I led a pretty misearable existence most of my life. I was thirty-six years old before I finally shut down my controlling inner pride, opened my mouth, and asked Jesus Christ to take over my life. The events which transpired to bring me to this conclusion are something I would like to share with all of you here (this is an exerpt from the book I'm writing, also entitled In the Classroom of the Lord).
I have always been a very intellectual person. I was born with an abnormally high IQ, which in turn made me a loner, an outcast. You don't have to have something different about you on the outside, that people can see; deep down people can sense when you are different.
I tried making friends and having relationships, but they all ended painfully (and some even tragically). My home life wasn't much better. My folks provided for me and my brother and I always felt encouraged and protected. Neither me nor my brother were ever abused, physically or emotionally. I knew my parents cared for me, but these were not words that were ever spoken out loud very often in our house. Sometimes silence can be just as bad as the smack of a hand.
I grew up bitter and angry. Alone. No friends. The best way to describe me is to say I was just like Stitch (in the movie, Lilo & Stitch), and angry little destructive alien who wrekced havoc wherever he went because deep down there was no sense of belonging to anyone or anything.
I also was born with handicaps, which only added to my feelings of alienation. To counter the overhwleming tidal wave of insecurity and wothlessness I became mean and nasty. No one could hurt me if I didn't give a rip. Eventually, anger and hatred became my personality, which only isolated me even more from the people around me.
In 1996 I got a small room in a boarding house and it was here that I realized I could no longer go on. My life sucked and there was nothing I could do about it. I had always been able to figure things out, to know what to do to get out of any given situation. But not this time. This time I had no answers. No escape. I finally understood that no matter how long I tried I would never be able to patch that deep, aching, inner hole inside of me. It was humanly impossible.
I knew about Jesus because I had heard about Him enough times. I knew of Him and that He was supposed to have died for me. I thought it was hogwash. I had always figured that Jesus was just the white man's buddha.
But even so, on the second day in my room, just me and the walls and what few meager things I posessed, I spoke aloud to the Lord for the first time in my life, "Ok, please help me. I can't stand it anymore. Help me. Please."
I remembered times when I was a little boy the feeling of love, for my parents, for the trees and the grass and the blue sky. So many simple pleasures which now felt like alien artifacts, buried in the dust, dead and dry as bones. I felt like a hollow shell, a shadow on the wall, the mere illusion of a man.
I asked Jesus to rescue me. I couldn't bear remembering who I once was and never being able to recapture some semblance of that humanity. I wanted to feel again. I wanted to belong. I wanted to love and be loved. Who doesn't?
I didn't feel any different that first day, so I asked Jesus to take over my life twelve more times. It didn't seem to be working.
And then one morning I woke up, and slowly I realized that the usual self-doubting, self-loathing thoughts I always had were no longer there. Almost every day I can remember I would always have some lowly, self-demoralizing thoughts about myself: I'm ugly, I'm not good enough, I'm a loser, worthless, disfigured, etc.
I tried remembering one of them. I spent about an hour trying to grasp just one of those bad thoughts. But I couldn't do it. I was shocked. At what point did I consciously decide to stop thinking these thoughts? And how had I managed to do it overnight?
Instantly it hit me, and I sat down hard on the floor. Jesus was real.
He really had come, and He'd taken those thoughts away. It was the only answer that made any sense, because I knew no human being could manage to do what I had just done in a matter of a few hours. Heck, I knew countless people who had spent years trying to do the same thing without any progress at all. Change for a human being did not happen that fast.
I started jumping up and down and in doing so it felt as if my insides were being warmed by some imaginary hot iron. It was a wild sensation, one I can't adequately describe. I just somehow knew .... Jesus had really come.
[to be continued]
I have always been a very intellectual person. I was born with an abnormally high IQ, which in turn made me a loner, an outcast. You don't have to have something different about you on the outside, that people can see; deep down people can sense when you are different.
I tried making friends and having relationships, but they all ended painfully (and some even tragically). My home life wasn't much better. My folks provided for me and my brother and I always felt encouraged and protected. Neither me nor my brother were ever abused, physically or emotionally. I knew my parents cared for me, but these were not words that were ever spoken out loud very often in our house. Sometimes silence can be just as bad as the smack of a hand.
I grew up bitter and angry. Alone. No friends. The best way to describe me is to say I was just like Stitch (in the movie, Lilo & Stitch), and angry little destructive alien who wrekced havoc wherever he went because deep down there was no sense of belonging to anyone or anything.
I also was born with handicaps, which only added to my feelings of alienation. To counter the overhwleming tidal wave of insecurity and wothlessness I became mean and nasty. No one could hurt me if I didn't give a rip. Eventually, anger and hatred became my personality, which only isolated me even more from the people around me.
In 1996 I got a small room in a boarding house and it was here that I realized I could no longer go on. My life sucked and there was nothing I could do about it. I had always been able to figure things out, to know what to do to get out of any given situation. But not this time. This time I had no answers. No escape. I finally understood that no matter how long I tried I would never be able to patch that deep, aching, inner hole inside of me. It was humanly impossible.
I knew about Jesus because I had heard about Him enough times. I knew of Him and that He was supposed to have died for me. I thought it was hogwash. I had always figured that Jesus was just the white man's buddha.
But even so, on the second day in my room, just me and the walls and what few meager things I posessed, I spoke aloud to the Lord for the first time in my life, "Ok, please help me. I can't stand it anymore. Help me. Please."
I remembered times when I was a little boy the feeling of love, for my parents, for the trees and the grass and the blue sky. So many simple pleasures which now felt like alien artifacts, buried in the dust, dead and dry as bones. I felt like a hollow shell, a shadow on the wall, the mere illusion of a man.
I asked Jesus to rescue me. I couldn't bear remembering who I once was and never being able to recapture some semblance of that humanity. I wanted to feel again. I wanted to belong. I wanted to love and be loved. Who doesn't?
I didn't feel any different that first day, so I asked Jesus to take over my life twelve more times. It didn't seem to be working.
And then one morning I woke up, and slowly I realized that the usual self-doubting, self-loathing thoughts I always had were no longer there. Almost every day I can remember I would always have some lowly, self-demoralizing thoughts about myself: I'm ugly, I'm not good enough, I'm a loser, worthless, disfigured, etc.
I tried remembering one of them. I spent about an hour trying to grasp just one of those bad thoughts. But I couldn't do it. I was shocked. At what point did I consciously decide to stop thinking these thoughts? And how had I managed to do it overnight?
Instantly it hit me, and I sat down hard on the floor. Jesus was real.
He really had come, and He'd taken those thoughts away. It was the only answer that made any sense, because I knew no human being could manage to do what I had just done in a matter of a few hours. Heck, I knew countless people who had spent years trying to do the same thing without any progress at all. Change for a human being did not happen that fast.
I started jumping up and down and in doing so it felt as if my insides were being warmed by some imaginary hot iron. It was a wild sensation, one I can't adequately describe. I just somehow knew .... Jesus had really come.
[to be continued]
