A Marked-Up Life: My Story of Coming to Christian Faith.
Someone asked about my story. Many of the details need to stay in the shadows and darkness from whence they arose, but I will give some of my early life and how I came to be a Christian below.
I sprouted up in red dirt country (Oklahoma) in 1961. My people came to Northeast Oklahoma in the early 1900s from Missouri and Arkansas. I remember my maternal great-grandmother sitting in her log cabin, describing her trek from Arkansas in a covered wagon, and many of the events of her early days. I'm a redheaded, freckled red dirt man from the get-go.
My parents raised me in church, my mother was even a church secretary for a season. Dad worked part-time and went to the University of Oklahoma part-time, finishing his bachelor's in Civil Engineering when I was about ten years old. We were in church all the time, until I turned 10. Then, at 10 years old is when things changed.
We moved from Tulsa, to several homes in Oklahoma City, and finally landed in Moore Oklahoma on Regency Boulevard. I was 10 when we landed there, and dad finally took a full-time position with the Oklahoma Highway Department. It was mom's and dad's first house to own. A dead-end street with a ditch at the end that opened up to a deserted farm field, with an old barn and a dilapidated house that had green shingles. We used to call it the green house.
Life was what life was then. We made swords out of 1x4 boards or any piece of wood we could lay our hands on, and sink our pocket knives into. Used galvanized metal trashcan lids for shields, and Johnson Grass for spears. We fought many epic Greek battles in our backyards and out in the abandoned farm field. We caught snakes and crawdads with our hands, and rusty nails and glass shards in our feet. Church became a thing of the past, and other things began showing up in our home that I had never seen before. Things that spark a young pre-adolescent boy's attention and can grab his imagination for life. Things that can leave a mark on his heart for the remainder of his days.
Other things began to happen. My friends and I began to take on the life of petty crime. We learned how to break into homes, sneak candy and other goods from the local store called Little Jim's, chew tobacco and smoke. Once we stole a pack of cigarettes from an old, baldheaded guy next-door, and smoked the whole pack between two of us. I started stealing Milk Tickets from the other kids at school, figuring out ways to remove them from their desks without them ever knowing. Not big crimes, by any stretch of the imagination, but a trend. A trend that leaves it's mark on one's memory.
More happened that left it's mark on me. Things that began to arouse my physical drives earlier than should have happened. Things that God knows, and will be dealt with in his good time. But things that mark a man in ways that impact his life-direction.
Then came Junior High (which is now called Middle School), and a new residence. And there I was, changing physically, changing emotionally, changing mentally. Church still remained outside of my living experience, but other things became more prominent. Since I was the short guy, who was redheaded and freckled, I was the perfect target for the bigger guys. And so I fought my way through the three years of Junior High. We almost always took our fights behind the Lutheran Church down the road (on NW 12th Street) from the school. I lost many, tied several, won a few. These things also left a mark on me.
It was there in Junior High that a love for reading began to take my heart. Fiction, mostly Science Fiction. And I read volumes by Robert Heinlein and J, Edgar Burroughs, as well as a smaller piece by Ayn Rand, and several others. It was also there in Junior High, we had shop class. And it was in shop class I came to realize I enjoyed working with my hands as I built a bookcase in class. These, too, left their mark on me.
But we age, and so the time came for High School and a new residence again. This time, still the short redheaded freckled kid, I moved into a different world. Reading was still my thing, but sexual explorations became a new thing as well. And church...well, for a brief season church came back into my life, simmered for a while, and then disappeared. Girls. Now that was the thing to keep my attention, and chasing them in the environment of the ever-loosening, increasingly promiscuous sexual mores of the 1970s, fueled much of my experiences. All of which left their mark on my soul.
Drama also came into my world. Singing, acting, stage make-up, all of it. And with it came a whole new set of relationships that exploded my perceptions of life and human personhood. It was in this new emotional experience I came to think of myself as an Atheist. I told my fellow students I was. And yet, I always carried a Bible in my car, and could even quote and recount Scripture. It was a weird time, one where I set my own bearings and went in my own direction, and no god was going to have his way with me. In fact, out of 2,000 fellow students, I was one of the very few who had his ear pierced. That was fairly risky in that day, marking you as either Gay or a dope-smoker. I was setting myself apart, while putting myself in a specific direction. And church was nowhere on my horizon.
I met Anna during my Senior year. That story is full of funny details and events, which would take several pages to write. But meeting her helped to settle down my roaming mind and rambling heart (sounds like a good Country-and-Western song!). We graduated with something like 997 fellow Seniors and I went into the Air Force to start what ended up being a 20 year career. I returned from Basic Military Training and Technical School, and we got married. Eighteen years old, barely out of diapers, and we were married.
Our first station was North American Air Defense (NORAD) Command in Colorado Springs. We were dirt poor, and barely making it month-by-month. We began growing up together, growing through hard times, lean times, immature times. But we grew. Somewhere toward the end of our first year we were separated. She stayed in Oklahoma while I continued to work in Colorado Springs. And it was during that time when religious stirrings, spiritual yearnings, began to rustle in my heart. A Christian friend and co-worker moved in with me, which led to many discussions. But the hole inside me of not having Anna left me wrestling with my life. That and several poor decisions which stamped more emotional and physical marks. It was a tough season.
It was while out walking in the park in downtown Colorado Springs that I ran across a bunch of Hispanic and Anglo guys playing softball. They were from a local, bilingual congregation, New Life Baptist Church. I started getting into their meetings and gathering with them. Then Anna returned, and we began hitting church together. We were nineteen. Church was emerging in our lives. Those were better times, which etched themselves into our memories.
But orders came, and off to Turkey I went. It began as a one year, unaccompanied tour. And there I met Christian people who swept me off my feet with hospitality and genuineness. They met in the home of an older, divorced Master Sergeant who had his two teenage children with him. There was love, accountability, directness, and a longing desire on all their parts to be faithful Christians. And it was amongst this charismatic house church, filled with 1970s Jesus People Christians that I came to realize I was not a Christian, I was drowning in my sins, I was deserving of God's just displeasure, and I was needing him to rescue me. And he did!
Almost immediately I was baptized. We were driving out into the Turkish countryside toward Tarsus, turned south, and stopped at the Mediterranean Sea. And there, in the blueness of that ancient and historic watery expanse, I professed to all around that I believed in Jesus the Son of God, and was baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. At 20 years old, in a Muslim country, surrounded by people who were convinced of the truth and validity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I began my life-long trek of following Jesus.
Clearly, there's far more to the story. Features that I will not capitalize on and give them any sense of fame. But there are other facets that deserve more virtual-ink, such as our marriage and how God's goodness has taken two sinful people and knit us together for 43 years, at this point. How kids came along, all of whom profess their faith in Christ. How my 20 years in the Air Force prepared me for Christian ministry, and have aided me in being a conservative, Bible-believing, God-fearing, Christ-loving Presbyterian pastor. But those are elements and tales for other times.
Maybe you're a parent of adult children wondering what has happened with your kids and is there any hope for them. It could be that they have followed their own path, walked away from church and Christ to pursue lifestyle choices that go against everything you hold dear. Hopefully this sketch from my life can be an encouragement. God is not restrained by our resistances and renunciations. He always has the door open for them, and can turn them around. Keep looking to him as you pray for them!
But also, maybe you've walked down a similar alleyway, like mine. And now you're reflecting on your choices, looking on the marks they have left on you, on your heart, on your soul, on your relationships, and you're wondering, "Is there any hope for me?" Perhaps my story can be a signpost pointing you in a direction where you can see that there's some light up there, up ahead, up there on the horizon, and you will take the risk and head that way.
"Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:6-11).
"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 6:23).
"If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved"" (Romans 10:9-10, 13).
To hear another person talk about their travels from Atheism to Christian Faith, you might want to watch this short video where I interview my friend and Assistant Minister, Wesley Martin as he talks about how he became a Christian.
I would also recommend a book by Garrett Craw where he tells his story in "Doxology in the Mist". Here's my book review.
Pastor Mike
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