MY STORY
My walk toward Jesus has been long and convoluted. It begins way back....
My two older brothers, two younger sisters and I were raised without a mother by an abusive father. Our father was born in 1908 and raised on an Oklahoma farm and knew little more than hard work. He had a 6th grade education and could barely read or write. Our father divorced our mother and was awarded custody of us when I was 4 or 5 years old, around 1958 or 9. Because he was working at the time, he hired a woman to care for us. She never had intimate relations with our father but she was the closest we ever had to a mother figure in our lives. Within a year of his divorce and due to the combination of my father's lifetime of smoking 3 packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, working as a mechanic in an underground garage around uncontrolled auto exhaust, and the humidity of San Francisco, he developed emphysema, lost one lung and half of the other, and was given less than a year to live. He didn't die and for the next 4 years he was rarely at home. His health limited his ability to find a job and forced him to travel far from home to find temporary jobs that, at times, would last several months. He became extremely strict and we boys were, from time to time, severely punished for violating his rules. Whenever he was around we were not allowed to play, as we often would when he wasn't around. He thought that if we had time to play we had time to be working. As his health deteriorated his demeanor worsened and our punishments gradually became more and more violent.
The violence that I saw and experienced at the hands of my father led me to fear him, which led to my rebelling against him, which led to an escalation of the severity of my punishment, which led to my running away from home at least 15 times beginning when I was 9 years old. Each time that I was returned home the chasm between us deepened until one day, when I was 15, I responded to his attack with force. All the repressed pain and anger that his abuse had placed in my heart poured out with a fury. If it wasn't for the intervention of my oldest brother I would not have stopped until either he or I were dead. In a way the results were both wonderful and sad. I got my freedom from him, he gave me the choice of waiting until he got his gun and shot me or leave and never return. You know what my choice was...FREEDOM. I did not hesitate to go, not realizing that I would lose connection with my brothers and sisters for a very long time. With the exception of a brief meeting with my brother, I would not re-connect with any of them until I found my youngest sister, at my Lord's urging, three and a half years ago.
So here I was at 15, free, but with nowhere to go. I began to hitchhike, going no place in particular, meeting people,both good and bad. I would work when I could and people would occasionally give me a few dollars. When times got too difficult I knew there was always a refuge for me in Francis, the woman who cared for us all those years. Francis was a special woman. She had married young and move with her husband to New York City until the Second World War. Her husband enlisted and was killed in action in Europe. They never had the time to have any children of their own. She moved to San Francisco where, years later, she would come into our lives. When I was 17 I visiting at Francis' house for a few weeks when my oldest brother happened to stop by. He had accepted Jesus by that time and invited me to attend a meeting with him. I remember that I wasn't too interested until he told me that there would be food and girls in attendance. I must say I did enjoy myself and at the end of the meeting, when I was asked if I was willing to accept Jesus into my life, I agreed and recited the 'sinner's prayer'. The problem was, the only reason I agreed was to be accepted by them, I had no desire to know Jesus. So, even though I seemed to accept Jesus, I went right back to the life of freedom that I had come to enjoy.
I hope that the reader isn't bored at this point. Why I have included all of this will become clear soon.
In my early twenties I met Belinda. She was 19 at the time and as carefree as I was. We met by chance in Boise after I decided to rest from traveling for a spell. We connected like we were meant for each other. The love we had for each other was deep and true. I found it hard to be away from her, even to go to work for 8 hours. In her I found a peace and comfort that I never knew existed and couldn't endure being away from. We continued to travel the west, from Montana to Texas. Often during the next few years we would talk about my life with my father. We would talk about how things could have been different if he had just loved children more. When we had been together 3 years or so, we decided together to have a child who we would name, if it were a boy, after my father. We talked about how we would teach him to love everyone, especially children. I felt in my heart that I could bring a Raymond Hatton into this world that would be different. My folly would shortly be my downfall. Ten months later, just as Belinda swore and promised, she delivered our son. We named him Raymond after my father and everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place.
Unknown to me, God had different plans for me and my son. Two months and twenty days of unbelievable happiness ended abruptly. My son went to sleep and never woke up. This is hard for me to tell so please bear with me. The doctors told us that it was 'crib death' (sudden infant death syndrome). My heart was torn and my life shattered. I could find no-one to strike at for taking his life from me. For taking my life. Belinda tried to rescue and comfort me but it wasn't enough. She even thought that if she got pregnant again another child would make everything right again. Our daughter was stillborn 8 months later. Belinda was now as broken as I was. We tried to continue together but, even though we still were very much in love, the pain was far to great for us to overcome. We separated and to this day I still love her and miss her.
As I said, I could find no-one to blame for my son's death except for God. I couldn't see any other reason for his death except that God didn't want me to be happy. My slide into darkness had begun. I developed a deep hatred for God and Jesus and anything that had to do with them. Whenever a Christian would begin talking about God or Jesus, in my presence, I would give them a choice... 'get away from me or be prepared to be hurt, possibly killed'. That was how deep my hatred had become.
I began to dislike being around people who were happy. I could find no happiness myself and could not stand it when others were. At first I tried to find happiness, thinking that it was at places where I had been happy before. It wasn't. I started using drugs to escape the pain in my heart only to find it still there when I came down. I would take LSD and escape for a while, but never long enough which led to the point of my taking 25 doses, hoping to never return to the reality of my darkness. It didn't work, I was merely high for 4 days and the dark was waiting for me. It was always waiting for me. My despair led me to the point that I would walk out into traffic to cross the street hoping to be run down and being angry when the driver stopped in time to avoid hitting me. Once, a person, who though that I had cheated him, burst into the place I was staying, pointed a gun in my face, and told me he was going to shoot me. I calmly took hold of the barrel and directed it to the place where I knew the shot would kill me and told him to do it. He stared at me for a second and released the gun and ran. Yet again I could find no escape. Darkness became my unwanted companion for the better part of twenty years.
I had been living in Las Vegas along the Las Vegas wash for a while. Working jobs for as long as my depression would allow. Never living life, just living death. When I and no money I would go to where different ministries would serve the homeless meals. I would not eat if they required me to sit through any type of service, which few did. Except one. This one held their meetings in a field behind a small church. Their sermons were very casual, though I seldom listened. I only came because I was hungry and the food was unusually good. I never said much to anyone there, including the other homeless.
Then Tuesday December 18th 2001 arrived and my world changed. That particular Tuesday was the day set aside, by the above ministry, to serve Christmas dinner that year ( due to their desire to spend the following Tuesday, Christmas day, with their families). The meal was supposed to start at 6p.m. But the hour had past and the people waiting began to grumble, saying things like, the food had better be good and they had better get here soon. Suddenly, and what seemed to me to come from out of nowhere, I began berating them for their attitude. Defending Jesus and asking them how they thought they deserved what the 'church people' were doing for them. I screamed at them how if it wasn't for their devotion to Jesus they surely would never associate with the likes of us. The people were so amazed and frightened that they all moved away from me. But at least they stopped complaining. I was bewildered about what had just happened. It was not like me in the least to come to the defense of Christians, who I still passionately disliked. While I was still trying to figure out where what I had just said came from the ministry arrived and opened the gates to let us in. Their custom was to have everyone stand in a circle around the person who would preach, and the circle that night was unusually large ( around 250 ). As the sermon began, something came over me that dropped me to my knees. Suddenly I felt at peace and I heard a voice that said: Now I can use you. The experience was so profound that tears were pouring down my cheeks and I felt a wave of Love that I never knew existed. At the time I had no clue as to what happened but soon came to know that Jesus had touched me that night. People told me later that when I fell they rushed to see that I was alright, thinking that I had had some sort of spell. The pastor told me that as he approached he could feel the presence of the Holy Spirit and he felt uplifted. I don't know about all that, I just know that my heart was healed that night by Jesus' touch. Color returned to my world, the darkness was gone, nowhere to be seen.
Over the next few days He made His presence known to me constantly. He took me to a place in the desert where I found some books, all of them weather damaged beyond use, all except an NIV 'Disciple's Study Bible'. To my amazement, though it is in less than great shape, every page is intact and useable. He led me to passages that explained what He was doing in my life. He opened my eyes to see His hand protecting me from harm and guiding me throughout my entire life. Through His eyes I saw the pain, sorrow, and damage that I would have cause my son if he had lived. I saw how, without going through the terrible darkness that I did, I would never have accepted Him. He has filled all the emptiness that I had become with His heart. I was dead in the world, now I am dead to the world and alive in my Love, Jesus.
All the physical and spiritual pain that I experienced throughout my life, all that I have learned from my travels, everyone that I have come in contact with, all of this and more, had to happened to me so that my heart might be in that place where He knew I would be ready to receive Him. Although I can still remember everything I now see it all through His eyes and I know it could not have been any other way. My love for Jesus consumes me with a desire that all would find Him and allow Him to pour out His love upon them as He did upon me. Now my life is not my own. It is His and shall always be His.
This is 'My Story'. May you who read it find comfort in knowing that God is always with us, even if it doen't seems like it at the time.
ps. there is more that I could add about the hand of Jesus in my life, but that will have to wait.
