Getting Here Part VI: Change is Blowin' in the Wind

1965 was a pivotal year. Time fired change our way with the rapidity of a machine gun. Rat-a-tat-tat, we were hit by another blast. We had lost our house, been threaten and moved in with my father-in-law, an uncomfortable situation. Within the course of those months I was to be drafted, have four separate jobs, something of a nervous breakdown, give up totally on religion and have a dust-up with the powers that ran Upper Darby. Change wasn't just blowin' in the wind, it was a bloomin' hurricane. No wonder we were wondering where in the world we were.

It wasn't long after we moved that President Johnson, near the end of August 1965, ordered the drafting of married men. (I wonder how many marriages that broke up? A number of men had rushed into marriage during the early years of the Vietnam War because marriage gave them a deferment.) Funny how the letter started off with "Greetings" as if it was a Christmas Card. I had to report to 401 North Broad Street for a pre-induction physical. I wasn't thrilled about this. I knew exactly where I would end up and it wasn't a safe place. However, to make a long story short, I suffered from psoriasis. It had appeared in childhood. At this time it was pretty light, but there was one patch on my shoulder and that was enough to get me classified as 1-Y. [Registrant available for military service, but qualified only in case of war or national emergency. Usually given to registrants with medical conditions that were limiting but not disabling (examples: high blood pressure, mild muscular or skeletal injuries or disorders, skin disorders, severe allergies, etc.).] I would have been the rare bird thanking God for a skin disease, except back then I didn't thank God for anything. In fact, around that time I pretty much dismissed God altogether from my life.

Lois and I began looking for a church. Things had obviously went a little south in our lives and suddenly we got interested in religion. But we weren't so much seeking God as a sanctuary from reality. We were looking for a warm and fuzzy place, not a Savior. After all, we were very nice people a bit down on our luck and in need of some commiseration.

We didn't find it. We didn't find anything. We started by visiting a number of "mainstream" churches in the area (Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopalian) and one big Methodist Church, even though we were trying to avoid the denominations of our parents, which were Methodist and Lutheran. These churches were not very welcoming. They were actually rather intimidating. No one spoke to us. Some people even glared at us. Was it my long hair? I don't know, but we distinctly felt unwelcome.

There was a large Roman Catholic Church a few blocks from where we lived then. I began to go there in the morning before work and attend Mass. I bought a book on Catholic beliefs, a Rosary, a miraculous metal. This was what religion should be, I thought, all this ritual and objects to handle. I felt since I was doing something I was earning my way to Heaven. We ( I talked her into it) decided to join the Catholic Church. I knew this would give both our families fits, but by this time I was doing a lot of stuff for just that reason, to gave my family fits.

But the night the Priest was supposed to meet with us to start the process he didn't show up. He stood us up without so much as a phone call.  So that was it for Catholicism. If the Priest doesn't care, why should we?

Our search didn't end here. We just moved a bit further from the religious center. The Unitarians were our next stop. I had no idea what that name meant, but a church was a church to me as long as it claimed to be Christian,  but that requirement ceased with the Unitarians. This was a church in downtown Philadelphia. We attended their service, but this was really a big pep rally for the next protest to be held. We sat on the floor in a big room and talked strategy for our march for civil rights or against the war or to save the earth or to save a rare flea endangered by a highway project, whatever was that particular weeks reason for anger. Now Lois and I were already getting involved in protests we didn't need more. This wasn't what we wanted from a church.

Having believed we had exhausted Christianity at this point, we turned to the Ethical Society. We went to their Sunday morning service. We entered and some music was played as in my old church, a kind of prelude. Some songs were sung at times as well, but none of this music was a hymn. They were Classical pieces. Someone said something corresponding to a prayer, but it was a poem. A text was read, but it was a piece by one of the great philosophers. A sermon was given focused on the greatness of mankind, saying that the problems of the world would eventually be solved by the technological advances made by man. Everything was on the unique quality of humans to do good and save the world, like humans had did such a wonderful job of that so far.

It was all I could do not to laugh. When we left I said it was a joke. If you don't believe in God and think mankind is the end-all and be-all, why are you parodying what could easily be a Methodist service, simply replacing anything that smacks of God with some human produced babble?

There were sudden changes in my work situation during the remainder of 1965 as well. I had been doing quite well and become the supervisor of my unit, but I had grown restless. I had also learned when I first took a job in this unit I had made a tactical error. It was a service division, not a clerical one. I learned from others this was a dead end. There was a stigma against people working in the service divisions and once there it was very difficult to get a position in the clerical areas, but those were the areas where advancement was possible. Of course, I was just eager to make some more money and was getting bored with what I was doing because it had become routine to me. I applied for and got a job as Traffic Control Clerk.

It was a grade level improvement and more money, but it was located in the back of a warehouse at the refining yards. My job was basically handling the paperwork and dispatching the various trucks in and out of the refinery. I was on the job two weeks and I had a breakdown. I am not certain why. Maybe the isolation and dreariness of my office, but more likely I was dealing with men much like my father. At any rate, I came to work one morning and I began to cry and I couldn't stop. Totally embarrassing, especially around the type of men I worked with there. But they didn't make fun of me. They were concerned and the boss sent me home.

I was sure my career at ARCo was done. I was depressed and worried and thought I would be fired. Personnel, (you know, what they call Human Resources today) called me back in after a week. They gave me a job as a Parcel Post Clerk back in the mailroom and told me I would be offered the next Level 6 job that opened. That was the Level of the Traffic Control job, so not only wasn't I fired, I wasn't even going to be demoted.

About a month later I was offered a position in Accounts Receivable. So in the course of less than two months I had been Supervisor of Addressograph, Traffic Control Clerk, Partial Post Clerk and Ledger Clerk.

Then that winter Lois announced she was pregnant again. The Doctor warned her to be careful. Given her history with the first baby and his examination, she had a number of problems that could put the pregnancy at risk.

Near Christmas there was a bad snowstorm. Two blocks away a stop sign was knocked down when a car skidded into it a couple weeks earlier during another storm. Despite the snow my parents came down to visit on Christmas. My father was a professional driver, snow didn't deter him. However, they almost had an accident because of the downed stop sign had still not been replaced. They had no way of knowing the traffic on the cross street didn't have to stop, because it looked like the street they were on was the right of way.

Then a few days later, Lois fell on a sidewalk nearby because it had never been shoveled and the snow had packed to ice. What angered me was this sidewalk was at the home of the Local Committeeman for the Republican Party, which at that time had a stranglehold on the government in the borough. It was the law that sidewalks be cleared of snow within 24 hours of the end of a snow storm. I had shoveled (picture on right is me in that 1965 snow doing just that). Everyone on our street had shoveled, except this politician.

My wife's family (she had several living on the street) were upset. They knew my wife's condition, plus they were also already angry because snowplows had plowed out the streets of the upper-income sections of the township, but not our streets, resulting in the trash trucks being unable to come thought and the garbage was piling up. They said we should all write letters to the Mayor complaining about this Committeeman and the lack of plowing. Well, you know how it goes, I wrote a letter and no one else did. I wrote about the stop sign and the trash and especially about my pregnant wife's fall.

Next thing I know the Committeeman is knocking on the door. He accused me of lying. Then he said I didn't even know where he lived. I said, "Come on" and led him outside and up the street to his house, which still hadn't been shoveled. He was furious. He called me a name and I though he was going to hit me, but he turned and stomped into his home.

Not long after my wife gets a tearful phone call from her aunt. Her uncle had a patronage job with Upper Darby, now someone in government called and said if her niece's husband didn't stop writing letters they were going to fire her husband. She begged Lois to tell me to shut up. I tried to get her family to band together, but in the end I stopped for their sake. This was not to be my last confrontation with bad politicians. (Probably why I don't like them much even today.)

My wife did end up losing that baby, too. It wouldn't be the last.

These winds of 1965 were to blow us in an entirely different direction in our lives and eventually to a very dark place.


TO BE CONTINUED...

Become a Christian and be Fat, Happy and Rich.

So when you become a bonified, true blue, born again Christian all your sufferings, problems and troubles will disappear. And if you send some money to those fellows in shiny suits and polyester hair on TV, you'll get rich and prosperous because "you can't out give God" and Jesus came "to give you life more abundantly".

Well, if you think that then you haven't been reading the Bible. 

It's true Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (King James Version). But He wasn't talking about owning bigger homes and cars and nicer clothes.  He wasn't promising we'd have money to iron. He was talking about our spiritual life. Here is more of the passage: 

Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.  John 10:7-10 (New International Version)

(The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10 (King James Version)

I cringe at these "prosperity preachers". They do harm to Christians and insult God. They are the thief that comes to steal, kill and destroy. We can certainly see how they steal by distorting the Word of God, but they also kill people's faith and they put up stumbling blocks to people who might be seeking, but seeing these charlatans. Someone who is an outright crook is bad. Someone dressed in faux-righteousness promising false hope is much worse. They steal souls.

Does Jesus's life read like a how to succeed in business biography? What did he say to one man who asked to follow and live like him? "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8:20 and also Luke 9:58 KJV) Yes, it certainly sounds as if following Jesus is living the fat, happy and rich life.

There was another time when an already rich man asked how he could follow Jesus.

As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. "Good teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

 "Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: 'Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’"

"Teacher," he declared, "all these I have kept since I was a boy."

 Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me."

 At this the man's face fell. He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!"

The disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."  Mark 10:17-24

I came to Christ in September 1975 a few months after we had lost our seventh child. Something changed immediately after I'd prayed. It would be difficult to explain and harder yet for others to understand unless they have also experienced it. It was not a change to my circumstances, it was a change in me, inside.

And then, of course, I became fat, happy and rich.

Well, maybe a bit fatter. Happier, that too, but not in the way people would usually describe happy. Rich, I'm still waiting. In fact, I got poorer.

Next time, I will explain what happened and answer the question whether Christians suffer. 

Oasis in the Valley of Death

Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops. My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.  James 5:13-20

There are people who believe they are alone, helpless and hopeless because they don't know they don't have to be. That is where I was in the summer of 1975. My wife and I had been through troubles and hard times in the past, but I always got up and dusted myself off and we climbed another hill. Now I couldn't see any hilltops.

I was like a man who thought the 23rd Psalm said, Yea, though I walk through the Valley of Death, instead of through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. I didn't realize that moments like this were a shadow, often a very dark shadow, cast over one's life and in order to be a shadow there must be a light. The shadow is cast because something is blocking that light. My pride, my lusts and my sins had build steep canyon walls around me and blocked all rays from getting through, except a strange cross that had appeared on a wall a decade earlier that I had forgotten and dismissed.

Every possible child who had died in our life hurt, but the others had been distant in a way. When they were lost it was in a room where my wife was attended by doctors and nurses, except for the first baby, which died at home when she was completely alone and a doctor refused to come. When my wife called him, he told her she was imagining it, she couldn't possibly be going into labor.

The first child, a son, was the only one lost I actually saw and when I saw him, he was a corpse curled up in a basin in the bathroom. When the doctor finally came to our house, after he examined my wife, I asked him what we should do about the baby and he said, "you can throw it in the garbage for all I care," and he left. I was too angry to grieve.  I wanted to grab that doctor and beat him. 

But this seventh child I felt I knew. I sat near her for a week, not seeing her, but hearing that heartbeat. I was allowed some time off from my job, but would have perhaps been better served by working. My only inclination was to cry, but I couldn't do that because of the state of my wife. As much as I wanted to crawl in a hole, she was already in one. Although my wife had been in depressions before none had reached the depth of this. She wouldn't get out of bed. She talked only of being worthless and dying, of never being able to have a child. She told me she had her tubes tied after Amy died because the doctors insisted her carrying a baby to term was impossible. To get pregnant again was foolish and dangerous. No baby would survive and she could risk her own health. She said she didn't feel she was a woman and she kept apologizing for letting me down. I did not feel she had let me down at all. I had already accepted we wouldn't have children and had tried many times to convince her that was all right.

My wife had physical problems in that area. We didn't know until after we lost the second child, but she had an incompetent cervix and her womb was in the wrong way. Later, when she had her gull bladder removed in her late twenties, the surgeon also removed her appendix and he turned her womb around to the proper position. The large scar which ran down the center of her chest to her lower abdomen was bisected by a horizontal scar forming an inverted cross. We kidded she had had an autopsy.

The correction of the womb orientation did nothing to stem the problem and each subsequent loss only weakened the cervix further. One time they performed a procedure when she became pregnant called cerclage. The doctor described it as placing a drawstring at the cervix and pulling to closed. When the baby reached the point of labor, this drawstring would be loosened and the baby born. He was certain this would prevent any further loss.

He was wrong and in the fifth month we lost Michael. It was then I told her we should give up, adopt if it was so important, but she wanted "our" baby.   She said there were only three things she wanted in life. Me to be happy in my job, her own house and our own baby.

Now we came to summer 1975 and I could say I was happy in my job, nothing else. We were living in an apartment, a very nice apartment indeed, but we didn't have any real savings sufficient to buy another house. And it certainly seemed our own baby was out of the picture, especially if she had her tubes tied.

But listening to that heartbeat, I had come to believe in God. I didn't know what to do with that, but it was at least a twig to grasp when you're trying to scale a steep canyon wall.  

Down our road and just up the main highway was a new church just build. I passed it everyday going back and forth to work. Maybe if you are trying to climb toward God, a church could provide a good toehold to start. Of course, I knew nothing about the church except it was new and clean-looking and convenient. I suggested to my wife we give it a try.

I can't say she was enthusiastic about the idea. How many times had we failed in the church-going thing? Yet even going to church might be better than slashing your wrists, so on Sunday we went.

People from the door to the pew greeted us with smiles and welcomes. That was a nice change from our past experiences, if not a little unnerving. I was handed a bulletin and when I glanced down the first thing I saw were the words, "Laurel Hill Bible Church: An Independent FUNDAMENTALIST Church". No, "Fundamentalist" wasn't capitalized and emboldened on the bulletin, but that was the way I saw that word.

I'd never been in a fundamentalist church in my life. I'd been taught as a child to stay away from those nuts. I knew what fundamentalists were: Holy-Rolling, Bible-Thumping, Snake-Kissing, Body-Shaking, Faith-Healing, Book-Burning, Intolerant fruitcakes.  My desire was to get up and get out, but the service had started and my wife looked a little uplifted by the music and the smiles we had received. I would endure. I didn't want to walk up the aisle with everyone staring at me anyway. But you can make book, we wouldn't be back next week.

When the Pastor came out in an ill-fitting toupee and dark green leisure suit, it didn't raise my comfort any. Then he did his sermon. It was on suffering and his text came from James, the passage at the top of this post. I was suddenly alone in that sanctuary. No one else existed. Every word he said was directed at me. He was preaching my life and preaching my state-of-mind. And when he talked about Elijah being a man just like me I felt like a sword had sliced through me and cut out despair.  

At the end of the service, when he asked if anyone wanted prayer, I raised my hand.

On the Tuesday following, I knelt down by my desk and I prayed for forgiveness and I prayed for Jesus as best I could. When I stood up, everything was different.

To be continued: What's in a Name: Service and Miracles.   

What's in a Name; Service and Miracles

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. Romans 1:28-32

And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:11

No other name but Jesus,

No other name can save,

With Him His peace possessing,

No other good I crave,

'Tis he who heals my sorrow,

And bids my soul rejoice;

And, of, the sweetest music

Is my redeemer's voice.

              by Henry V. Neal

On a Tuesday in September 1975 I had prayed the prayer of salvation. When I got up everything

was different. Oh, not the world around me, but inside me. I knew it at once. It is difficult to explain. You want to say you had to be there, it had to happen to you, then you would understand, and if you have never been there it would be difficult to grasp.

I want to go back to the "Why me?" in the first post of this confessional. I said there were those verses in Romans 1 I thought meant you could go far enough that God left you to your own devices and you had no way back. But I came to realize those verses spoke of mankind in general. Otherwise, why wasn't I lost forever? Hadn't I turned 180 degrees away from God? Hadn't I stopped seeking?

But I wondered, when I declared myself an Atheist and I began arguing with those ministers was it their faith I was trying to destroy or was I trying to find mine? Was I hoping that one of those men would say the thing proving me wrong? 

It doesn't matter, God for whatever reason He had, drew me to Him, even me.

Things happened quickly afterwards. My wife and I became members of that church I said we wouldn't be back to the next week. We were soon involved up to our eyeballs. I found myself doing things I would never have thought it was in me to do, such as cold-call evangelism, being the regional publicity coordinator for a national revival campaign, speaking from the pulpit, understanding passages in the Bible which had never made sense before and in 1976 my wife and I became youth pastors at the church. That is some of the youth group in the picture as we set out to wash car windows at a shopping center. I am standing third from the left wearing sunglasses and my wife is the dark-haired lady leaning her head on my shoulder. This was a Christian Service outing. We went about washing the windows of the cars in the shopping center parking lot and leaving a tract. Sometimes someone came as we did this and offered money, which we refused. It was our policy on all Christian Service to never take money. 

We were very busy those years, especially I. It takes a lot of hours to properly lead young people. (We had the junior high aged kids.) Plus I was adding to my duties at work. In 1976, I was named Systems Manager as well as being over the accounting functions. Now I was on call all the time in case the computer hit a snag. It usually hit those snags about dinner time.

I was writing again. I wrote a play which was performed by the youth group at venues such as retirement homes and other churches. I was editing a Christian magazine. 

Some of our old friends left us, finding our new outlook at odds with the lifestyle we had shared with them. We made new friends. We were doing well. The Pastor talked to us about our lost children and we came to accept what had happened. Then...

Then one day in 1977 my wife says to me, "Honey, I think I'm pregnant again."

"Whoa, now, how? You said you had your tubes tied?"

"I lied."

Immediately we had a problem. No doctor would take her case. Not her old doctors and seemingly no new doctor. They said her history showed it was impossible. We had been fools to let this happen. It was a terrible risk and there was no hope of a successful birth. I guess they feared malpractice suits if they took her case. 

But there was a Doctor who belonged to our church and he agreed to attend her. then the members of the church formed a special group to pray for us. My wife was put to bed for the term. I rearranged the living room for her, pulled the TV to within easy reach of the sofa, placed a cooler by her so she would have some cold drink and food at hand while I was at work. She was allowed to get up to go to the bathroom and to bed at night. 

The people at church began to stop by to help clean and especially to bring dinners for us. But mostly to pray for us.

Snow came in late February. My wife had made it into the dreaded fifth month. Then the signs came and in a blinding snow storm I drove her several miles to the hospital.

It was deja vu all over again as Yogi Berra put it. We were in a labor room with her hooked to an IV drip designed to stall off labor. There was another monitor, another beat-beat-beat and another week of waiting and expecting the usual dead end. 

The doctor asked if he could inject my wife with an experimental drug, something called steroids, in hope this would strengthen the babies lungs. We said yes. After a week, they said once more any longer delay was dangerous, they had to induce labor now.

And on March 1, our baby girl was born weighing in at 5 pounds. The steroids must have worked on those lungs because she came out protesting loudly. 

We named her Laurel. Many people assume this was after me, since my name comes from the same root and both Larry and Laurel mean Victory. This is not the case at all. We named her in honor of the members of Laurel Hill Bible Church who prayed constantly for her delivery. We gave her a middle name meaning "Little Christian", because Christ was now central in our lives. 

My wife assured me that this time she did have her tubes tied. 

Those gentle readers who have been regular followers of this Blog know God wasn't through proving what man couldn't do, He could.

   

One autumn day in 1980, as we walked along a chill street going to an early Christmas party, my wife says to me, says she: "Honey..."

"Ut oh."

"I think I'm pregnant again."

"But your tubes..."

"Lied...again."

"How long?"

"I don't think long. Maybe I'm in the second month."

A couple weeks later I am sitting in the waiting room of a hospital waiting to hear she had a miscarriage when a doctor comes out saying, "Congratulations, you have a daughter."

There was no human hand this time, no prayer circle, no laying in wait in bed, no steroids. My wife who could never have a baby and had that proved wrong now had it proved wrong medical aid was needed to do so. In a couple more years, we had a third, a son...and then she really did have her tubes tied. (More about these children next time.)

Today I believe in God. I believe in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. I believe the Bible is God's Word. I believe all the promises God has made and that Jesus is coming again, perhaps very, very soon. I believe anyone can be saved if God draws them to Him. I don't believe it is ever too late until you die. In September of 1975, I was 34 years old. I had been spiritually dead a long time. I was a sinner who though he was a good guy, who didn't think the things he did were sins. Now next September I will be a Christian for 34 years. Half a life of sin, half a life of Salvation, half a life of growth in the Lord to go (using Yogi Berra logic again; I know fractions better than that).

So when I got saved I never faced any troubles again.  Yeah...right!

To be Continued: A Fairy-Tale Ending?                                              

Fairy-Tale Ending?

"You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again'. John 3:7

 "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Brothers, as an example of patience in the face of suffering, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. As you know, we consider blessed those who have persevered. You have heard of Job's perseverance and have seen what the Lord finally brought about.The Lord is full of compassion and mercy. James 5:10-11

We hear the term "Born Again" so often it has become a cliche and, for far too many, a joke. Yet, it was Jesus, who is God, who used the term and He said you had to be "Born Again" or you could not enter Heaven. It is more difficult for a person to get into heaven than for a person to get through airport security.

I don't particularly mind the comedians making jokes about being Born Again. It tells us who they are and they need our prayer. It is the same with all those celebrities who get busted and show up in court with a spanking new Bible under one arm claiming they found Jesus.

Who bother me are those electronic evangelists who tell one and all being Born Again is the end of troubles. If you just trust in them, you will be prosperous and healthy. If you send them $100, then expect a thousand dollars back. If they place a hand on your forehead the aches in your liver will go away. If you just listen to their version of God's blessings you'll get the job you want, the house you want, the woman or man of your dreams and a big shiny luxury car at Christmas with a shiny red bow on top. Too many of these types give the impression getting saved is like getting a big old sundae with a cherry on top. Its like winning the Powerball.

Sometimes getting saved comes with a hole in the ceiling.

With the birth of an actual living, breathing daughter in 1978, our life was going very well. My wife had two of her three wishes: I was happy and doing great in my job, and had been at the same employer for over five years, and she had a baby of our own. We still didn't have a house, but that would come -- with a price.

We were active in the church, well-liked and with several friendships that neither required removal of any clothing or downing a bottle of whiskey. Sounded like those "prosperity-preachers" might be right.

Jesus said:  "I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent."

You know what? I think Satan and his cronies have a different reaction when a sinner repents, not one of joy, but of anger. I believe when you get "Born Again" you become a target for the Devil, especially if you are an activist about it. Lucifer may not be able to snatch you out of the hand of Christ, but he might be able to find ways to distract you and make you ineffective, maybe even make you a detriment to others who are watching.

Early 1978 began with a miracle, but by the end we were in the middle of a war.

1977 had been a banner year for the steel fabricating company where I worked. We set a new sales record both in volume, sales and profit. It 1978 in all rolled south. The Japanese were allegedly dumping steel out west. United States steel corporations were collapsing. The U.S. steel industry could not compete with the import price of Japanese steel and be profitable. The owner of the company I worked for refused to buy foreign steel. His patriotism was admirable, but buying domestic also meant we could not compete with our competitors on price either. We went from a record year in profits to a record year in losses.

There were many days that year when I had all my work finished by 10:00 in the morning and could only sit twiddling my thumbs, along with my co-workers, for the rest of the day. By early autumn rumors were circulating about the company's future. Some people found jobs elsewhere and left, including my immediate supervisor. I was called to the CEO's office and told he was shutting down the Philadelphia operation and moving the headquarters to our Chicago plant, he hoped I would move with them. He offered me a 47% salary increase to do so.

There are other things beside money. Most of our other things were here, our families, our friends, our church, our life histories. We didn't want to go to Chicago, but what to do? We had a child now, I would need a job. And one night in November the phone rang...

It was the man who had been my boss, the one who had left when the rumors began. He had taken a job as Financial Vice-President of a large medical center, one with two major hospitals, a college, a nursing school, and axillary clinics. He offered me the job of Budget Director, which I accepted. It seemed an opportunity, but was in truth a nightmare of interdepartmental rivalry and office politics to the extreme. It didn't take me long to learn that either.

It also meant we had to move to make the commute practical. We still were near our families, friends and history, but we had to leave the church in New Jersey and find a new Bible-believing church in Pennsylvania, which we did. 

We couldn't afford to buy a house, but were tired of apartments, so we rented a house. We specified strongly to the realtor we wanted a house that would stay a rental, we wanted to stay in it for a few years, we were tired of moving. This was the eighth move for us in the 17 years we had been married, one more move than companies I had worked for in that time. We had a baby; we wanted to settle down. 

Six months into 1979, I was mired in the political intrigue between doctors, nurses, nuns and administrators, everyday was a struggle to accomplish anything. I was not working directly with my old boss who had hired me, but with a new comer, a job-hopping, ladder-climbing guy who cared less about patients, staff or people in general, then his own advancement. He was already angry at me. He wanted me to fire my secretary, a long-time employee, not for any fault of her's. He told me to fire her because that would put "the fear of god" into the other employees and they would respects me. I refused to fire her; he said I was weak.

Six months into 1979, the realtor, our rental agent, knocked on our door and said the lady who owned the house planned to sell it and wanted us to have first crack. Would we make an offer. Hadn't we told this man we wanted a house that would not go on the market, that we wished to stay a few years? Now we had to move to another rental house. Because the lady was anxious to sell, they didn't hold us to the lease term and in August we had moved again.

A third of the way into 1980, the constant office warfare continued, but despite it, I had brought last years budget in on time for the first time in a decade, I had automated the reports of my office and upgraded my secretary's responsibilities and created a solid communication program between departments for dealing with any and all budget issues. I expected a nice raise. I was asked to come to the personnel department (they weren't using the term Human Resources yet).

The Head of Personnel was very nervous. He kept stuttering, hemming and hawing. he didn't know how to put it, what to call it.

"Was I being fired," I asked.

"Well, no, I wasn't being fired. No, no, he wouldn't say I was being fired."

I wasn't being fired, but I was losing my job. The hospital was owned by an order of nuns. Now this order wanted a nun in my position. I could stick around until I found something else. I had an office, a telephone, my salary and absolutely nothing to do. This was even worse than when I had to twiddle my thumbs at the steel fabricator. At least there I had work until 10:00 AM. here I had nothing. So I listened to the radio a lot, sent out a lot of resumes and in between read a lot of novels.

To be continued: The Attacks Scale Upward

And The Attacks Scale Upward

In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.1 Peter 1: 3-7

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. Romans 5:1-5

When last we saw our intrepid hero, he was dangling over the cliff of unemployment by his fingertips with a baby in one arm. I had been sending out what seemed like hundreds of resumes and being sent on wild goose chases by an employment agency with whom I had signed. It reached July 1980 and I had received no positive feedback. I felt the medical center might be regretting telling me I could stay until I found something. Perhaps I felt that way because they were now hinting...well, telling...me I must be gone by September. 

Near month end, I got a call from a large bank in Delaware. 

Delaware? They had banks in Delaware? I had been in Delaware off and on during my life, but always on the way elsewhere. I didn't see Delaware as a place where people actually lived. It was a little state you went through to Maryland, Virginia or other points south. But indeed, in the flutter of resumes I had mailed, I had answered a newspaper ad for this bank in Delaware. It was for a job as Financial Analyst. I had never been a Financial Analyst, but I had once worked in a bank and I knew how to add up figures on a ledger sheet. I mean, how much more did I need to know?

I drove the forty-five minute trip from our PA. home to Delaware. This was my first time in Wilmington and it seemed to be all one way streets all going the opposite way than I needed to go. Good thing I left extra time. I found a lot to park in and walked back and found the building on Tenth Street.

My meeting was on the sixth floor, which was really the seventh floor, unless you counted the mezzanine, then it was the eight floor. (I don't know what distinguished it as a mezzanine -- lower ceilings, perhaps.) It is this way in the buildings down here. All the first floors are on the second floor. All the actual first floors are called Street Floor. (We don't count the one, two or three below ground floors as floors, just as basements.) 

My meeting with Mister K., who was Vice-president of Finance at the time, seemed to go well until his last sentence.

"I'm not sure Financial Analyst is the right position for you..." Well, that wasn't too encouraging. "But we have this new position in another department that might be right."

So he took me to talk to Double W. Double W was 11 years my senior and Vice-president over what was called Deposit Services and Data Preparation. There was a chemistry between us. We liked each other at once and he took me to meet the Assistant-vice-presidents of his three sections, who preceded to fire questions at me. At the end of this, he thanked me and said he'd be in touch.

A few days later, he called and said his staff liked me and things looked good. I just needed to meet his boss. He set up a luncheon appointment.

I traveled down again and we ate in the Brandywine Room of the Hotel DuPont, a restaurant full of dark wood. His boss was Mister C., Senior Vice-president of Operations. Once again I fielded a bunch of questions and felt it had went well. They would get back to me.

Once again, Double-W called me and told me he wanted me for the job. A few details had to be worked out and then he'd let me know when I would start. Great, I went into the medical Center and informed them I was going to a new job. They said, great and good bye, nice to have known you and my medical career ended like that.  

Then the waiting began. I was sweating it out in the dog days of August and the telephone wasn't ringing. Had something went wrong? After two weeks of growing anxiety, I called the bank. Oh, it was just procedures. Then I was told for my level the Senior Managers had to make the final decision at their meeting, which didn't take place until the 25th of August.

Though it cost me some toss and tumble nights, a positive call did come and I began my new job on September 3, 1980. Had an private office, too.  It didn't have any windows, but it came with a paycheck. I even began going back to evening college, now at a third university taking a major in accounting.

We were getting back on our feet. The house we were renting was nice, but maybe now we could start saving for a place of our own. Looked as if it was smooth sailing ahead, and for the next two months it was, right up until we were walking to that Christmas Party and my wife said, "Honey, I think I'm pregnant again." 

OK, she lied about tied tubes again and we weren't in Jersey near that Christian doctor and one can't expect too many miracles, can one? It wasn't a bit surprising a week or so later, before ever even seeing any doctor about it, she came and told me she was miscarrying. 

I got the minister's wife to stay with Laurel and we rushed off to the county hospital emergency room. They took my wife off somewhere and I sat on a hard bench in a massive waiting room. After a while a doctor came up to me, put out a hand and said, "Congratulations, you have a daughter."

What? How? My wife thought she was no more than two months along. She wasn't showing, not even a bump. She had a baby with no medical attention prior to birth and the baby lived? That's great.

Until they said the baby probably wouldn't live the night, she was too premature, too light. Today newborns under four pounds are probably at less risk, back in 1980 it wasn't promising. 

Then they told us they were sending her to another hospital, one which had a neonatal intensive care unit, one of the hospitals I use to budget, my last employer. We were then told even if our daughter survived, she would be blind and severely mentally retarded. "It would be better if she didn't survive," was their opinion. 

There was another problem. I had left the medical center at the end of July. I had started in the bank in September. My medical insurance had ended with the medical center. I had new medical insurance with the bank, but coverage for pregnancy did not kick in until I was employed there for six month.  It was now only December.

Our new daughter lived through the night. She was behind wired glass, inside a small glass rectangle called an incubator with a thousand tubes running into her. Every couple of hours they stuck a needle in her heel. She had jaundice and had to be under special lighting. my wife and I had opposing RH Blood factors, so the baby had to have a blood transfusion. She had a fever, she had something else, she had that. We could only hold her outside her little box for a brief time each day. The kid looked like a yellow plucked chicken with a tongue too large for her mouth. I said she looked like Alfred Hitchcock. She weighed 3 pounds 6 ounces.

Three weeks later, Noelle came home on New Year's Day 1981 inside a big red Christmas stocking (Picture on the right).

God had blessed us with another miracle. The hospital blessed us with a number of bills. Well, we'd just have to put off owning a house for awhile.

My wife's father had been acting erratically for awhile. (Her mother had died when she was 17.) He was convinced there were people hiding in his bushes at night, that someone might break in to rob him. He had demanded my wife return the house key and he kept a loaded gun under his pillow. He said if anyone tried to break in he would shot first and ask questions later. Needlessly to say when he wasn't answering the phone in May, my wife was concerned. We drove to his house, but no one answered the knock.  My wife went up the street to her uncle, who was her father's best friend, and he called the police. No one wanted to try and break in remembering that gun with which he slept.

He was unconscious. An ambulance took him to the hospital and they took him to surgery. the man had suffered from emphysema for years. He had lesions in his brain, apparently the effect of working with asbestosis in his youth. During surgery he had a heart attack and died, but the doctors brought him back to life.

If you call it life. He was on machines. The doctors told my wife any decision to turn off the machines were hers. They couldn't advise one way or another. I looked into her father's eyes and there was nothing there. Why they brought him back when he died made no sense. I talked with my wife. We prayed. She told them to turn off the machines and when the electricity died, so did he.  

She was an only child. All his estate went to her. We had a house of our own, but like the first car I got at 16 when my grandfather died, it came with a mortgage of guilt. 

The house was free and clear, but something of a mess. He had kept the outside up nicely, but ignored the inside. It was dingy and dark. junk was piled everywhere, old TV parts, a lifetime of old papers, the power mower and other yard tools stashed in the dining room. We found over $3,000 dollars in envelopes taped to the bottom of bureau drawers. The house was not really fit to move into with a baby and a three year old.

I spent all my free time in this house fixing up, cleaning, hauling away junk and painting. We wanted it ready to move into by the end of July because our lease was up August 1. I was working hard to make it and finally, sometime in July, I brushed on the last dab of paint and it was ready.

I didn't go there the next day, because I had classes that night, but on the day after I took my wife and two kids to see how nice a job I did. 

When I put the key in the lock, I thought I heard a strange noise. I threw the door open and I saw the source. Water was running down all the walls. The living room ceiling lay in a heap upon the floor, all the wallpaper had peeled off and all the hardwood floors were buckled.

I dashed down to the basement where the water shut off valve was located. I jumped into water up to my waist, fortunately I wasn't electrocuted. Firemen had to come to pump out the water. 

A inflow pipe had burst in the upstairs bathroom. How long it had been flooding the house, I don't know, but our interior ceilings were ruined as were the floors, all the kitchen cabinets and appliances and the furnace.All the wiring and plumbing would have to be replaced. Basically, the house had to be gutted and rebuilt to be livable. 

My daughter Laurel huddled shivering on the stairs. For years after she would have nightmares when it rained. The photo at the beginning of this post is my wife feeding Noelle in the ruined living room. You can see the despair on her face.

My father-in-law had insurance, but it would do only limited and basic repairs. We had to decide whether we wanted to stay there or sell the place. We were tired of moving. We decided we were going to stay in this house for a long time and would spend the extra money to built it with higher quality than the insurance would cover. Now I had to get a mortgage to cover the costs of this rebuilding and the remaining bills from Noelle's birth. 

But it seemed my wife's three wishes had been granted: I had a job I liked, we had babies of our own and now we had our own home. Maybe we really could settle down for a while.

And then in early 1982 my wife said: "Honey, I think I'm pregnant again." 

There was no thinking about it. She was. This time she got to a doctor and he determined so much scar tissue had built up she wouldn't be able to deliver naturally. Once again it was back to bed for the term and in August she had a Cesarean delivery of our last child, a son. he was also born prematurely.

He was the giant of our litter. He came into the world weighing 6 pounds 10 ounces. The hospital placed him next to a baby weighting over 10 pounds. We named him Darryl, not realizing that in the future this would subject us to a never-ending series of "Larry-Darryl-and-Darryl" jokes thanks to Bob Newhart.

Having a third child brought up another decision. The house we had was somewhat small for a family of five. Combining this with my long drive to Delaware everyday, we decided to sell the house after all and move once again, this time to Delaware. We have lived in this Delaware home for over 26 years now. I was employed by that bank for 21 years. Our kids grew up healthy into nice people and Noelle was not blind. Both she and Laurel were Honor Students. My wife and I have been married 47 plus years and I've been a Christian almost 34 of them.  

Through it all we have persevered.

And the first thing I did when we moved to Delaware was look for a Bible-Believing church.

When the Devil Worrys You for your Soul

"In fact, I don't understand why I act the way I do. I don't do what I know is right. I do the things I hate...I know that my selfish desires won't let me do anything that is good. Even when I want to do right, I cannot. Instead of doing what I know is right, I do wrong."***

  Heh, heh, heh, what'cha thinkin' about, eh?

I was wondering about ...

...doing enough good works, right? You should wonder. Always talking and writing about God, why don't you go to church...

Are you accusing me of not going to church? I go every Sunday.

Oh, big whoop. Singin' and sittin' for an hour, that's real productive.

It isn't just an hour. I go to Sunday school and evening Bible study as well.

Yeah, but you're never there for Wednesday night prayer meeting, are you? You should be worrying. You don't go to church enough, don't read the Bible enough, don't pray enough, don't witness enough, don't give enough. My dear friend, don't think you'll get to Heaven knowing the right words, and not do a lot of works. See I know my scripture, James 2:14.

That's not exactly what it says.

 Maybe you should worry if you really were saved, though I don't see what you had to be saved from myself.  Or maybe you've lost your salvation cause you just don't do enough? Does merely talking about faith mean you really have it? That's from James again in case you didn't know. I know how hard it is for you to memorize scripture by chapter and verse.   Besides I know for a fact you still commit a sin now and again. A saved person can't sin, right? No wonder your worrying.

I'm wasn't worrying.

Well, why should you. A little sin doesn't hurt anybody. It's not like you murdered someone after all. "Sound good, you take care of the faith department, I'll handle the works department". I know how to make works payoff for you and I also know how to show you a good time. Nothing wrong with a bit of fun now and again. Get your mind off worrying about your salvation...

You're getting boring, Satan, stop misrepresenting everything. 

You calling me a liar?

Well...duh!

I am Lucifer, the bright and morning star, the...

Satan, in the name of our Lord, be gone.

Okay, you don't have to start name dropping. I'm outta here, but you better worry about what I said.

Worry about what you say? That's a  trap. I'll contemplate what God has said and not worry as you accuse me of doing. Worrying is a sin. Jesus said, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?" (Luke 12:22-26 NIV)

Knowing worrying is a sin is one of the reasons I know I am saved. When I came to the Lord and asked, He didn't give me a stone, He gave me Bread. I knew I was different inside. When I read the Bible, it wasn't a lot of gobbledygook anymore, it made sense. I wanted to read it and when I read I always found more to know. I wanted to go to church where that Book was used in the teachings. I wanted to be involved in ministries. i wasn't angry at preachers, wanting to make fun of them and Christians anymore. 

And I knew when I sinned. That is one of the greatest differences telling me I was saved. Yes, the flesh is still tempted and yes, sometimes I do what I ought not, but when I do I immediately know it and feel anguish inside and I confess it and ask forgiveness. I don't live in or for sin anymore. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8: 12-14 NIV)

Before I was saved what was sin? Something bad people did, not me. I never murdered anyone, raped anyone, robbed a bank, stole a car, burned down a building. The things I did didn't hurt anyone. So I bought a lot of books and magazines at the adult book store, so what? How did that hurt anybody? It was legal. I wasn't actually doing the things, just looking at somebody getting paid to pose. It wasn't as if I was cheating on my wife with someone. No harm, no fowl.

Yes, when I was unsaved I didn't even acknowledge such things were sin. If I didn't acknowledge God and sin is disobedience to the will of God, of course, I wouldn't acknowledge sin. Did I really deep down not know it was sin? Certainly,I knew, God has made himself known to all men. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20) But when I was unsaved, I rationalized sins away. "It doesn't matter is I take home some supplies from work. They have plenty, they'll never miss a few things. Besides, they owe me for all I do around here I don't get paid for." 

Hey Devil, those words at the beginning that made you accuse me of worrying about my salvation weren't mine and you know it, because you know scripture well, don't you? They were Paul's words in his letter to the Romans.  "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin." (Romans 7: 20-25 NIV)

And that's the answer to your question of what did I need to be saved from. I needed to be saved from sin and thus, saved from death and saved from Hell.

As to losing my salvation because I don't do enough good works, I say, I can't earn salvation by works, neither can I lose it by works. If I am not doing any works or I am living a life of sin, what are my fruits? You will be known by your fruits, Satan. You can't lose your salvation if you never had it. 

Doing enough for God is impossible for us. As a Christian, though, it is my desire to do deeds for the Lord more and more. We can never do enough for God, but the paradox is sometimes we can do too much.

How can that be?  Satan, you know the answer because you're behind us doing too much. You love it when we get so caught up in "works" we lose our focus on Jesus, don't you? 

It isn't the number of works I do, it is what I do with love. There are obligations which are a sin to neglect, even if neglecting them to do a good deed. There is a duty to an employer to do the job for him as if working for Christ, because in fact you are. There is an obligation enforced by a vow to love a wife as Christ loves the Church, to spent time with her and to submit one's body to her. There are other such requirements as a citizen, as a parent and as a child. All obligations commanded in the Word of God. Although church (with a small c) is important, it is the Church (with a capital C) that is more so. Christ and obedience to God is central, not doing just for doing. It is not the work that counts, but the spirit in which it is done.

Let me give an example. When my wife and I were young in the Spirit, we were very active in our church. We were always there when not at work. But we had no children then and we were doing it together (although it was too much because I was pushing my wife into things she didn't feel comfortable doing  and I had to mature and learn that was wrong). There was another young couple, who had two children, who also were in the church all the time, I think even more than we. They felt they were doing the right thing. But they were doing too much and not enough at the same time. They were doing too much to give enough attention to their children. Their children were in the church all the time as well, because they had to be. Thus they weren't making friends with other children, weren't home to play with their toys and even though mom and dad were in the same building, they were not with their kids and their children were lonely. What will it mean to a child to say God loves them if they don't feel the proper love from the parents who tell them that?

We aren't called to do more and more good deeds, we are called to a balanced life led by the Spirit and to make the Good News known. We can't bring a Gospel to people, telling them His yoke is easy and His burden light if we are bent over by the extra yokes of works we place on ourselves. Trust the Spirit's leading in the deeds you choose, not your self worrying that you don't do enough. 

And remember if your desire is on the things of God and not for the things of this world, and you have accepted God's gift of grace, and your heart is troubled when you are tempted, and you are telling others of Christ, then you not only shouldn't worry, you shouldn't even wonder about the security of your salvation. Just remember what Jesus promised:  Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day." (John 6:35-40)

Don't you agree, Satan?

Oh, that's right, he left. He didn't like my other company.

*** From Romans 7, Contemporary English version