My Personal Narrative: Part 2

While there weren't many comments on my previous post, I received much feedback, which is encouraging. I guess we find it interesting when someone shares a little about how they developed as a person. Maybe there's even an element of encouragement to hearing someone else and realizing that, "I'm not that crazy after all." Anyway, thanks for the feedback and sorry for being a couple days late with the continuation. It's been an interesting week. So here we go:

After moving into the youth group a year early, I was introduced to the family that volunteered to lead us. This family consisted of a husband, wife, and two sons. We'll call this family the Z's. The wife of the family was an official "leader" in the church. What I mean by that is she would teach most of the time and would do things such as pray, cast vision and also give us wise counsel (This was before the term, "vision" was hip and businesslike in church circles. Nowadays, if you call yourself a "vision-caster," it's church-ease for saying that you are very important.). While this may have been Mrs. Z's job description, her work with confused teens and preteens also turned into a mentoring and mothering role. Also, the ministry of this family was not just limited to the wife, but extended to the husband, who quickly became a healthy model for what a good father and husband looked like, as well as the brothers, who were just generally cool and accepted many of us more dorky pubescent students.

It was while sitting under the ministry and tutelage of this family that I began to better understand who I was (as much as a confused young kid was capable of doing) and who God was. I learned that God loved me for me and not someone else's expectations of me. This is ground-breaking stuff! When you've been taught one way, and then find out that maybe not all of it was true, it changes your world. I learned that God was love and that he had a plan for me.
It was also at this time that some weird things started to happen at our church. People were getting healed on the spot and others were walking into the church with problems that were gone when they walked out. One instance that stands out in my mind is when a drug addict walked into our service and made his way to the front because his wife forced him (women have a way of doing that). The elders and pastors laid hands on him to pray for him and he fell to the floor weeping. I recently met with the former senior pastor of Forest Ridge, and he told me that that man is still clean from drugs and has been a huge help with local ministries. Another instance involves my dad. He was suffering from extremely bad low blood sugar. When he would wake up in the morning, he couldn't walk because he hadn't been able to eat while sleeping (which would create an entirely different kind of problem, if you know what I mean). He would literally roll out of bed and crawl down the hall into the kitchen so he could open the refrigerator and drink orange juice to spike his blood sugar. One Sunday morning, the pastor said he felt led to pray for someone's healing. Receiving a nudge from my mother, he walked down the aisle and didn't even make it to the front before fallling back and hitting the floor.

I know what you're thinking, and I don't really know how to explain it. The pastor didn't even notice my dad until his legs were flying up in the air. My dad got up and everyone was concerned (obviously). He said he felt fine and went back to his seat. He has never dealt with that problem since.

All of these experiences and the people surrounding me gave me roots and formed an understanding of the Christian life that I still look back at with fond memories. This church eventually dissolved and the Z family went on to do other ministries. We all still keep in touch and may even occasionally get together for coffee.
The next phase of my life to discuss will be college....and then, who knows what else (The possibilities are endless!)? Until then, be blessed.

More Later.......