Ghost Of The Past - Still With Me At Times

Some years ago, I shared with a pastor Friend what I have decided to call my "Ghost Of The Past - Still With Me" feelings even after all those years.  Maybe some of my Friends and brethren have had similar experiences in years past - and may still find them coming to the surface at times. 

If not, you are blessed and I pray that you will still find my story worth reading.  Below is the note I wrote to my pastor Friend back then - and today I would like to share it, anonymously, with all my Friends.

No, I have not committed any big crimes nor done any mysterious thing which has been hidden all these years.  It is just memories from the childhood of a young boy growing up - which have stayed with me for a major part of my adult life, and did, for better or worse, influence life choices which I may have handled in another way under different circumstances.

Note To My Pastor Friend  ~  Since I am sure that you have noticed that I have not been coming to the Friday Night Prayer Meetings - as my pastor, my Christian brother and friend, I feel that you deserve to know why.  This has nothing to do with our church fellowship, nor does it mean that I do not believe in prayer.  I love my fellowship with our Christian brethren. 

And I believe strongly in prayer, our need for prayer, and God's answers to our prayers. My strong belief in prayer is based upon what I have personally experienced in my own life through prayer - and what I have seen happen in the lives of others through prayer.

Several times in our worship services and in our study discussions I have shared how God has personally answered prayers in my life - for healing, for sustenance, and for comfort and strength - for myself and for others.  Yes, I believe very much in prayer, personal and intercessory - and that is why years ago I began an Intercessory Prayer Chain and why I share prayer needs in my online writing ministry.
 
But as brother Danny has noticed over the past several years, I am not comfortable at group prayer meetings.  Danny has gone out of his way to accommodate me in that discomfort at many of our prayer meetings.  This discomfort is not unique to our fellowship, it is something which has followed me throughout my years as a Christian believer in different churches.   For Bible studies or Sunday School classes, I am the first one there.  But I have long been reluctant to attend group prayer meetings.

So let me try to explain.  When I was about 10 years old my mom wanted my brother, Bob, and me to attend church.  She would not attend because she could not read nor write and she was afraid that might put her in an awkward and embarrassing situation if she attended regularly.   But she wanted her boys to attend church - so she sent us to the closest church in our neighborhood, which happened to be Nazarene church. 

Bob and I went to Sunday School there for a couple of years and then followed our friends to the Baptist church.  My brother, being 3 years older, got more involved than me, but I did attend with my friends.

One Wednesday evening when I was 12 years old my mom and step-dad were going to attend a Revival Meeting at the Nazarene church.  Mom could attend midweek meetings such as that for she could just sit in the back and blend in with other folks.  And knowing how much it meant to her, when she asked me to attend with her - I could not refuse.  At the meeting, for some reason I was not sitting with my mom and step-dad, but was sitting on the other side of the church.  Not sure why.

Then the Revival Meeting started and the traveling Revival Preacher began to get up steam, raising his voice, foot stomping - he would have made TD Jakes proud the way he got wound up and shouted at us.  About half way through the meeting, the Revival Preacher told everyone to stand up.  Then he said, "Everyone who is saved, sit down."

I did not sit down for two reasons.  First, I did not know what it meant to be saved.  And second, even though I was sure I was not saved - I was not going to sit down and pretend, for that would be lying.  So there I stood while everyone around me sat down.  Then the Revival Preacher said, "Just keep standing there until you come forward and be saved."

What was I to do?  I was sure I was not saved, so I could not lie and sit down.  But I did not want to go forward.  Yet what could I do but go forward?  If that had happened to me as the unsaved adult I used to be, I would have given that Revival Preacher a one-finger salute and walked out.  But as a confused 12 year old boy - that was not an option.

So I reluctantly went forward - and the Revival Preacher and several Elders of the church laid hands on me and began praying all at once, "hallelujahing" and getting all worked up.  And I will admit that I started feeling all pumped up also.  I guess you could say that I felt like, "Hallelujah, I am saved - whatever that means!"

No one, not that Revival Preacher, nor the local Pastor, nor any of the Elders, nor anyone else - took the time to talk with me and see if I even knew what it meant to go forward, to be saved, or anything else about what happened that night.  Nothing, nada, zip! 

I guess the only thing the Revival Preacher did that night was to add another number in his "Saved Register" - so that he could add that to his resume and tell folks how many souls he had saved during his most recent Revival meetings.

I will admit that I went home rather pumped up that night.  Hey, I was saved.  Whatever that meant!   That evening, as a 12 year old boy laying in bed, I had some rather carnal thoughts about some of the girls at my school whom I found attractive - and that hit me like a ton of bricks.  Here I had just been saved that night.  And even if I did not know what it meant - I was sure it meant that I should not be having those kind of thoughts.  Then came the self-loathing and revulsion.  How could I be saved and just a few hours later have thoughts like that?

That evening my self-respect went down the toilet.  Here I was, a person who had just been saved - and I was thinking those kind of thoughts.  From that night forward and for many years following - my only self-survival solution was to avoid churches, preachers, and anything to do with them.  Even the word "preacher" provoked a negative feeling.  And in many ways, it still does. 

Today, most often unconsciously, I will call you pastor, teacher, elder, or just brother - but never will I call you or anyone else "preacher" - nor will I refer to a sermon as "preaching."  I will say sermon, teaching, message - but never preaching.

In other words, that evening I began running away from God - and even though I did, later in life, attend many different churches, testing the water, I could not really get involved.  For I knew that if I continued to live my carnal life, I was doomed to hell.  I knew that much about being saved or not being saved.

As a young man in the Air Force my "ghost of the past" problem once again raised its head.  During a week I was in the base hospital, a friend and I began to read the pocket New Testament the Air Force used to provide us.  We did not really understand what we were reading, but for some reason we both felt that we should be baptized. 

We went to the hospital chaplain, a Methodist, and asked to be baptized.  He took us into his office, did not ask us if we understood what it meant to be saved, if we were attending services, or even why we asked to be baptized.  He just sprinkled water on our heads, shook our hands, and told us to have a good day as he ushered us out of his office.  "Gee, I have been baptized - am I saved now?"  That chaplain wasn't concerned one way or the other.  He probably had a golf date that afternoon.

Still confused, I decided to find a church which would tell me there is no hell.  And yes, I did find one.  In the Air Force I found another chaplain, a Presbyterian, who absolutely assured me that hell is only a myth, it does not exist.  Praise the Lord!  Now I could party-hearty all I wanted, go to church occasionally on Sunday - and not have to worry about hell.

Fast forward a few years, I met a lovely Hispanic computer programmer who worked with me at Ramo-Wooldridge (later TRW).  We began dating and after a while we became serious.  Since she was Roman Catholic I started taking Catechism lessons with her at the Our Lady of the Valley church in Canoga Park. 

Confused about my saved and baptized status, I asked the priest if I would need to be baptized again since I was baptized, by sprinkling, by the Methodist chaplain in the Air Force.  And his reply, his exact words, were, "It all depends upon which way the water rolled off your head."  Honest, those were his exact words.

But, praise the Lord, God had a solution for my problem.  At the age of 40, in 1977, God brought my wife, Dory, into my life.  And with her praying for me for 10 years - at the age of 50 God brought Pastor Sam and Ida Lacanienta into my life. 

Pastor Sam was the opposite of that Revival preacher of my youth.  He spoke softly, personally and in his sermons - and he got me involved in a Family Bible Study where he gave me the NASB Study Bible I still use today.  And through discussing Scripture in our Bible Studies, he led me gently to the Lord.  At first I still clung to some of my worldly ways, but through attending our Family Bible Studies for six months - in the year 1987, I was ready to join the family of God.

Still, even today, when someone tells me, "Kneel and pray!" - that Ghost Child of the past awakens and subconsciously I feel a need to run.  For seven years after becoming a believer, I could not pray aloud in church, Sunday School, or Bible study.  Finally I was able to overcome that feeling, yet even at times today when a worship service starts feeling too Pentecostal - I find myself having to step out and get some fresh air.

Over the years Dory has often told me, "That happened when you were just a young 12 year old boy.  Forget about it, put it out of your mind, let it go!"

And I have always responded to her, "If you had been raped at the age of 12 - could you completely put it out of your mind?  Can you honestly say that being raped as a young girl would not still affect you as an adult woman?"   No, something that traumatic stays with a person.

What happened to me as a 12 year old boy, I compare to being "spiritually raped" - and it can often be just as devastating as a "physical rape."   Yes, we can suppress the feelings, we can push them down into our inner recesses.  But at times those feelings do surface - often when some action reminds us of what happened.  We learn to live with it and we develop coping methods to avoid the feelings.  But we cannot say those feelings will never surface at times.

Yet Pastor, I do have one very fond memory from this story.  If you recall Pastor Jesse from the morning church occasionally would come to our services or just join us afterwards for fellowship.  I vividly recall one Sunday he and I had a long talk after our service, and I am not sure how the subject of that Revival Preacher came up - but I shared the story with Pastor Jesse.  He got very upset that a Christian pastor would do that to a young boy. 

The reason I remember that conversation so well is that the next day, Monday, is when he had a fatal stroke which took his life.  I feel so honored to have had that time for a personal talk with him on that last Sunday.

Pastor, Dory and I are very blessed to be a part of the our fellowship and love what is happening in and with our people.  I pray this gives you a better understanding of why I sometimes walk away or take a slightly different path.  Please feel free to share this with anyone you feel would have an interest or be, in any way edified, from reading it.

God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,

Bill 

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