My Personal Experiences in Understanding God's Purposes

Hindsight is really 20/20. Today I can look back over the years and clearly see the plan of God. Beginning from a very young age I was somehow sensitive to spiritual ideas. I attended a one room Methodist Church in the town I grew up in. Later, just prior to my teenage years, I was confronted with the claims of Christ. After the death of my older brother I abandoned any notion of a caring and involved divinity. The next few years brought a time of family and personal strife.

It was in the plan and mercy of God that I would leave the town I grew up in and move to a one bedroom cabin in the wilds of Northern Michigan. My heart and soul was hungry for substance. The freedom and choices I made as a teen and young adult failed to fill the vacuum in my life. God allowed, in His providence, me to meet a young woman who loved Jesus Christ. She was not afraid to speak of her relationship with God. My heart was fertile ground for the seeds of faith to be sowed.

The message of Christ began to have a place in my thinking. The spiritual hunger in my heart grew, I made the decision to trust in Christ and His revelation to me was real. I knew in my heart and mind that God loved me and my faith in the completed work of Christ brought me into fellowship with Christ and my relationship to God was restored. The Holy Spirit had His witness within my spirit, I knew.

I suppose my spiritual growth was the same experienced by millions. I was eager to know as much as I could about Christ and the gospel. I began to read scripture and tried to develop a devotional life, prayer and scripture reading. During this time I began to sense that God was laying the burden upon my heart to communicate the gospel. The burden grew and I acknowledged it to those leaders around me.

The young woman, Donna, became my wife and we found ways to serve God in our local fellowship. She knew of my burden and shared the same in her life. During this time a spiritual struggle was developing in my heart. I knew that I wanted to serve God. I knew that God, through Christ, had my life in His hands. The trouble was, I was not able to do all that I knew, and I was unable to cease from doing what I feared. Sin, the inward power, was at war with my desire to serve God.

My heart and spirit began a period of frustration and crying out to God for answers. The struggle could not really be the will of God. Why would He want me to feel defeated, to sense failure in my desire to serve and love Him wholly. I devoured books and articles about the inner struggle and light was given to my understanding. God was telling me that there was more to His life in me. The Bible, prayer, fellowship with other mature believers and the presence of God Himself spoke to me the truth. My life was the same as reflected by millions of others. I was in need of the Holy Spirit to invade my life and clean house.

That experience was to have its birth during a rather ordinary spiritual retreat. Our guest, a teacher from our own seminary, spoke about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. At the end of the weekend my prayer was very simple, rather unemotional, yet desperate. God have your way in all of my life, consume everything that is not like you. Fill my life with your presence.

The confirmation, that He indeed had accepted my plea and gift, came that very evening. I was to speak at our fellowship that night about the weekend. The overpowering, warming, unexplainable presence of the Holy Spirit seemed to consume every cell in my body. Now, I knew this, God revealed to me that it was His desire and plan to equip me to live a life honoring to Him. That evening the evidence of His gift to me was also in evidence. Many friends confessed that God spoke to them in a very real and understandable way through my message. The Holy Spirit had gifted me with communication.

Continued...

The Beginning of Understanding

The relationship with my dad seemed broken. I told him and my mom that I needed to get away for a while and that I planned on hitching a ride to our cabin near Alpena. So, I filled a military duffle bag with a minimum amount of clothes and a maximum amout of canned food. I was lucky to get a ride to just about 10 miles from the cabin. The last miles I walked down a dirt road at three in the morning and not a street light for miles. Tag's old green duffle bag seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

I spent the next weeks thinking about my family. The life handed out to my parents was unfair. My mother didn't deserve epilepsy and her children shouldn't have had to live under the tremendous pressure that came with worry. There were so many questions going on in my mind, and I could not find any answers. I blamed my dad for almost everything, except Tags death, I blamed that on God.

Time away did me a lot of good. The fresh Pine air was great to wake up to. Our family had so many wonderful memories of camping in these woods. Campfires, roaming racoons, swimming in Lake Huron, all those experiences were hidden treasures that we all had in common. I would never forget the last time Tag was able to go north with us.

After almost three months away I had settled some issues and was ready to get back to the family. Back at home I was able to talk with my dad and deal with my feelings. My mom and dad had discussions with us kids about selling the house and moving north. The house was the first one that I remember my parents owning. Now, because of circumstances, my mom would give up her house.

With the decision made; five of us moved north. Moved north to a cabin with one bedroom, a kitchen, small bathroom, and a screened in porch that would become a living room. It must have seemed crazy to a lot of people in Riverview. I was leaving the schools I knew and the friends that I been with for years. I put that behind me because I was absolutely thrilled with moving north, to the middle of no-where, and starting over.

A Cold Room and A Cold Message

The words from the radio, "On a cold and gray Chicago morn another little baby child is born in the ghetto, and his momma cries" as I listen to Elvis sing I can hear the phone ring downstairs. The voice of Elvis continues and then I hear my mother gasp and begin to cry herself. My bedroom is unheated and cold so it takes a moment to get our from under the covers and head for the stairs. I open the door and the kitchen and dining room are to my left. My mom is crying and my dad is hanging his head. My Uncle Bob and Aunt Lucille are at the table with them.

My dad tells me that the V.A. hospital in Allen Park has just called and a cold voice using cold words tells the Galloway family that Thomas Galloway has expired just minutes ago. The coming hours are a blur and yet a flurry of activity. A call to a funeral home, people in the house, friends calling, sports fans calling and crying. A newspaper calls and words are expected to give detail to a young life, a big Marine, put into a grave, not by an enemy bullet but by an enemy in his blood.

It was early May when Tag first called to give us the devastating sentence that would lead to his death. He had been promoted and his marine buddies had punched him in the arm to congratulate him. Days later he was black and blue from his shoulder down to his hand. The Naval hospital in Pasadena diagnosed him with leukemia and he was headed home as soon as possible. Once in Allen Park at the hospital the full extent of his illness would come down on us like a wrecking ball turning brick to crumbs. Within a couple of weeks massive blood transfusions were required and people from all over the downriver area gave their precious gift.

Tag fought hard and had some brief times of strength and we hoped for recovery. But, when he went back into the hospital as the Oak and Maple leaves came down he commented to my dad that he would not be getting out this time. He never made it home again. They say that the line of cars for his military funeral was a mile long. It didn't matter to any of us at the time. We only knew that our mom and dad were burying our brother.

My parents were never the same and neither were we. The years have come and gone. In 1987 I conducted the funeral for my dad and he was laid to rest next to Tag and my mom. All of us question the unexplainable and we are left with no answer. At times we even doubt the wisdom or even existence of God. Thousand of troubled souls abandon faith and embrace nothingness and emptiness. I have traveled the road of doubt and have questioned the very truth of God.

I am glad that I doubted and questioned. I am glad that I honestly searched for purpose and meaning for mankind. In my search, which has taken me some years, I am convinced more today than ever before that: He was, He is, He always will be. In spite of my belief or unbelief He is.

Charlie was a disgusting man

Everybody knew that old Charlie was a homeless vagabond. He trudged up and down the streets, at times in the middle, in his gray wool coat and blue stocking cap pulled down on his head. His gray hair was as short as the stubble on his face. It didn't matter what time of the year it was old Charlie dressed the same. All of Charlie's earthly belongs were kept in his red wagon, a Radio Flyer, that was given to him by some kind hearted person.

We hadn't been in our ministry very long when we first met Charlie. We heard about and saw Charlie long before our first meeting. He came around the church on a pretty regular basis. There was always some food in the kitchen or fast food burgers in the freezer. Charlie knew he could eat at least once a day at our church. Well, when we met Charlie for the first time it was late August and still pretty warm. Charlie looked, and smelled, pretty bad, he was living up to his reputation.

Donna, being the kind heart that she was, looked at Charlie with compassion and love. Looking at him she was able to see past the coat, the smell, the dirt and the reputation. She saw a man loved by God, but only by a few people. After finding Charlie something to eat she asked him if he would like a shave and a haircut. He told her that he would really appreciate it if a pretty lady like her was to cut his hair. She led Charlie to the basement bathroom and I found a kit that contained a comb, shave cream and razor.

Donna trimmed Charlies hair and then his eyebrows, which looked more like bramble bushes than eyebrows. When she finished his eyebrows she asked if he would like her to trim his mustache. He told her that it would be nice because he hadn't been able to for a while. Well, what Charlie didn't tell Donna was that he chewed Red Man (tobacco) and it had been years since his mustache had been trimmed. You can just imagine what it was like when Donna ran the comb through Charlie's mustache and about two inches of it came out of his mouth. I had to find her two other combs to complete the task of the mustache trim.

There are unlovable people all around us. Contemporary lepers cross our paths and some of us turn our self-righteous faces away from them. The people that I shun might not be the same people that you would shun and so on and so forth. The fact of the matter is quite simple and plain: That is wrong and we are to love the Charlies of the world as much as we love our self. Jesus did not really give us a lot of options about who we should care about and who should be thrown aside.

God help me to see all people the way I should.