The First 42

My life for the first 42 years was spent in search of that piece of me that was missing.  It was missing when I was born and nothing that I did or said could fill that void.

There were times that I could feel something or someone try to make contact with me.  There were many times that I tried card readers, fortune tellers and horoscopes to find what was missing, but those things gave me nothing but more questions.

As a child, I lay in the grass on the hill that overlooked the playground.  As the other children played, I lay there with my eyes closed asking for my real parents to come back for me.  I was smart enough at seven to know that if I told anyone what I thought that the consequences would not be good.

I believed with all my heart that someone in a spaceship had landed on earth and that was my family.  I had wandered away and they had to leave without me.  They would come back from time to time searching for me but were unable to find me.  So, I lay in the grass hoping that they would see me and finally take me home.

Call it what you like.  A child's fantasy; an escape mechanism used by someone in order to deal with feeling unloved or any number of psycho-babble garbage that means less than the opinions offered by "Counselor Troi" in "Star Trek - The Next Generation".  At the age of forty-two, I found out the true meaning of that experience; that dream; that desire.

What do you do when you want something to eat but really have no idea what?  If you are like me, you will eat something, anything, to see if it satisfies that empty spot.  If sweets don't work, maybe a pickle will.  If a hamburger doesn't work, maybe the fries or chicken fingers will.  If you get the idea that I stuffed my face until I was full, you are correct.  After ingesting all that mess, I was overfull and still not satisfied.

Like that empty spot in my stomach, I had a spiritual empty spot.  Like the food, I tried to fill that hole with all sorts of things.  Because it was first brought to my attention in Church at the age of six, I tried to find that item in Church from the people that went to Church.  They all, in some way or other, patted me on the head and told me not to worry about such things.  They, to a person, erroneously thought that I did not need to know.

I asked parents, Sunday School teachers, teachers and anyone who would talk to me.  They all told me the same thing.  Filling that void was no big deal.

I lived for years in a moral slime pit because I had no one willing to tell me that what I was doing was not only hurting me but was absolutely wrong.  I did what I wanted, who I wanted, when I wanted because in the 1960's the motto was, "If it feels good, do it."

It was 1968 and I was in Knoxville, Tennessee walking to a store.  I was wearing a micro-mini dress and high heels.

When I walked past a preacher who was preaching on the street, he called out, "Whore!  Go home and dress decently!  You are the Devil's tool!"

I had been called that before.  I stopped, turned toward him, blew him a kiss, smiled and walked away a little taller and slower.  I was not going to let him see me angry and humiliated.  It was the fact that he had looked.  He had noticed.  He had called me out on my appearance when I knew what was in his heart.  He lashed out at me because he hated what he thought at that moment.  I was a cocktail waitress and I knew what to do to get noticed.  The very nerve of that old coot!

I don't really know how he should have handled that, but I know it should not have been handled the way he did.  So much for Christian love and bringing sinners to Christ.  I knew that I needed something, but I did not need his sorry attitude.

It was things like that, those occurrences that push you one way or the other, that served to keep me away from Christianity.  I studied other religions.  Listened to the witnesses and visitors at the door.  I read many things.  I even had items from the dark side.  Nothing kept my interest for more than a few weeks.  Even then the interest was half-hearted.

Some tried to get me to believe that there was no Hell.  Man, I knew better than that.  I had been involved with a seance when God Himself allowed me to smell the pit of Hell and revealed a Demon to me.  You need to be thankful that, except on rare occasions, we cannot see the spiritual battle that goes on around us.  You would lose your mind.

By the time I was 42, I had been married more than once, had a child and was still just as lost and confused as I ever was.  I tried changing my life and had done quite well with that, but it wasn't enough.  I turned over so many new leaves I could have had a forest full of leaves.

I started reading the Bible.  There are those of you out there that think of Christianity as a crutch for weak-minded people.  I look at it as something, Someone to lean on when you need a Friend, a Friend who has died for you.  How many of your friends would actually die for you?

I started reading at page 1 and decided that I was going to find out what was so special about that book.  People had died for what was in that BOOK.  Our country had been founded because of what was in that BOOK.  There had to be something in there that caused all that furor.  What made people who do not believe in anything in that BOOK so mad that they want no one else to read it?  There had to be something and I was determined to find it.

Ever read something that baffled and befuddled you but you just could not put it down?  There I was, in the middle of the Book of Job.  I was there without a clue.  I had made it through Leviticus and Deuteronomy and was able to keep going, but Job had me stymied.  It's not like I had not read the Bible before.  I read it from cover to cover about 3 times before I was 15.  My Aunt had given me a Bible and I found it intriguing even at that age.

I closed the Bible and put it down.  I was determined to go through it and I kept trying to pick it up and return to Job, but every time I picked it up, I felt compelled to go to the New Testament.  I finally gave in to the urge to start with the Gospel Matthew.  It was much easier reading.  It was going much faster, but I felt like I was no closer to an answer than when I started reading.

I read through the Gospels of Mark and Luke and was reading the Gospel of John when something began to change.  I began to understand.  After reading the third chapter of John I understood completely.

I saw my sins nailed to the Cross and I knew what He had done for me.  You cannot base your salvation upon a feeling but you have a lot of feelings when it becomes real.  I felt free for the first time in my life.  I felt the arms of God wrapped around me.  I felt truly and wonderfully free and alive.  I felt regret.  It was regret that I had wasted 42 years fooling around looking for the answer that was right here all along.

HE had called me often and I had ignored HIM.  He was patient.  He kept me from harm on numerous occasions that I was aware of.  There is no telling how often HE may have delayed me to keep me from being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Suddenly, I had become a child of God.  I knew who I belonged to and it was not space aliens.  The Father that I had searched for I had finally reached out and took HIS hand.  I was home.

His work was finished on the Cross.  My cry to Him to know, to be shown was answered.  I am HIS and that space that needed filling was a God-shaped space that was now filled.

All those little sayings are true.  God loves you.  He never gives you more than you can handle.  He will give you peace that passes all understanding.  He is the Creator.  He knows you better than you know yourself.

May THE LORD bless you and keep you.