braided into a pony tail. I just picked something off the wall of samples. Lana was there to have the banana tattoo on her ankle turned into a bird. My new tattoo made for interesting conversation on the beach!
I returned home broke, alive and relatively unscathed to help Dolph finish our house. I don’t think I had scored any points with my future in-laws! Shortly thereafter, I attended the funeral of my great Aunt Blanche, who was my grandmother’s sister and a Born Again Christian. All my aunts and uncles were there, but it was I that heard the message preached by Pastor Brubaker: “Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No man, cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
It was a turning point in my life. I knew I had to speak to the Pastor about the message and if things had turned out differently, I might have gotten saved that day. As it happened, I did not get to speak to him. It was pouring rain and I decided to skip the internment. How many times do we as Christians not know for sure the effect we have on someone, but the seed is sown and their heart is changed forever? Somehow, though, a year later when John came to our door, I was not receptive. All I could think of were all the faces that had tried to convince me that God loved me and how I wanted to run! When John finally left that night, I told Dolph not to let him back in the house. Thankfully, he did not listen to me and invited him in a couple of weeks later, when I was at an evening class. That night, when I returned home there was one of those tracts sitting on the coffee table all by itself. The next day, Dolph moved into the spare room. I remember going to school the next morning and telling my classmates, “I think my boyfriend is a Born Again Christian! There were cries of sympathy all around! Imagine my surprise when he announced that he was going to church with John. He didn’t want to attend the United Church with me, but he was going to this church that John had invited him to! He had not told me yet that he was saved. He was too afraid of what I would do! So I went to church with him mainly out of curiosity. What an experience!
We walked into the back door of the Baptist church that John attended and down a few steps into the basement. We were greeted by a sight I could never have imagined. John and his brother Albert were on a platform in front of over 100 screaming children. They were leading a song called, Father Abraham, which involved, alternately waving your legs, arms, then head, back and forth as you screamed out the lyrics to the song! It was incredible. I’d never seen a Sunday School like that in my entire life. In a few minutes, the children were more subdued and intently listening, but it continued at a fast pace for almost an hour. I was hooked. I don’t think I even went upstairs that first week! After church, John introduced us to his family and invited us to his home for dinner the following Thursday, which was the evening before Good Friday. I knew what was going to happen, but I decided to go, because it meant that I didn't have to cook. I also wanted to see what these people were like at home. I remembered their wedding because John had a race car at that time and when I drove by the church the afternoon they were married, John had his race car on a trailer behind the car they were leaving the church in. Nice. I guess Mary was getting more than a husband! When we walked into their house that Good Friday, I was immediately overwhelmed by a sense of peace. It wasn’t fancy. John had made a lot of money out west, but somehow, through his partners, had lost everything except his expensive suits and shoes and I can remember Mary saying later that they felt so out of place at our downtown church because of their clothes. They had three kids then; Jennifer, Justin and Sarah, the baby. But it was calm and quiet. Jennifer, all of eight years old, helped with the meal. After dinner, we went into the living room while Mary cleaned up. I can’t tell you what we ate, I can just remember feeling like the room was almost in an altered state and I kept thinking about that peace. You see, I was a child of the Cold War and I don’t know why that made such an impact on me, but when I've talked to other adults my age, about living under the threat of nuclear war, reading about the Berlin wall dividing families or of desperate people being gunned down on barbed wire covered fields trying to escape, it didn't seem to affect them as much as it did me. My biggest fears were of dying in a nuclear war and not being able to completely protect my girls from kidnapping or abuse. John rattled on and on, reciting Bible verses and explaining the Gospel in an attempt to get me saved. I’m sure Dolph was praying desperately as well. But suddenly I just knew that I had to have that peace and I knew how to get it! I said, “I’ll pray.”
John and Dolph were startled. “What? You can’t pray now! I haven’t finished explaining it yet!” Was John’s response and he laughed. If you know John, he has the most infectious laugh.
I said, “I’ll pray.”
And so we did pray and I was saved. It was March 31, 1988.
There was no immediate life changing revelation, but I did feel a sense of peace. I was saved. There was a Hell, but I knew where I was going. That’s what the Bible means when it says the Spirit bears witness. If your faith was measured in stocks, they just went through the roof! It wasn't until a week or two later, when I was in service at the church we were attending and we were singing the closing hymn “Just as I Am” that I realized what Jesus had done for me and I broke down and wept.
That was 22 years ago and it has been an incredible journey. This is what it is like, living in Graceland...
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