Born and Born Again

Many years ago, when I was packing lunches for my husband to take to work, I would fill a glass jar with tea on a hot summer day, and then add ice cubes.  The neck of the bottle was small, so I would just pound the ice cubes with my fist till they eventually broke through.  One day I learned that glass jars sometimes break when you do that, and because of the jagged cuts on my hand, I changed my methods.  When the cuts healed, I was left with a scar that looked like a “J.”  I said that was Jesus’ mark of ownership.  I wonder now what Jesus thought of that whole incident.  Maybe He, observing, said to Himself, “There’s a foolish one, but since she’s aware of her foolishness, I can do something with her.” 

Of course, Jesus saw all my life before I was even born, which earth-shattering event took place at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., October 1, 1956. I arrived about a month too early – not that I was a preemie, but I can do the math. 

Over time, I grew weary of my mom’s story about how she and Dad got married and then nine months later, there I was, so during one such story-telling session, I told the hearer that it was more like eight months.  Mom blushed and herded me to another room out of hearing distance to tell me that well, she and Dad had tried to get married, they intended to get married, but that things didn’t work out the way they had expected.  It wasn’t like they had to get married or anything.  That info didn’t really change the fact that I had been conceived when my mother was 17 and my father was 21, before they were married.  

Mom and Dad were finally married at the end of January, 1956, by the Justice of the Peace in Washington, D.C. (a place now known as "The Swamp.") They had previously attempted to tie the knot in Maryland, but Maryland didn’t allow mixed marriages back then, and since Dad was a short Puerto Rican airman with kinky black hair who had just returned from Saudi Arabia with a nice dark tan, and Mom was a blue-eyed strawberry blonde, they were suspect.  After that didn’t work, they drove into Washington, D.C., where there was less of an issue. D.C. didn't even require witnesses.

On my 50th birthday, October 1, 2006, I participated in a LifeChain event.  If you’ve never seen one of those, it’s where pro-lifers stand along a major roadway for an hour, usually socially-distanced, very quietly, with signs, mostly praying and softly singing.  The signs read “Abortion Kills Children,” “Abortion Hurts Women,” and “Jesus Heals and Forgives.”  

I do this every year, but it meant a great deal to me to do it on my birthday, because the circumstances of my birth were such that had it happened even 20 years later, there would have been a much greater chance that I would never have seen the light of day, and never would have had a birthday.  Instead of trying so hard to find a place to get married, my mom and dad could have found a place to do away with me, because killing babies in abortions was already available in some places, even if it wasn't exactly legal.  Anyway, I held my sign on my birthday, cried, prayed, thanked God that my parents gave me the gift of life, and cried and prayed some more. 

 

Growing up, I thought I led a fairly happy life overall, but I didn’t have many friends to speak of because Dad was a serviceman, and we moved a lot.  That suited me fine because if I started having friend problems, I knew we’d be moving soon and I could start over.  But there were never any close friends that way, none with whom I kept contact over the years.  I never really learned how to mend broken relationships.  I also had a pair of siblings who knew how to pester me:  Rennie Marie and Daniel Jr.  We didn't get along either, but they always came along when we moved.

We did go to a church or the base chapel, depending on where we lived.  When I was in sixth grade, Dad had to train at Eglin AFB for a temporary duty assignment in Vietnam, so the five of us left small town life in Sgt. Bluff, Iowa, and hauled our tiny vacation trailer to Florida for two months, to be with him for Christmas and for my parents’ anniversary.  We attended a real church there, a Southern Baptist one.  The pastor talked too loud and had a microphone to boot.  My siblings didn’t like him because they thought he yelled too much.  But every week, my heart was pounding hard in my chest as he passionately declared my need to get saved.

While we lived in Florida, there were some problems.  It was probably the first time I noticed anything going on in my parents’ marriage, but we were all in close quarters -- five people stuck in a one room vacation trailer, because it rained practically every day.  My dad hurt his back in training.  My sister and brother were loud and bouncy at ages 9 and 7, and I was just trying to get my homework done and a report finished with no possibility of even getting to a library.  My dad forgot their anniversary and when he remembered, he brought home a cheap box of chocolates.  As Mom was on a diet, that went over quite badly.  I remember a lot of yelling and crying.

The school bus took me to a place I didn’t understand because being a "military brat," I had truly never experienced it.  The white kids hated the black kids.  I remember playing the game of Seven-Up, where seven kids would lightly touch kids in the rest of the class while their heads were down and their eyes were closed.  Then the kids who were touched had to guess who their toucher was.  Only, rather weirdly I thought, the white kids would not touch the black kids, so the black kids never got to play.  

Then I found out that I was a target because I always knew all the answers to all the questions the teacher asked in class.  They were rather easy questions because the material had already been covered the year before in Iowa, and I considered myself the good kid who raised my hand, while the other kids played pickup-sticks in the back of the classroom.  Jealousy kicked in, and the other kids thought it was really fun to play tricks on the smart kid to save up “hits.” There was a game I didn't know, where if a kid was able to get me to look at them while they had their fingers cross-hatched over their eye, that would be worth three hits. Or, if they could get me to look into a circle, formed by the thumb and index finger, same thing. It was great fun for these kids to get in line behind me at lunchtime and beat on my back the required number of hits, as we raced to the lunchroom.

Home was tough, school was tough, and church was pleasant, even if my siblings didn’t like the amplified preacher.  I needed a Savior and I needed someone to help me.  I asked Mom about what I'd heard at church.  She said I could get saved because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross.  And then she told me I was supposed to “make a decision” for Christ and walk up to the front of the church during the invitation.  But, I shouldn’t do it yet because she wanted Dad to be there and he couldn’t come to church till his back was better.

I wondered why I didn’t know this before now!  What if I’d been killed in a tragic accident when I was nine and didn’t know Jesus as my Savior?  I’d have been consigned to hell!  But, instead of closing the deal at home, at my mother’s request, I waited a couple weeks till my dad’s back was better.  Then I went with my family to church, ready to “go forward and get saved.”

When I slipped up to the front of the church during the altar call time, I was ready.  The pastor asked me, kindly enough I suppose, why I was up there. 

“I want to get saved,” I answered readily. 

"Well," he said, "you weren't listening because I just asked the people who prayed in the pew to come forward." 

But the pastor prayed the *Sinner’s Prayer with me anyway, and I knew it had “taken.” Probably it had already had taken at home, because I most definitely believed, but this was reassuring. Thank God, I was born again! 

That night, December 31, 1967, I was back at the church for Part II: I was baptized in a white robe that covered my clothes.  I don't know how much my siblings remember, but they were there, too, along with members of the church and my parents, who were all smiles and exuding pride in their oldest child. I was just a kid, but the Lord sought me out.  I went through a fiery time those two months, but now that I had Jesus in my life, 1968 was more bearable. I applied those verses we memorized in Sunday School and I knew Jesus was there to help me.  What’s more, I would need even more of Him in days to come.

*Sample Sinner's Prayer: "Jesus, I confess to You that I am a sinner. I believe You died on the cross to save me from my sins and rose again from the dead, to make a way for me to live in Heaven with You. I thank You for that sacrifice and ask You to come into my heart and take control of my life. I gladly receive You now as my Savior, and my Lord."

"... that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." ~Romans 10:9

A More Current Ancestor on the Family Tree

On May 22, 2020, I awoke from my sleep remembering only this: In the middle of an active, busy dream, I was startled by a loud voice, saying, “I am the God of your fathers.” It sounded like a Bible verse, so I was waiting to see whether this voice continued, to speak of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But that never came. It became clear that He, God, was talking to me, and I thought I should carefully consider that and maybe write about it. So what did that statement mean to me?

But, I didn’t want to talk about my fathers, my own family tree, for reasons you will see if you keep reading my blog. So, even though this platform has been seldom used since I originally created it, I picked up my virtual pen that day, dipped it in virtual ink, and wrote a post about Noah. That was safe. After all, Jesus spoke of the Last Days as being like the days of Noah, and everybody knows how righteous Noah is / was. The awesome thing is, Noah actually is my ancestor … along with everyone else living on the planet today. He’s someone I don’t have to be ashamed of, much, except for that one incident when he got drunk …

But in talking with my real brother (as opposed to my biological brother, both of whom you’ll meet later), it became clear that, just as God IS the God of the living Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He IS the God of at least some of my more immediate ancestors too, those who walked with the Lord and knew Him as their Father by faith. They might be flawed individuals … well, of course they would be flawed individuals. So were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And I’m a flawed individual too, just like everyone else besides Jesus Christ. 

I knew I would then have to search out the fathers that God was talking about. 

As a result of my inquiry, my husband pulled two pages from his genealogy notebook: one, a paper written by our daughter for a 4-H Genealogy project, and the other, a full page obituary for my ancestor, E.N. Ware. This was fascinating! He was born in 1836 in Franklin County, Missouri, the fifth child out of eleven, and his full name, I’ve now learned, is Elliot Newton Ware. Elliot was a circuit rider preacher for the Reorganized Church of Latter Day Saints, but he withdrew his membership when there was a false prophecy given, after which he joined the Christian Church and apparently was a circuit rider for them instead.

I do not know whether Elliot owned any slaves, or whether there would be any reasons to discredit his memory or pull down his statue, had he one to pull down. I do sympathize, and indeed identify, with those shamed families whose ancestors’ names have recently been dishonored and erased from the collective memory. This monument-destroying spree has done much evil in our nation. But for me, this link to my past was a breath of fresh air – God reassuring me personally, that He has been there for me, throughout every generation, and I must admit I got a little emotional about it. 

I know that I am not an accident or an afterthought. I am someone God planned on being here, and He took great pains to work things out so that I would be in this place, in this time, for some purpose in His plan. And just as Elliot was commissioned to ride from town to town, to share the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and baptize many, I also can follow in his footsteps and share that same Good News. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever! 

Here is his obituary. I found it really heartwarming. What do you think?

Rediscovering Dad on Father's Day

I visited with my dad yesterday after church, for Father's Day, while some of our adult kids and some of the grandkids were home with my husband. My dad lives on a mountain in Southern Indiana and since his wife died in January, he's stayed busy helping her grandson. I hadn't seen him in person since the funeral.

So I had my dad all to myself yesterday, and that was SO pleasant. We talked about everything and got caught up, we laughed hysterically over silly things, we went out to eat and fought over the bill, and we swung together on the front porch, kicking over a bench in the process, just because we felt like it. I hadn't done those kinds of things with my dad since I was really young. (Well, back then I didn't fight over the bill.)  The silliest thing we laughed at?  He accidentally said "hale of bay" instead of "bale of hay," and we laughed until we both had achy abdomens.

My best memories of my dad when I was little were those piggyback rides; the standing-up rides on the front of his scooter when I felt like I was flying and I was yelling "ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM!" at the top of my lungs because I was sure you had to do that; and the go-cart he constructed so we kids could ride around on the pavement of an old, unused flight line.  We didn't have much, but my dad could figure it out.  He found an old axle and was able to use that to build us a vacation trailer that the five of us could take on camping trips, pulled behind our shiny big black Cadillac.

We are similar, Dad and I.  We can have fun the same way, but I also get my practical nature from him, the desire to have my life organized, and to do things right.  Neither of us are decorators, but we want to know where our tools are.  My tools are paperclips, pens, pans, and spices.  His are large and motorized.  The "A," "the "L" and the "N" on my keyboard are missing the paint, but my flying fingers know where to find those keys.  And I should be able to find my green food coloring if it was put back after the last kid-or-grandkid's baking project. I dot my i's and cross my t's.

We are similar, and we have some similar interests, but Dad and I speak different first languages. I speak computer and office-y things.  My dad speaks machinery things. Yesterday, Dad took me on a tour of his workshop, and that was a big deal. It's a huge metal building on his property that houses his RV and his vast tool collection, from antique tools he picked up in the 70's to cool 21st Century laser tools. Want 6 chain saw blades and the tool to break one and fix it? He's got 'em! Want a big tractor with a winch to pull a car out of the ditch and be a hero? He's got it! Want a hundred duplicate keys made? Yep, he can do that too! His next big project: a saw mill to cut boards for building a house! Did I tell you my dad's in his mid-80s?

I entered his world yesterday, and he taught me some of his language, in the same way someone might learn Hebrew -- You know what this is? It's a band saw. You know what this is? It's a winch. (I read that on the side!) You know what this is? (I jump!) It's a socket wrench. It won't hurt you! That up there? It's an antique blow torch! It was all new to me. It's a little scary to the uninitiated. But I found it fascinating. This is who my dad is, in his own environment, not visiting us in ours.

I don't know how many nouns I will retain from that experience, but my dad was inviting me into his world, and I'm thinking there should be a project for us -- something we can build together or fix together, something he can teach me before one of us dies or the world comes to an end. I need to see him more regularly and more often, and not just so I can "keep an eye on him because he's getting old."  It's for me!  Even making a pizza with power tools would be fun, if I did it with my dad. I know to me, the prospect seems somewhat scary, way out of my comfort zone. I don't even mow our grass! But I would like to try, to be more comfortable in his world and learn to speak his language, and to show my dad that I treasure him.

When we parted, there were big hugs, the kind that meant something, not the obligatory kind.  Under the circumstances, social distancing was just not possible. He had also figured out how my phone charger worked, told me my car sounded like it needed a muffler, and gifted me a half-bottle of something he uses for charley-horses, since we both suffer from those.  

Daddy!  I love you so much!  I'll be back!