Day Fifteen

Day 15

Formed For God’s Family

The way the story was told to me, as a little boy, was that God was in heaven, and He CREATED the angels, like someone might make robots that do what ever the inventor makes them to do. In God’s case they were made to worship Him and praise Him constantly. They had no choice in the matter, that is all they COULD do. And one day God got tired of all this robot worship. How am I, God, supposed to feel great about myself with all these angels just doing what I made them to do? So one day He decided to make a place where He could create other kinds of creatures that wouldn’t just be living in heaven with Himself and that they would not see Him or the place where He lived but they would know OF HIM and that they would have this thing called FREE WILL, a choice to decide on their own whether or not they would love God or not. So those that did choose Him, He would know REALLY LOVED HIM FOR HIM, not just because He made them love Him. And those that did not love Him, even though He would give them every chance to, and try really hard to convince them to, but if they just wouldn’t, then He would have to let them go and not let them into where He lived when they died. It was Their Choice.

It seemed like a simple story to understand. But wait a minute, what about the guy that was also there to distract us from God, that didn’t seem fair. It’s like “Hey little boy, wanna piece of candy?” Didn’t my mom tell me to stay away from strangers? Yea but the guy offering me the candy wasn’t always a stranger. He wasn’t even in SHEEPS CLOTHING. He was my best friend. My boss, the guy next door, anyone and everyone, but never a stranger. It didn’t seem fair. Make a choice with the deck stacked against you. More distractions and more things to entice you and lead you away from God sometimes than to lead you to Him and keep you near Him. Tough world we live in. WOMEN, can’t they just leave the fruit on the tree alone? If an apple was the best looking thing in the garden, they must have been hurtin’! (It’s just my least favorite that’s all)

But I can understand Him, He created EVERYTHING for us, gave us everything we needed to live, survive, and make a life with. It is only right, only fair that He would expect something in return for all His efforts. Just one thing He asked, just one, but it was too much. When left to our own minds, most likely humans will always take what looks the nicest, most comfortable, the easiest, the less effort on our part to get what we want and our needs met to be satisfied, every time, hands down. It’s in out selfish nature to do so. Get what we can while we can before anyone else takes it way from us. Not even realizing that none of it is ours to begin with. It never has and never will be. But yet we act like selfish whoremongers or packrats thinking that “HE WHO DIES WITH THE MOST TOYS . . . WINS!” When in reality he who dies with the most toys still dies.

But Rick taught me something or just explained the story in a way that I never heard it before. GOD wasn’t lonely so He created human beings, He created humans to have fellowship with and have a family with. He was perfectly fine all alone. (If we were made in HIS IMAGE, why weren’t we fine all alone?) But since the tree was there in the garden and mistakes were made, Christ had to come. It was the only way back to Him. It may not have been the plan to begin with, but plans change, constantly. Yes God knew ahead of time the course of my life, so I guess He made plans to fit those paths I would take. I used to think every time I made another mistake or went in the wrong direction; God had to come up with a new plan for my life as if He didn’t know what I was going to do until I did it. Then He had to sit back and get out the old Mike drawing board and erase what was there and take a look down on earth, see where I was heading this time, and make changes accordingly. Figure out new escape routes; figure out a new course of action for what I might do next. But even before I was born He knew what I was going to do and whom I was going to do it with. Where I was going to go and how I was going to get there. Who I would meet, who I would say YES to and who I would say NO to.

All my questions about why this parent, why weren’t they together to be the family I needed them to be, the example of what a family should be, didn’t I deserve at least this in life? I always thought God would provide ALL my needs, starting there. That is where I learned what it was supposed to be, a family, a mom and a dad. Loving and nurturing. Safe and secure, a positive reinforcing place to learn and to grow. That is what the Beaver had on television, why didn’t I? So then if I didn’t have an example of that at home, how could I relate that to a heavenly father whom I couldn’t see feel or touch? I couldn’t. If I was punished severely for something wrong by my dad on earth and had to feel his anger, isn’t that how God felt about it too? That is what I grew up thinking, that God my father was no different than my father on earth. The wrath of God, God’s vengeance, was no different than my own fathers. I was scared of both. Especially since praying to God to save me from my father didn’t seem to work, He must have been in agreement with Him all along. Why else would he abandon me like that? That is what little Mikey thought all those years. But as I grew up, realizing that God’s family was much different that the one I had at home, and what I feel now in a church that I am at home in, I feel a part of something so big, so secure, so wonderful, that I know that I know that it can only be GOD that could bring so many people from so many places with so many different backgrounds and cultures into one place and we can hug and communicate our needs and prayers and pray together and share with each other. For so long the loneliness in my life would cause me to reach out and hold onto people that had nothing in common with me and that I couldn’t trust just to fill my time with, fill my empty days with, pass the nights away with. But to sit alone all by myself and be happy or content, I never could, until now. The peace I have knowing that I am ok being by myself because in reality I am never alone by myself. I have always KNOWN that I wasn’t but now it is a relationship that I am not hiding from that allows me to be ok to feel it all the time. With a sense of direction and purpose there is a goal and something to reach for every moment of every day. And unless there is another human involved in it, there are always at least two of us at all times doing it together, no matter what why or where.

Most of my adult life when I have search or sought out a church, I think the first reason was because I was tired of all the company I was keeping. The bad influences and the kind of people I was letting into my life. I needed new friends and people that were not doing drugs or running the streets and bars, committing crimes and going to jail all the time and dragging my life down. I don’t know what it was in the past, whether or not it was because of things I was still holding on to, things I wasn’t ready to let go of, but in my heart I thought I was at least being honest in seeking something different for my life. I had to start somewhere. All my life I was used to the grander things in life, the larger the better. It had to be impressive. So I thought the people would be too. Transparent I was, and the more I was, the more real I was, the farther people seem to run. Just getting help getting to those big impressive churches became difficult for me at times. Was it the wheel chair, was it my honesty about my HIV status, or my past lifestyle, I don’t really know. It was easy finding people to say “I’ll pray for you” and then see them walk away never to be seen again. They all got lost in those large crowds of people. Then one day the Lord led me to a small church in the middle of downtown Santa Ana on a corner I had been to before many times to buy food and get arrested on the last time I was on that corner, but I never saw the small brown colored church across the street behind the wire fence. I never knew it was there at all. But somehow watching a program early one summer morning on BET television and seeing a preacher that spoke words I had never heard before that led me want to find out more about the denomination he was from that led me finding that small church on that very same corner I was arrested on the day before my 33^rd birthday. It was like it had been there waiting for me all along. Every person there had a reason for being there for me. From the pastor and his wife, to members of the choir, from ushers to Sunday school teachers and members and even the janitor has had an influence and a purpose in my life. EVERY ONE there has been like being reunited with family members I had been separated from at birth. Today Miss Jackson told my friend William that I was her son and now she had another in him. My pastor and his wife are both the spiritual leaders I have always been searching for. And no where else have I ever been absent and been called on to see where I was and what was going on and been prayed for so much and enough for that I was able to finally let go of an addiction, the last addiction of thirteen years in my life. So when Dorothy said “There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home, there’s no place like home”, I now know what it was she meant by that statement. There really is NO PLACE LIKE A CHURCH HOME when God plants you in the right place all prepared for you like He has prepared for us in heaven someday. I can imagine heaven now just a little because when I enter my church on Sunday mornings the peace of knowing every one I see, the faces of every on I know, the smiles of every one that greets me, just knowing that I have been put in a place that is the answer to every one of the lines in the poems I have written over the years, “searching for love and acceptance”, has now come true. What more could I ever ask for? A Family.