I cannot go here into the many dangerous paths this type of
living led me, but under it all, through it all, lingered the
memory of one special night when a young girl had found God’s
peace in the midst of a violent storm. God was real. He did care. He was out there, but how on earth could anyone
find Him? I drank to forget the seeming hopelessness of it all,
and I drank only to pass out. Dark and wonderful bliss.
Three months out of high school I moved to Berkeley, California
to stay with my newly married sister, Jan, and brother-in-law.
Tom was attending a divinity school, studying for the pastorate.
In 1957 the two took me to a Billy Graham crusade in San Francisco.
But my ears were not opened yet. I did not hear the message, and
I absolutely did not understand why people were walking down the
aisles when it was over. And, although I still believed in God,
I was confused and would not go to church with them. I perceived
that church would be some “goody goody” set of rules that would
lead to an utterly boring life, and preferred to sit on the fire
escape with my cigarettes and think about the meaning of life.
Three months after living with Jan and Tom I moved into a boarding
house “for young working people.” I worked at Penney’s, and then
found a job at Traveler’s Insurance across the bay in San Francisco. At the boarding house I roomed with Gail who introduced me to
Beatnik Life in North Beach. Our heroes were Lawrence Ferlinghetti
and other beat poets. I wrote some beat poetry. We sat at
little tables and discussed not only the meaning of life but
deeper stuff like the color of red.
About a year after moving to California I met Norm Attaway. We would marry five months later. We lived in Berkeley and
then settled down in San Mateo. This was so long ago that I
can’t recall the progression of false beliefs I pursued. I
know I was in San Mateo when I worked at IBM and a woman there
got me into Spiritualism. I know I read 9 books on it. But it
scared me, so I later began practicing Numerology, where a lady
up in the Santa Cruz hills made up my life charts and instructed
me on how to live in light of “the four tides.” It began scaring
me, too. I tried Scientology, but could never “go clear.” Then
someone said Jesus had come here in a UFO and that got my
interest. Big time. In fact, all forms of the paranormal swallowed
me up. I indulged myself in Edgar Cayce and his ilk. The
interesting thing is, each one of these false beliefs quoted
the Bible! How could they all be right? More confusion. I had
refused to adhere to Tom’s beliefs and kept looking for something
DEEPER and more meaningful, but each trek only led me down a lying
path that led to nowhere.
About five years into my marriage I was one unhappy dude. The
babies I longed for had not arrived. I was drinking too much. I was relying upon a psychiatrist to get my head on straight.
One day, staring into the living room mirror over the fireplace,
I gazed pitifully on the tears streaming down my face, held up a
razor and said, “I give up. This is what LIFE has made me do. If
there’s a God he will forgive me.”
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I didn’t have the nerve to
carry it through. I continued living a life empty of peace.
During this time Norm and I became very involved in the John
Birch Society, an anti-Communist activist organization. At one
of our meetings I met Joyce, who invited us to visit her church
to hear an anti-Communist speaker, John Noble. This man had been
imprisoned in a slave labor camp in Russia for many years. We went. But after speaking out about Communism, Noble delivered a personal
testimony of how he had met Christ while in that prison. Not just
God: Christ. He spoke of how his whole life had changed; how he
was now able to love and pray for his captors, how his life had
meaning, now. Meaning. Isn’t that what I had been hungering for?
Then Noble told us how, deep in the mines where they couldn’t
be heard, prisoners would quietly hum Christian songs. And he
asked us, the people in that church, to hum a song. It was called,
“What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and the next part I cannot
adequately explain. In my mind, in the sky, in some visible yet
invisible place above, were like, golden letters that said “This
is IT.” Or, “THIS is the truth you have been looking for.” And
it was God’s voice, and the tears that ran down now, were not
the pitiful ones I knew in front of the living room mirror. They
were beautiful, healing tears. They were peace. When Noble asked
those who needed the same Savior, Jesus Christ, to follow him
in prayer, I did. I surely needed to be saved from a life I could
no longer endure.
I was 24-years-old, but different from the Billy Graham crusade
when my rebellious ears could not hear, this time I heard, real
and clear. And I wasn’t even sure what had happened. Only that
everything in me changed. I wanted to return to that church. I
wanted to join a ladies Bible study. I wanted to know, to learn
who this God was, who had finally healed my mind and spirit and
given me peace. I later learned that this was called a conversion
experience.
What took place that day never left. It was the beginning of a
journey along a path of Truth. Over the past 47 years the Lord
has faithfully led me along it. Sometimes running and skipping,
sometimes stumbling, sometimes sitting on the roadside in despair. But never alone.
The song I heard on that November day in 1963 reverberates in me,
today. What a friend, oh what a Friend, we have in Jesus! God gave
me a GOOD life. One that would include four children, many
grandchildren, many friends, and an inner joy that has never
taken a vacation, even when circumstances would, at times,
invite it to.
The Lord gave me a life that will not end on earthly roads,
but will continue on heavenly ones.
“I love the Lord because He has heard
My voice and my supplication.
Because He has inclined His ear to me,
Therefore I will call upon Him, as long as I
live.” -- Psalm 116
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