Seeking the Truth- Our story (Part 8)

Where to start...?
Things were going along pretty smooth for a change. We were in love and the baby was beautiful. Not a bad start for two crazy kids transitioning from hippy life to the real world. I was working for my dad in the honey bee buisness, which for a change wasn't killing me. And P was able to stay home and care for the baby. You know that place where everything is new and clean and you were able to make a break from the past and get a fresh start? Well that's where we were at. Paula was happy. I was happy and the baby was happy. Even our room mate Bradly, who had moved down from Orcas Island to work for my dad, was happy. Sure we still had a little wooden alter that I had built in the living room. But we were all happy.

It was a simple life. Get up and go to work. Feed and bath the baby. Cook dinner. We didn't have to much, but compaired to what we had just months before, we wer living large. My parents gave us their spare bed and P's mom had bought us a nice used car. My work was just down the road from our house and I could pop home for lunch from time to time. I loved feeding the baby girl on my lunch break.

At night we would get the baby to bed and talk about our lives. What did we want to be when we grew up? What was life about? What was our spiritual direction? It felt like we even had been given a new oppertunity to investigate the sacred/religious. I don't know how it all took place but we decided to read the great spiritual teachings. The Koran, the Bagavagita, the Bible...etc. It sounded like a great plan. I have no idea what the plan exactly was, but it was a great plan. I suppose the plan was to discover the truth. And as I have come to learn if you seek the truth, the truth has a way of being revealed to you.

One day while P was at home, a couple of Mormon boys came by the house. Wel lactually they came to our neighbors house and she saw them, so she ran over and told them what we were doing and invited them to come on by and share their stuff with us. The boys said they would come back. (They never did) We were going to find out what these guys believed. I'm not sure if it was that same day or a few day later that P was going out to take a walk with the baby, but as she came up our drive way she ran into that really nice Terri lady from the resturant I had worked at. Now if you remember, she was a pastors wife and she and P had made friends while I had worked at the resturant and there was the baby that P had been pregnant with. Terri happened to be jogging by because, as it turns out they lived just down the street from us. P and Terri started talking and I have no idea how the conversation went the way it did, but P shared how we were re-reading the great spitiual works and how the Mormon boys were coming over at some point and so forth and so on. ( I can picture Terri's face as she was listening to this) Anyhow, Terri say to P that this Sunday evening there are going to be a whole bunch of people who I had worked at the resturant with coming over to her house to have coffee and cake and talk about God and the Bible and ask any questions they had about that stuff. Did we want to come?

At their house we meet Scott her Pastor husband. He's this super tall guy who likes to surf. And Andrew thier son. Everyone from the resturant is there and we have coffee and desert and talk about God and ask questions. I remember one that I asked about Energy points in the body and how that related to the bible. Scott had no idea, but he said he'd see what he could find out. It was a nice night. A bunch of the stuff I had heard before, but that was ok. Scott proceeded to talk about stuff. I don't really remember what, but then some thing changed.

I remember, I was sitting on a bar stool at their counter listening to him. He must have been sharing about the power of Jesus to change our life andthen it was as if his words let something loose in me. That place in my heart, the center of my chest, awoke. It was like when you pour water over a dry sponge and it starts to swell and swell. I felt my soul move. The spirit came alive in me and I was sooooo caught off gaurd. Of course I didn't say anything to anyone, but I walked out of there shook. My world had been rocked. I had gone expecting to reject this Christian stuff, maybe learn a few things, have some desert, but this I had not expected.

At that time I was working for my dad, doing this repetetive job, in this super small, super hot/humid space. I was all by myself 8 hours a day with the work and my thoughts. And man was I thinking. I was thinking about what Scott had said about Jesus. I was thinking about what I thought about Jesus. I was thinking about what I had rejected and what it would mean to believe some of the things Scott had said. And even more I was thinking about the things Jesus had said. I was thinking about what it would look like to believe these things and I was thinking about how stupid I would look for believeing things had rejected for so long. I was thinking, and thinking and wrestling with God. Some one had left this old Amy Grant tape in the tape player where I was working and I listened to that. And I was thinking and I was wrestling with God and I was not working as much as I should have because I was thinking and wrestling with God...

And then it was clear. I was free. I knew. I had made a choice. A long time before, when I was a kid. I had choosen Jesus as my friend. And here he was still waiting. I was free to be who I was. I was free to be free. I was a...Christian. How long had I been pulling this weight, the guilt, this burden of destruction along with me and now I was free. Light as air. New. I couldn't wait to tell P. She was going to be so surprised.