Well, the hair’s a bit off and I shaved my moustache of 30 years, but otherwise it’s a flattering thought, eh?

Christian Life:

    I have been a Christian since December 10, 1974. I don’t think there’s been any significant period of time that I’ve been “carnal,” although I’m sure it happens more than I’m aware. Either that or I’ve never been in fellowship.

Family:

    I am married (25 years on 4.5.05) and have two daughters, Amanda (22) and Madeline (16). I was 30 when I married; Cathy was almost 28: it was the first – and last! – for both of us.

    Education:

    D.Min., Trinity Theological Seminary, Christian Education and Discipleship;

    M.A., Denver Seminary, Counseling;

    B.S., Indiana State University, Speech Communication.

Church Affiliation:

    Grace Bible Church.

Theological Orientation:

    Just like the cover says, the Bible is holy, i.e., is not profane in any way;
    Dispensational, with a de-emphasis on eschatology;
    Modified Calvinist: Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Definite Atonement (limited in application, not applicability), Irresistible Grace, Preservation (not perseverance) of the Saints;
    Evangelical;
    Five Solas;
    The church is edifying when gathered, evangelizing when scattered;
    Pretrib, premil – not that it matters, since God’s going to do what He has in mind and won’t ask for my opinion: the point of prophecy is to promote holiness, not produce books or controversies.

Testimony


(One thing that bothers me about some testimonies is that the depth of sin a person falls into sometimes get too much attention. Far too much: I think some people actually enjoy the vicarious experience of sin as they listen to the drug abuse, sexual promiscuity, perversions, and such. I could provide a lot of that, but I won’t. Believe me, it’s not pretty and it’s nothing to be proud of. And it leaves scars. Hopefully, this testimony glorifies God, not me or sin.)

NOTE: Please read my Aug 19, 2005, post Losing My Way for an update, and The Life of a Dúnedan for more stuff about me.

It wasn’t my idea to become a Christian; in fact, I came into the kingdom kind of kicking and screaming.

My problems began before I was born. My codependent mother and borderline father had a couple of children before me – two girls. My misogynous father told my mother that, if the next child was not a boy, he was leaving her. In retrospect, I don’t think he was kidding.

My father had been a good athlete. He was a Golden Gloves boxer and was on a course that might have landed him in major league baseball one day. Then a little thing called World War Two came along, he caught shrapnel in his left leg, and the dream turned into a nightmare.

So my father wanted a son and, after two “misfires,” I came along. But there was one problem: I was born crippled. Bilateral club feet, which means that my feet were curled up so that the bottom of my feet were up and the outsides were down.

My parents didn’t have much money – neither had finished high school because of the Great Depression – and there probably wasn’t any corrective surgery for my condition anyway. So I spent the first year of my life in and out of casts from the tips of my toes to my hips, having them changed every month or so. All my father saw was a son that, according to the doctors, would have trouble walking; running and sports were out of the question. So my father took no interest in me and crawled inside a bottle for the next decade or so.

I didn’t grow up in a Christian home and didn’t spend much time in church. I do recall going to church once in a while, but I don’t remember anything that stuck with me. When my older sister was baptized (I was probably around eight or nine years old), I remember being confused and wondering why she was wearing a white sheet and why they were dunking her in the water. I didn’t like it much and nobody told me what was going on.

When I say that mine was a dysfunctional home, I mean that in a clinical sense. Most families fall into the mid-range coping style, with some actually achieving health. Health means that there is intimacy and individuality; mid-range is some of each; dysfunctional families are significantly screwed up in one or both areas. Communication is troubled and boundaries are blurred. Bad stuff happens.

Without much of a father to raise me (he was present in my life but not a presence in my life), I was left to figure out a lot on my own. And I did, indeed, figure out a lot but – not surprisingly – most of what I figured out was wrong. Like most kids, I was a great observer and a lousy interpreter.

Since I was just a kid, I didn’t know that I wasn’t supposed to be able to run and play like the other kids. So I began to run and play. It soon became obvious that I was a pretty good athlete. Actually, I was a very good athlete at just about anything I took up. Baseball, football, basketball, tennis, skiing, swimming, boxing, wrestling – everything but long-distance running. I could have done that, too, but I never understood why I should run for a long time just to wind up where I began. I mean, if I’m in such a hurry to get where I already am, why leave?

Of course, my athleticism caused my father to suddenly notice me and lay claim to my life. He was determined that I would be the star that he had always wanted to be. He shut down all my sports except baseball because that was what he played. So I did the all-star and all-conference stuff until . . . I noticed girls. Suddenly sports weren’t the greatest thing in the world.

My father disapproved of this and showed his disapproval with the back of his hand and an occasional fist in my face. At the age of eleven, I had promised an uncle that I would never hit my father; at the time, it was a no-brainer: I was 5-6 and maybe 115 pounds and my father was 6-1 and 210. Sure, I’ll restrain myself. Even when I got bigger, though, I kept my promise.

So my father retreated back into his bottle and I discovered the opposite sex. I was looking for love, as Johnny Paycheck sang, in all the wrong places.

School was always easy for me and I got a lot of attention – not always for the best of reasons. I got a double-promotion in elementary school, which seemed swell at the time but not-so swell later: I was a year younger than everyone else and didn’t get my driver’s license until the last semester of my junior year of high school. I finished my first semester of college while still 17. Academically, I was fine; socially, I was light years behind.

Without a sense of direction and virtually no guidance, I went to college without any idea of what I wanted to do if and when I graduated. I tried majoring in history, then English, then speech. Finally, I found something I enjoyed: flunking out. I’d go to class once or twice a semester before giving up and playing cards or shooting pool. I was too busy to officially withdraw so I piled up a lot of 0.00 credits.

But I didn’t care. I had landed a part-time job as a sports reporter at the local newspaper and began picking up more hours. I started by doing obits, then going through vital stats at the county courthouse, and finally worked my way to police beat. I saw a lot of bad things: rapes, robberies, murders, autopsies, traffic fatalities. A lot of dead people. Some young children, some old ladies. Trains crushing cars. Shotguns at point-blank range. People burned to death in fires. It does something to you.

The Vietnam War was going on at the time and some of my friends were going to the other side of the world to kill and/or be killed. I was 19, out of school, and without a deferment when the draft was instituted. My lottery number was 16. But the military didn’t take cripples, so I stayed home while my friends went away. Some never came back, and some that did come back came back different. I felt guilty.

As usual, I tried to “medicate” my emotions through relationships. Overall I had two long-term girlfriends (three and four years, respectively) and was OK as long as I had them. But after the breakup of the second, I was inconsolable. I was barely 21, out of school, and working part-time still at the newspaper. A former semi-pro football player named Doug took me under his wing and introduced me to marijuana. It was the beginning of a love affair that lasted for the next five-plus years of my life. I was stoned all day, every day from that point on. My primary relationship and the love of my life came in one-ounce bags. I quit the newspaper and began driving heavy equipment for the city – stoned the whole time, of course. I spent my nights in bars playing pool and picking up the occasional girl who wanted to get high.

I had a lot of friends, but still no girlfriend. I was 24 years old and going nowhere: I was back at the newspaper and doing well there – I won a state Associated Press award – but still hadn’t found anything worth living for. Marijuana, I knew, was just a way to pass time. As lost and purposeless as I had ever been, I did what everyone back then did who didn’t have anything else to do: I went back to college.

It was different this time. I knew I needed a degree if I was ever going to get out of the rut I was in, so I applied myself. I had re-entered college with a sterling 1.12 GPA (all those 0.00s caught up with me) and about 75 credit hours; when I finished, I had pulled it up to a two-point-something or other.

In one of my first classes back in school, while still doing the drugs-sex-and-rock’n’roll thing, I met a strikingly attractive young lady named Karen. She was the second-ranked student in the class (do I need to say who was #1?) and liked me. But she wouldn’t date me. I was baffled; she was a Christian. Hmmm. A challenge!

We studied together, had coffee together, talked on the phone a lot. But no dates: she wouldn’t date non-Christians, she said.

She explained the gospel to me. Since she was in Campus Crusade for Christ, she used the Four Spiritual Laws. I had been around long enough to know the first three laws – God loves me, I’m sinful, Jesus died for my sins – but the fourth law was new. I had personal responsibility to make a decision about whether I’d accept the offer or not.

Well, I was a happy agnostic at that point. I was making good money, had my own car, lived alone in a cabin in the woods 20 miles outside of town, had a lot of friends, and enough girls that found me sufficiently attractive for at least one night. Jesus didn’t sound too appealing at the time.

Once, in October of 1974, I actually asked Jesus into my heart. My prayer was something like this:

“God, I don’t know if you’re [I didn't capitalize Him back then] really there or not, but I’m going to open the door to my heart that you’re supposedly knocking on. So I’m going to open it but, just in case you are there, know that I don’t want you to come in! Amen.”

Nothing happened and I announced to Karen that it didn’t work so I was right and she was wrong. She asked me what had happened and I, like a fool, told her the truth. She told me it didn’t count.

For the next two months I was hounded by the Holy Spirit. Christians were everywhere saying horrible things to me like, “I’m praying for you!” Talk about pushy. Karen kept talking to me and I kept trying to break her resolve. And morals.

God, however, got tired of the game and brought it to a swift resolution. He hit me in my one tender, vulnerable spot – relationships – and I broke. Even some of my drug friends told me I needed to get serious. So I prayed again. I was serious and so was God. That was Tuesday, December 10, 1974, at a little after 8 p.m. I was on the phone with Karen when I prayed. I was persuaded. I was saved. I was almost 25.

The class in which Karen and I met? Speech 302: Persuasion. Ironic. God has a dry sense of humor.

God immediately took away my desires for drugs, alcohol, and sex. (Well, OK, not the desire but the participation therein.) I moved out of my drug-filled cabin in the woods, turned away from all my stoned friends, and began to read the Bible. (I was so ignorant that the first Bible I bought was a Catholic Bible. It was fatter than the others and cheaper. Looked like a steal to me. I didn’t know there was a difference.)

I developed a ravenous appetite for the Bible. I would read for hours and hours, then go to Bible studies, listen to sermons on tape, and do my own Bible studies. I bought books. A lot of books. I read and read. I had a lot of catching up to do.

The first five years of my new life were spent in the Bible and in legalism. I quickly became self-righteous, dogmatic, and judgmental. Karen didn’t want anything to do with me. “I liked you better before,” she told me one day. I was confused but undaunted. And I was still single.

I got married when I was 30; my bride was almost 28. It was the first for both of us, and we married determined never to divorce.

(Good thing we are both bull-headed and take vows seriously: if not for the commitment to God, we wouldn’t be coming up on our 25th anniversary [4.5.05]. We had/have two wonderful daughters, the first now a senior at Texas A&M and the second a sophomore in high school. They are both believers. My firstborn inherited my club feet.)

I continued in my fundamentalist attitude during the early years of my marriage, making life absolutely miserable for my wife. After three years, I packed up the family (only one daughter then) and we moved to Colorado to go to seminary. And to ski.

Seminary changed my life. Not because of what I learned, but because of the relationships and friendships I forged with a handful of my professors while there: Drs. James Beck, Bruce Demarest, Tim Weber, and Vernon Grounds. I studied them more than I studied my coursework. They are godly men. I wanted to be more like them.

More than anyone else, Dr. Demarest broke my fundamentalism. He ripped my theological and exegetical papers apart, shredded my dogmatism like tissue paper, and slaughtered sacred cows with ease. He taught me to hold my convictions firmly but gently, and to respect the theologies of others since – as he demonstrated – theirs could be understood biblically, too. More than anything, he showed me what humility was. He would humbly answer hyper-critical Bible college grads who would read him the riot act for trashing their theology. He never raised his voice or got angry, but I planned to beat them up after class. For some reason, I didn’t.

After graduation and a couple of years of underemployment, we moved to Texas and I began my counseling practice. I went on to earn a D.Min. from Trinity Theological Seminary in Indiana (my home state), concentrating on Christian Education and Discipleship. I am committed to both.

God continued and continues to grow me, frequently using my confrontational, take-no-prisoners wife to do so. Any other wife would not have been able to get through to me. She did and I love her deeply for putting up with me. She deserved better. She’ll be the one with all the gold, silver, and precious stones in heaven. I’ll be next to the bonfire.

C.S. Lewis said something to the effect that you don’t know how far a person has come unless you know where they started. I’ve got a good ways to go, but Christ has brought me further than I could ever have hoped for or imagined. My life is a miracle, inexplicable according to human dynamics.

One of the highest compliments I ever got was a back-handed one. One day a decade or so ago I was telling a good friend, Rob, about my history and about my father in particular. He said to me in disbelief, “It’s amazing that you’re as healthy as you are!”

And he was exactly right.


2 Cor 1:13