A Motown Moment

 
          My life in the 60’s and 70’s had come unglued. Others about me seemed to move along smoothly while my plans for education, money and success unraveled like an old coat with shredding ends. It was a mess.

          The reason for the mess is not concealed in some deep, dark mystery. I had unintentionally linked my plans for success to people and when the link broke, I felt broken. 

          Unlike the average person who experiences a brief hiatus in forward motion in times of disappointment, my forward motion stopped. The relationships had become more than they should have been. If we build our hopes and dreams on foundations that cannot support them, they are bound to collapse. Those were dark days for me. The places and the people, in whom I put my trust, were constitutionally incapable of being trustworthy. I was shattered. But you cannot remain shattered forever. At least, I can’t.

God Stepped Into My Darkness

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        I began to rebuild my hopes and dreams on a foundation that could sustain it when God stepped into my darkness. 

          A singing group called, “The Originals” had just produced a hit record entitled, “Baby I’m For Real”. Then Teddy Pendergrass followed it up with, “I Miss You Baby”. I played them over and over and squirmed like a worm until I got it out of my system.

          At the end of my squirming, I was able to hear God. God has a way of piercing our ignorance and speaking life to the heart that is ready for it. I was ready, so I turned the volume down on Motown because I thought that I heard God. I didn’t know at the time, but it turns out that it was Him speaking through my thought processes. This is the way my thoughts went:

          “I don’t ever want to be hurt like this again. The best way to avoid
          it is to get smart about life. I am going to get smart about life by 
          studying life. Since I believe that the Bible is a book about life, 
          (At least, that is what they told me, and I believe them.) I am going 
          to use it as my main textbook.” 

 In a wonderful twist of fate, the deep hurt that I felt from the disappointment drove me to make that turning point decision where I became a student of life. God had stepped into my darkness. 

 After God Stepped Into My Darkness

          I wish that I could say that it was a miracle and that everything changed. However, other than me reading my Bible and becoming a regular churchgoer, things didn’t change much. While I already knew that things take time, as a student of life, I learned this lesson in a deeper way when I read about Solomon’s life in the book of Ecclesiastes; especially in Chapter 3 where Solomon assures us that there is a time for everything. WOW! That is great encouragement for anyone who is trying to get himself or herself together. As Andy Griffith told his son Opie, “It’ll come to it.” I had not accepted Christ, but I was studying the Bible and going to Church.

          I did come to it. Somewhere between my reading of Ecclesiastes 3 and Ecclesiastes 12, when I found out about the whole duty of man, that I knelt at my bedside, in my apartment, at on Minnesota Avenue in Washington DC and I accepted Christ into my life. 

          Things still did not change much, but they surely felt like it. Although my decision to study life and my subsequent decision to accept Christ occurred weeks apart, they were turning point decisions, which set me on a new path. I have made a few turning point decisions but these were, by far the biggest. Subsequently, I have learned a lot. 

          I could easily provide a list of things that I learned in Church, most of which would be in the negative category. It is from church that I learned that negatives are a part of life and we cannot avoid all of them. But the greater truth I learned is that God uses negatives equally as powerfully as He uses positives. No greater truth has ever been written in verse than when the songwriter said that it was at the cross where he first saw the light. It even gets better when he said that the burdens of his heart rolled away. There, he received his sight. WOW! Isaiah also said in his 53rd chapter that it is by His stripes that we are healed. It is true that every dried up scar that I have on my body is evidence that I have been healed. Essayist F.W. Boreham said, “God heals, and the Doctor takes the Fees.” Then, there was Joseph who, when reunited with his brothers said, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” Some of the deepest stab wounds that I have ever received came from within the Church. But, “Praise God”, I learned this lesson: “The deeper the wound, the greater the grace.” It is through the wounds that I received among the sisters and brothers that I learned, forgiveness. It is by being hurt myself that I learned a deeper sense of compassion. It is because my ideas, initiatives and memberships among various church members were rejected that I learned to appreciate it when someone opens their heart and accepts me, warts and all. 

          Allow me to give one final note on my thought for the day. I thought that the hurts, the challenges, and the stresses would lessen as I got older, but they have not. The difference is that they don’t bother me like they use to. Because of Jesus Christ, I am like Ike and Tina Turner’s “Proud Mary”:

Let us pray.

​”Dear Lord, I pray that someone is encouraged by this thought for the day. And I pray that someone makes the turning point decision to begin studying life by reading the Bible. I pray that they accept you according to Romans 10:9&10. I pray that they find comfort in your grace and that they will rise above the hurts and challenges, and become lighthouses for you. It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that I ask it, in Jesus name. Amen.”