thank you for your testimony and for sparking this discussion 30cal.
i’ll try to keep it short and too the point, but i have to admit, revisiting that time and before hasn’t been pleasant for me. i’d like to forget about all of it to be honest. there is a lot of the past i didn’t want to reexperience. but, what follows is what i believe was my path from spiritual death to Life, the Truth—the Living God, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
i prided myself on being completely unspiritual. i was a “realist.” i styled myself as dependent on no one and contemptious of the weak spiritual and Christian people, like my best friend. i saw around me. intellectually, i never completely rejected God, because i could never completely reject the people of God who kept ties with me, like my best friend who for reasons i didn’t understand then, refused to let me drive him away.
my brother, probably in part due to my selfish attitude, went yard and became a card carrying athiest/progressive. but, i told myself i never wanted to be tied down to anyone or anything, especially marriage. looking back, it was me and my brother ganging up to torturing my poor friend whenever the subject of spirtuality, politics, or Christianity came up. it was awful what we did to him, but he kept faith with us. he told me after i converted that God was the reason he never gave up on me.
in reality back then, i was selfish, isolated and basically clueless about the suffering of people around me, although i would never admit it. to me, i was fine. really a good person who didn’t bother anyone (clueless of course as many others have told me otherwise after my conversion). i was hard-hearted and becoming more loveless year by year. at the bottom of all of that was fear and self-loathing. but of course i couldn’t see that in myself because i didn’t have any truck with the spiritual or even much emotion beyond contempt and sometimes anger at the circumstances and Christian or religious beliefs of the people around me, including my mom who was a buddist and my dad who was, i think, a believer, but not a doer of the faith (i never saw him in church until his funeral). i was withdrawing, really becoming a middle aged loner as the years piled up. still, i was living “the good life” in the eyes of the world. i had it easy—a good education, a good job, good health, making money, and i was doing what i wanted with it.
spiritually, i was the with the walking dead around me. the world, of course, cooperated with me in all of this. but there was always my best friend from HS who remained faithful to me and God through it all, despite the pain i was causing him. he kept inviting me to his church to see his band play (we were both musicians in our youth). but looking back, God had a different plan, which he was about to unleash.
first he brought real love into my life though my wife of now 22 years. she taught me how to love and serve her, and she became precious to me. she wanted children, i of course was indifferent as usual. but, we tried and failed. then she was diagnosed with endometriosis, so we tried the world’s solution surgeries and invitro fertilization. boy, my perfect life was messed up now. that failed when my wife became very ill. then God nearly took her away from me, that’s when you start praying of course, even if you don’t believe. a miracle, new cutting edge surgery and the best surgeon in the world was delivered to us in the nick of time. at that point, i was finally believer in God. you know that amorphous God of the Bible that you hear about that delivers you from trouble. the God the selfish always call on. the selfish me was thankful that, although she had lost her ability to have children (which was nothing to me really), i had not lost her! but she was devastated by that, later having some insight and love, i realized having children was more important to her than me or her even life. and i could see her pining away for children. she brought up adoption which selfish me didn’t want any part of. after all, how would that reflect on me as a man.
i was changing slowly (not like the instant transformation of some Christians), slowly i was learning to be a servant of others. just enough to think finally of someone else, and put them a little above my own interest.
so i agreed to start looking in to adoption. the whole thing from start to finish, was an big ordeal for me, horrible at times, draining in every way, and most of all humbling. i was completely out of my depth and out of control by the end. i had to give up and rely on my friends, others and, gulp, even God to get me and my wife through it. that old pride was going and self-reliance was gone, we needed help and i was asking everyone i could for it. we found a secular agency after trying fostercare, doing our own ad campaign, even asking planned parenthood for help. boy that was another eyeopener for me. they couldn’t careless about adoption, or couples looking to adopt, and you’d think it’d be a natural for them. the world was becoming clearer for me, as God was remaking me. finally i was being rendered teachable, for the first time in my life since childhood.
but then another miracle, a birthmother contacted us (by mistake it turned out, she actually though we were someone else), and we started the process of helping her again. there are of course no guarantees in this process, this all has to be voluntary and we had to accept that. again, we were out of control. we gave the birthmother complete control. we had to trust her and the birth father with our future.
finally the trip to the hospital. we were there, but i had to track down the birthfather and get him there. the birth was difficult (a c-section had to be done). it was an all nighter. we finally went home, awaiting the decision.
two days went by, we thought with sinking hearts they would keep this beautiful baby, maybe it would bring them back together. it was just too much of a sacrifice for them (notice i finally had compassion for some one else—God was working on me, changing me already). but then the word came, eventhough they had named the boy, called him by their last names and got him clothes, they decided to let us adopt!
she brought the baby to us in her wheelchair and handed that precious boy to us at the door of the hospital. at that moment, i was overwelmed with joy, mindful of her great sacrifice, as i received her gift to us. i believed—this was the pure gift of God! my heart was full of sadness for her, but gratitude to her and to God. and then, with this new life in my arms, i realized the grave responsibility God was placing in my hands. i realized how small i was in His grand scheme. i lacking i was in knowledge, really. how foolish i had been, when i though i was wise. anyway, there could be no other explanation, no other way the whole journey could be explained. God had dragged me kicking and screaming to the door and i was finally knocking.
soon after i went to see my faithful Christian friend and his wife from HS. turns out he was overjoyed and mindful of every step along the way, knowing that God was bringing me to Him. that i had become a seeker. later that night my brother came over, he and my friend started in on the same old discussions and arguments. this time i just listened as they talked. i was agreeing with everything my best friend was saying, whereas my brothers talk had become complete nonsense to me. i thought to God, this is my confirmation. my mind had been completely transformed. i was and am 180 degrees different from what i once was. a miracle really. again i thank God that he helped me out of the mire.
i still had (and have) a long way to go, and many struggles ahead in this race to the end. back then, i didn’t even own a Bible yet, or stepped foot into a church except to hear my friend play, but that was day, i really started to live.
Your best friend's steadfast, immovable love for you during your transformation from darkness to light proved itself by its perseverance! Not only so, but according to the Beatitudes of Jesus, you were causing your friend to be blessed for his endurance under persecution for loving Jesus!
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you
and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.
Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven,
for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
Matthew 5:10-12
God seems to have directed me to this wonderful treatment on suffering by Elisabeth Elliot so I could share it here;
Suffering is Never for Nothing.
(Still reading your worthy post!)
Thank you so, so much for taking the time, the pain, and the work to bring this testimony to the world. Glad I was here to see it.