Why?
Because I didn't like eating the ends.
They just looked...wrong.
I mean, come on! It makes perfect sense, right?
Well, anyway, it did not make sense to my parents, and they got tired of me leaving the two little hotdog ends on my plate when I was finished. They saw it as wasteful, especially since I had no problem making room for dessert afterward. So they insisted I eat them.
Well, that just wasn't going to happen.
Now, I could have palmed them (like an inmate who doesn't want to take his pills) then flushed them. Or threw them in the trash and covered them up. But no, that didn't occur to me. Instead, I hid them. You heard that right: I hid them - in a drawer of a cabinet in the back of the sitting room, in a little cloth drawstring bag. My parents never went in that cabinet, and so it wasn't until I was almost ten years old (and had long forgotten my frankfurter-contraband) that my secret was discovered. My father told me that he ALMOST asked me why I did it, but decided he would rather not know the explanation.
And that's a good thing, because I wouldn't have one if he asked.
~~~~~~~
There are a lot of things in life that we have no explanation for. They just happen, or perhaps were a part of our genetic code. They were destined to be something we loved, hated, avoided, or embraced. There may be no rhyme or reason to it, and it just "is what it is". Or, maybe it will all make sense one day, and your eyes will open.
This is a story about one of those things.
In my earlier years in church, I made a lot of mistakes. I took my salvation for granted. I believed that because I had grown up in church (and knew all the bible stories) AND had asked Jesus into my heart, that all was fine, and it didn't matter what I did...bad or good. Jesus' love conquers all.
In my early teens however, I broke away from church, and went MY OWN way. That way did not include Jesus. I was not "backslidden" as many would say. In order to backslide, you must have made it at least part of the way up. I wasn't even on the slope. I drank a lot of alcohol. I stole from my parents, and others. I listened to music that glorified Satan, and even talked to demons at night. I felt no remorse for any of this, and that tells me (now) that I did not have Christ at that point. In my way of thinking, he was "fire insurance" at best.
Then, it happened. I was in 11th grade, and I met a girl. Not just any girl, either...she was a GOOD girl. She had Jesus in her heart. She had love in her soul. She was beautiful. And she was looking at me! It took forever for me to ask her out, and when she said yes, I think I popped a mainspring in my clockwork. This was unreal, and I was in heaven!
She was VERY involved in her church, and so I became involved too. I had grown up in church, and knew all the bible stories, so her youth pastor believed that I was "Legit" as well. I could talk a good talk, make no mistake. Before long, I was assisting with the youth, and even helping teach.
Scary, huh? (If you read all I just wrote, you know just how scary that is. I was like a man with no experience as a doctor trying to perform open heart surgery. It was crazy, and dangerous!)
But now let's fast forward a year. In June of 1991, her church's youth group went on a trip to Jekyll Island, GA for a youth evangelism conference called Superwow. It was a week-long celebration of worship and Christ-centered fellowship. And music. Awesome music!
There were bands there that nobody had ever heard of. Jars of Clay. 4Him. Al Denson. Michael W. Smith. Who were these guys? Didn't matter. They were incredible!
At the end of the conference, I realized that I had been playing games with God, and by way of a little boy who understood the faith better than I did, and was willing to pray with me, Christ took control of this pile of dirt with legs for the first time! I thought I had Him all along, but it took me losing myself completely to find out who I really was.
The next day, on the beach there in Jekyll Island, while we were doing morning devotions, I decided that I wanted to be baptized. I went to the youth pastor, and he was OVERJOYED. We walked down into the waves, and I went under the water. I felt the warm of the ocean sweep over me, and I came back up gasping for air...my first real breath in a long, long time.
I stood there, feeling the salt air on my skin. I was dripping wet, and completely overcome by God's grace. I told my youth pastor right then how I had played games all my life, and how I was ready to serve Jesus now. He looked at me and spread his arm across the ocean in front of me, and said "The world is our mission field, and the harvest is ripe."
I told him that I had nothing to give God...no gift to give for the love He had given me. How could I ever repay this debt I had incurred through years of disobedience. He smiled at me, and reminded me of a song we had heard while we were there. To this day, this is one of my favorites, and reminds me that the SMALLEST gifts are the ones that matter most. Especially when they are given in the love of Christ.
The intro to the song has a children's choir from another country singing, and I was immediately drawn to that. I didn't know how, but I knew I wanted to cross that ocean that was in front of me that day, and show God's love to others. I wanted to spread the seeds that God had given; to use the gifts God had entrusted me with. I just had no idea how to do it.
"But God can use what you can give, within the mystery of His ways..."
~~~~~~~~
That was 1991. Twenty-two years later, I was sitting in a community center in Romania, after having just been given the joy of sharing Christ with over 100 children from all over the community. It was music time, and they were singing a song in their language about Jesus' love and how He died for us. I saw all these little hands doing the signs for Jesus, and it was a good thing I had my camera in front of my face to hide the tears that were streaming down my cheeks.
In this crowd were children of all ages. Two faces in particular, however, made me smile so big, because they reminded me of when I was a teenager, and how God loved me even though I was young and reckless and even a little clueless. The little kids in this group would often run to those two people, and stand by them as one might do a "Big brother" or "Big sister".
Their names were Flaviu...
...and Antonia. :)
Flaviu was like, that guy in your school who was good-looking, funny, cool to be around, and as a bonus...he was NICE. Remember that guy? He was never by himself, because people loved to hang around him.
Antonia was quiet, and soft-spoken. But if there were any little kids who needed to be herded off in one direction, she would quickly get their attention, and they would listen to her. They would laugh, and from her head-higher vantage point, they would line up behind her like little ducks...then she would look at them and smile.
These are the kind of kids who will be the LEADERS of these younger children tomorrow, and it brought me SUCH JOY to see them sitting among the other little children, instead of leaning on a wall in the back trying to act "cool" and "older".
In most VBS programs in American churches, when it comes time to sing songs with "hand motions", the older kids tend to avoid getting involved with the music. You can try to tell them it's good for the little kids to see them participate, but that rarely changes their mind. With Flaviu and Antonia, however, they jumped right in!
Maybe it was because they were trying to be a good example, but I think, from the look in their eyes, they were enjoying it on a much "higher" level. <><
On the last day, I gave Flaviu a little wooden flute that I had gotten in town, and told him that he should learn to play this so that the ladies will find him "irresistible". He laughed, and hugged my neck. I felt like I had met the "me" from back in 1991, only much smarter and way cooler.
After I had taught the lesson for the day, and the kids were headed to devotion time, like I had done the year before with Bella, I asked Antonia to stay. I wanted to learn a bible verse in Romanian, and I wanted her to help me.
This is the verse that she taught me, and with help from my translator, I was able to say it perfectly (accent as well) so that I could bring it back to my Awana TnT group here at home:
After she had said the verse to me, I hugged her, and thanked her for her gift...the gift of her time and her heart. I gave her a little pin that I wore on my shirt as a part of the mission team, a flag of the USA and Romania crossing. She smiled, and gave ME a gift in return:
When she hung it around my neck, I felt tears welling up, and I hugged her one more time to give myself a minute to suck them back in. (I don't think she was fooled.)
The SMALLEST gifts are the most important. Gifts of THE HEART.
A hug from a friend. A high-five. A wooden flute.
A name tag.
Everybody's got a Seed to Sow.
<><
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