You Made A Difference In My Life

Calvin was a childhood friend of mine. We lived on the same street and only two houses down from each other. His house was a larger log cabin style while mine was a smaller shaker-shingle home. Sometimes Calvin would come over to my house and on other days, I would visit him. We would spend a lot of our time outside riding bicycles, playing baseball and childhood yard games like: kick the can , kickball, hide & seek, tag, basketball  or a fun game called 'Sardines'. The game ‘Sardines’ was the reverse of ‘Hide & Seek’.  Everybody would close their eyes while one person would count (out loud) to an agreed upon number. During the counting, one person would go and hide. When the number was reached, we would ALL hunt/seek the person that was now hiding. One steadfast rule was: No hiding inside someone’s house. The first person to find the ‘hider’ would then hide with the 'hider' AND got the chance to hide alone next time. Eventually, we would ALL find the ‘hider’ and we would ALL be packed into a small hiding place; hence the name ‘Sardines’.  We would play outside most of the day. (You see, we didn’t have the internet or home computers.) My mother’s only instructions were, “Be safe and  come home when the street lights start to come on.”  Life was safer then. We all had some great times.

When Calvin played sardines and he was the one to go and hide, I would often be the first to find him.  I believe it was because we thought along the same lines and both knew some of the same and best hiding spots. One time when I found his hiding place, I was surprised to see him drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. Many of our Middle School (fka: Junior High School) friends drank and both of our dad's smoked and drank which made alcohol and cigarettes readily accessible and very much a part of both of our lives. For MANY kids of that age, smoking and drinking was a 'rite of passage'. Unfortunately, it just isn't 'right' and for FAR too many the proverbial "passage" is a passageway on a One Way street. I was happy to find Calvin but my surprise was Calvin's sudden change in attitude. You see, as Calvin and I spent time together, one day he had voluntarily blurted out, "I HATE it when my dad drinks! He changes, my mother is scared, one brother hides and my older brother fights with my dad! I will NEVER, N-E-V-E-R smoke or drink!". I was surprised at his oath AND his anger but agreed that both vices were a poor choice. It was then that I noticed the shiny blue & green hue around his eye and a slight cut on his lip. Several short weeks later we were hiding in his dusty garage and he was "sucking down some brews" and enjoying some "coffin nails" as his dad would say. I didn't realize it then but it helped him cope.

I wish I could say that I never tried a "coffin nail" or that I never drank a "brew" but I can't. I am VERY confident there are MANY people and friends that echo those same sentiments. I AM very proud to say that my curiosity was very short lived. Cigarettes literally take your breath away and alcohol WILL inebriate your soul; encouraging you to do dastardly deeds, some of which you won't recall. I am thankful that my church instilled a belief that my body is a temple of God and that I should treat it with respect. This belief coupled with my step-father's perfect drunken-stupor-examples of how NOT to be, was priceless! 

Shortly after Calvin started drinking, I became a witness to alcohol's unbridled passion of cracking cavernous gaps between family members. Calvin's demeanor and his family changed. The childhood friend I knew slipped from the innocence of adolescence far too early. He peered at me with thick eyelids and bloodshot eyes and slowly swallowed the 'proof' the world had to offer. He clung onto the rim of the bottle for a while. The solace he found in numbing his head and the courage he gathered from the swill in his dad's thick glass decanters, embraced him with open charms. He often asked me to join him but I always refused. Calvin was never the same. 

One day, as I was visiting Calvin and his brothers, a graphic scene erupted between Calvin's older brother and their dad. It started inside their home. They screamed slanderous graphic profanity and threw glass bottles and kitchen ware. Calvin, the younger brothers and I, scattered. The argument eventually spilled into their yard. Fists were raised and targets were met. The sound of a fist hitting a face is not what you hear in the movies. The scars incised will physically heal but the emotion will ooze a lifetime. Seeing it happen between a father and son is disturbing. I ran home. Somebody called the police and, once again, cars with flashing lights visited Calvin's home.

The Seventh-day Adventist church my sisters, my mother and I attended was just a short walk from our house. Instead of riding in the car with my sisters and mum I would sometimes choose to walk.  It gave me a chance to clear my head and ask God for direction and guidance. I mention the name of the church because it was always a center of comedy to my dear friend Calvin. He liked to poke fun and found it especially comical that I attended church on Saturday. It was all friendly ribbing BUT I could tell when he had been drinking because he was quite aggressive and especially abrasive. As I would walk past his house he would see me and come out in his yard and in a higher pitched mocking voice say, "So.... are you going to go sing to Jesus? Oh, wait a minute it's Saturday! You can't find a church open TODAY!!! Those sure are fancy walking clothes yer wearin'!"  I'd always smile and wish for the days when my friend Calvin was sober.

My prayers and hopes to attend our church-affiliated Christian boarding school was answered with a yes! I left home to attend Pioneer Valley Academy in Massachussetts. It never dawned on me that my youth-filled days of playing games until the street lights came on, had finished. I saw Calvin one more time and then two decades later, I spoke to him over the phone. It happened like this:

I had returned home on a Summer break and Calvin knocked on the door. I answered it and hardly recognized my dear friend Calvin. His voice had developed a raspy edge, his face a more wrinkled and pinched look, his breathing was just a bit labored. Still, it was GREAT to see my dear friend Calvin. "Hey Stef," he said, "Wow, it's GREAT to see you again! Listen, I'm getting ready for my prom and nobody in my family knows how to tie a dress tie. I've seen you wear one. Will you help me and tie mine?" He had it hung around his neck.

"Sure Calvin!", I said. I tied it and thought it rather ironic that a guy that use to poke fun at me for wearing a dress tie, a guy that drank a lot (aka: 'tie-one-on'), was now asking me to tie a tie ON him. In addition, NOBODY in his family had an idea of how to do it.  I could smell the booze on his breath. I tied his tie around his neck and said, "Have a GREAT time!" Slapped him on the shoulder and as of this date (4/28/2011), I have never seen him again.

Two decades later I received a phone call from my mum. She said that Calvin had contacted her and wanted to talk to me. She gave me his phone number and I telephoned him. He answered and was immediately apologetic for anything he had said or done to me. "I am soooo sorry for being such a jerk. I know I said some things and kidded you about church. I even cussed at you a few times." 

"Calvin" I said, "I forgive you. We had some GREAT times together. Anything you might have said was taken as kidding from one friend to another. I'll never forget you. We had a blast!"

Then Calvin said something I will NEVER forget. He said, "When you were attending church, you were doin' the best choice. You done the best thing. I am a recovering alcoholic now, my brothers don't talk to me, my mum and dad passed-away two years ago. I just wanted you to know that I believe in a higher power and again, I apologize for anything I did to offend you. Thank you for your friendship. You made a difference in my life." He then asked if i could send him some Bible study material. I was happy to do it.

I was aware that as part of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) 12-step recovery program, recovering alcoholics are required (obligated) to contact any and all people they had offended. (My step-dad 'recovered' MANY times!) I was one of those people and Calvin was apologizing. I also knew he was very sincere and I loved my friend Calvin. What impressed me was that a lifetime ago, we ALL made a difference.... some of us just haven't had the chance to get a call from a friend and hear: "Thank you. You made a difference in my life."

I am NOT stating that any particular choice will keep you from being worthy in God's eyes. I will leave that between God and you. We ARE told to be a good steward as we build our own personal 'house'. Keeping your/Christ's temple fit & ready is important. It is also very personal. God works with us on an individual basis. We just never know who we influence. Even though a person might be kidded or even bullied, for their choices made, the kidding could be muffled  screams of, "I want YOUR life!"

To this day, when I see the streets lights begin to flicker and light-up for the night, I think of them as stoic silent sentinels showing the way home. The help me recall great memories of fun and games. I hear my friends laughing. I also can't help but feel that it's almost time to head towards a 'heavenly home'. Life has some very, VERY dark paths. I am thankful that I have been able to recognize them.  I pray that my friends and family will see the lights along their path. The world offers MANY 'rites of passage', daily distractions and beckoning modes of inebriation. Stay away from them. Look for the markers/lights that will show you the way home! I am looking forward to seeing YOU there. Hopefully I will see my dear friend Calvin as well! Maybe we can ALL play a game of Sardines! One rule though: We ALL have to stay within a chosen universe!~Pray!

 

Aspire Inspite of the Muck & Mire

We all have God-given dreams, hopes, aspirations and goals to accomplish. I’d dare to venture that most of us have some form of a hidden ‘desire to aspire’, a cause, or even a business idea rattling around in our head. We just know we could be successful at it. However, we often put our dreams on a back burner; letting it simmer and wait for the correct moment. Often years go-by and before you know it, that forgotten dream becomes dusty; that idea on the back burner simmered to vapors. Perhaps the years crept stealthily past us or we convince ourselves that the idea was just too time intensive. Plans changed and/or excuses piled upon some loose knit logic and we eventually lost enthusiasm. WOW! I feel depressed just writing about it! With that attitude, it’s easy to get discouraged and end up becoming stagnant. If we allow it, the big dreams we held so dear, will settle into the recesses of our brain and grow algae.

As children, my sisters and I use to visit an expansive low marshy bog we affectionately called the Frog Pond. It was at the bottom of a long steep hill. The neighborhood kids called it Indian Hill. We would look forward to each year when we could scamper down Indian Hill and visit the Frog Pond. There we would find treasures of goopy dotted strings of frog eggs, green algae, water skimmers, frogs & toads and a lifetime of rocks to toss into the pond. Sometimes, in our excitement of getting to the other side of the bog, we would choose a more direct route and step into deep, dark oozing mud. Our foot would plummet into the muck and we’d yank it out only to hear a sucking slurp as the bog would attempt to claim our sneaker! We were always able to reclaim them but not without getting dirty!   

As an adult, I have visited that same Frog Pond. I marveled at all the memories that hopped through my head and at how small my adult mind viewed the Frog Pond.

It would serve us well to revisit some ‘old ideas’; relight the burners of those forgotten creative moments. We need to foster that ‘desire to aspire’. God want us to create memories. He gave us imaginations, creative minds and an awesome recall mechanism. He wants to take us higher than we can ever imagine. I have seen many times when people miss out on God's best simply because they give up too soon. They don't realize how close they are to their victory. 

We outgrew the old neighborhood, the stagnant Frog Pond and Indian Hill. It’s a wonder we didn’t get sick from that old pond. Science tells us that our human mind thrives on creativity. In fact, setting aside our hopes and aspirations tends to deaden us and adds to a sickly spirit. We need a cause, a reason! Don’t get mired in the goop of life! KEEP MOVIN’ ……or you’ll grow algae! It might not be external. That's probably a good thing!!!! Don't let that be you today! Revisit those ideas! Don't give up just because things seem difficult. You've invested so much, and you never know, just a few more days of believing, another few weeks of doing the right thing, another few months of staying in faith, and you could see that situation turn around. There’s a good chance you too will lose a shoe as you step into the muck of life. Remember, God is on your side! Keep standing and keep believing because you are closer than you think to fulfill every good desire He's placed inside of you! 

"So let's NOT allow ourselves to get fatigued doing good. At the right time we will harvest a good crop (or, in a kids eyes, catch a few frogs) if we don't give up, or quit"
(Galatians 6:9, The Message). ~Pray!

Tough Row to Hoe!

As I plant this years garden I am once again reminded of the power & potential packed in each seed. Each can produce a harvest of 100-fold return! The irony is that it has to be buried, usually alone, & experience it's own 'dark-time'. It then waits as its internal clock ticks closer to germination. As it pops forth, the battle has just begun. It is assailed by weeds, pests, varmints, poked, prodded and even thinned. The gardener has a key part in the seed's future fruition. The packaged seed can't do anything on its own. It can't jump out and find its spot in the row. It needs to be given proper placement. Even seeds in the field are at the whim of the wind; landing seemingly by chance. God knows where they are going! There are some seeds that lie dormant from last year, surprising earthly gardeners. They are called 'volunteers'. Although the name sounds benevolent, they are usually out of place and are usually uprooted. The best results are from seeds that receive the most attention from the gardener.

YOU are a seed of greatness! The Gardner has placed within you power & potential and has given everything you NEED to be successful. Although each of us have 'dark moments' we are never alone! Christ is with each of us. He is ready to 'plant' us. Step out and show you are ready to be sown! Perhaps, like a seed,  YOU have experienced a time of dormancy in YOUR life; a dark time. Perhaps YOU know YOU have more potential that has yet to sprout. Boldly declare your faith and put action behind it. Keep an attitude of expectancy and sprout! Believe that great things are blooming your way.

I enjoy reading biographies of entrepreneurs that sprouted into success. One such story is Harland David Sanders (Colonel Sanders) of the famous KFC . "Sanders lost his father at the age of six. He dropped out of school after ONLY completing the SIXTH GRADE. He went to work at a variety of jobs. During his early life he worked as a farm hand, streetcar conductor, steamboat ferry operator, railroad fireman, secretary, insurance salesman, tire salesman and furniture store owner." He owned and operated a small restaurant, sold it and then later sold his first famous chicken recipe franchise at the age of 66! Did you catch that? 66!!! Some would say he 'sprouted wings' AFTER retirement!

The Master Gardner knows where we are 'planted'. We might not like our 'row' or our 'depth' but THROUGH Him we pack POWERFUL POTENTIAL! By being obedient to His Word YOU will sprout! YOU and the seeds you sow will produce an abundant harvest of blessing all the days of your life! Do you have an idea that is waiting to germinate? Colonel Sanders sprouted at 66! To some that might be old and yet to others, rather young. Don't lie dormant; SPROUT!! YOU can produce a harvest of 100-fold return! Jump out of the package and find a spot in the row!!! The Master Gardner knows where to 'plant you! : ) ~Pray!