The Journey

In keeping with the pandora’s box I began to crack in my last post, I have decided to share a bit more about some of my childhood experiences. For example, it’s not many who can claim, at the tender age of 20, that they were already a retired street evangelist. Many years ago, in an attempt to process that bit of reality, I wrote down a memory from my former life as a young street preacher, along with the understanding that I had since gained in that 20/20 sight of retrospection. I am going to share that excerpt with you here. I have entitled it:

Confessions of a Twelve-Year-Old Street Preacher

“Jesus said that ‘The wages of sin is death’ and ‘No man comes to the father except by me!’ Repent now and you will be saved! God loves you and wants you to spend eternity with Him in Heaven! That’s why he sent His ONLY Son to die on the cross for your sins! All you have to do is repent with all your heart and then turn from your ways!”

I remember the sound of my own voice magnified exponentially by the bullhorn in my hands. I can feel the pounding terror in my chest; the blank slate of my mind as strings of words I had heard before came barreling out of my own throat. I remember the confusion churning inside my gut: I didn’t want to be up there, out there, in the spotlight, bellowing this message, these words; therefore, I should be up there preaching with all my might. …It was a test! It was a test and an opportunity to prove my devotion and commitment to God, to Christ. The tooth-grinding, nail-clawing resistance that filled my very being was nothing short of the Devil inside me, resisting the Word of God and my duty as a Christian. This is what I had been told and taught for so long now. But I would overcome! I would beat down the Devil inside of me, and the Jesus inside of me would prevail–even if it killed me! And my father would be proud of me. He would be giddy with pride at the sight, sound, and undeniable evidence of the radical, evangelical daughter he had produced. Others would be in awe of my boldness and bravery. They would look up to me and respect me!

“It doesn’t matter what you have done or what has been done to you! There is no sin too great for God to forgive! There is nowhere you can go and nothing you can do to prevent God from loving you! But you must seek forgiveness with all your heart and turn from your sinful ways before it is too late! God loves you, but He loves all the people in HELL also!”

I remember the anxiety and anticipation of what was to come. It was my father’s idea, of course. He wanted me to get up on his shoulders and preach “the Word.” It was what we were there to do and what God wanted me to do. He “urged” me to be bold, but of course, I knew there was no choice in the matter. There was no way to say, “No.” Besides, I knew it would make him happy! And there was no greater satisfaction than that of pleasing my father. But oh, God, the fear! The deep, great, overwhelming desire to escape this. But there was nowhere to run, to hide, to escape to. This was it.

My father told me, “There is nothing more powerful than seeing and hearing a 12-year-old girl preach the Word of God. These people will listen to you! Jesus said, ‘Out of the mouths of babes….’ Just let the Lord use you and talk through you–you know what to do! You have a gift, Christie! Don’t hide your light under a bushel–Let it shine!” I nodded my dutiful assent.

Throngs of people surrounded us. I took shelter from the chaotic crowd inside the small enclave created by the looming, 9-ft-high crosses and diligent pamphlet distributors who would “witness” to whomever was stupid or unfortunate enough to loiter nearby. The crowd swelled, pulsed, and vibrated with the manic, intoxicated party energy that can only be found at that capacity in the heart of Bourbon Street in downtown New Orleans, mid-Mardi Gras. There were women perched unsteadily on top of mens’ shoulders everywhere. The simple distinction between them and me being the fact that they were universally intoxicated, bare-breasted, and weighed down with strings of beads around their necks that had rained from the balconies above; while I was intoxicated only by my fear, anxiety and heightened awareness of danger, clothed in religious attire, and on a mission from God to save these heathens from their misguided ways.

But secretly–deep deep down, in a place that I couldn’t even access yet, much less manifest–there was a desperate part of me that felt just as, if not even more, lost than all these straying sinners surrounding me. In that deep, hidden, uncharted part of my being, I wanted more than anything in the world to be able to slip into that crowd and become part of it. I wanted to belong there. I wanted to be one of them. I wanted to taste the freedom of their sinful shackles, to experience the glorious release of just not giving a fuck about Heaven and Hell.

But the moment of action was upon me whether I wanted it or not. I was lifted up into the air while every cell in my body beat against this unwelcome defiance of gravity. The instrument of amplification (or more accurately, doom) was thrust into my shaking hands. I would have cried, screamed, and kicked my way down if I had even the slightest glimmer of hope that my feelings would have mattered, or been respected, at all. No. There was no way out of this but forward…

“God sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross so that whoever believes in Him might be saved. [John 3:16] All you have to do is turn to GOD in your heart, ask for forgiveness for your sins and TRULY MEAN IT, and change your ways to follow Christ, and you will be SAVED! Jesus said, ‘The Truth will set you free!’ When you turn your life over to Christ, He will set you free from the despair of the world!”

One particular girl, probably in her early 20’s, perched in the air roughly 14 feet out in front of me, gazed at me with sad and somewhat glazed eyes. She seemed, for a suspended moment in time, to be intently focused on my words and me. I looked directly back into her eyes, sensing that I had made a connection…

“The drugs, alcohol, sex, and partying seem fun tonight, but how will you feel in the morning? The things of this world may cause temporary pleasure, but none of them will make you completely and truly happy. Only the peace of God can fill your heart with true happiness, true joy, and true love. The GOOD NEWS is you can come to Christ at any point, in any condition, and invite Him into your heart and be instantly filled with the peace of God.”

She stared back. Had I struck a nerve? …Or had she? I still remember her intent gaze, but it seems different now in hindsight. The sadness I perceived is not introspective; rather it is tainted with pity. She was staring at me, is staring at me, with sad eyes full of pity. She is mildly confused, but mostly feels sorry for me, sitting up there in my golden cage of fear and despair. I think she sees through my pointed stare and hears past the misguided message that is spewing from my lips. She pities me in a mild, removed way. But I did not see, then, what she was seeing. I could not yet perceive the dramatic irony of this scene. Instead…

“But God has given you the free will to choose your own path. He will not make you choose His way, His love, His peace. He just gives you the option to choose Life or Death. And if you died out here in this street tonight, without asking Jesus into your heart and repenting for your sins, you WILL go to HELL! It is not God’s desire that you should spend eternity in Hell with Satan, but He cannot make the decision for you. The choice is YOURS!”

The deed was done, the act completed. I should have taken a bow. The bullhorn hung from my limp arm and someone whisked it off like it was the Olympic torch to be used by another “bold, radical evangel of Christ.” I was lowered to the ground where I was expected to support myself on shaking legs. My father’s massive paw squeezed my left shoulder; someone else patted my back. A few grins were tossed my way by excited fellow-witnessers. Another bigwig evangelist, perhaps, made a comment to my father that caused him to grin and shake his head as if to say, “I know! She’s just too much!” And those few moments of desperately sought approval served as my great reward for the feat I had just accomplished. Ironically, the pleasure was temporary, fleeting. And of course, no matter what or how much I did, it would never be enough to prove myself worthy or make my father truly happy.

Here endeth the story.
**********

Although the words I spoke were touted as a message of peace and joy, the reality I lived was one of guilt and terror. Those same words, some of which I understand today as pointing toward Truth, were so heavily misused and misinterpreted as to teach a lesson of judgment and fear. No one suffered the consequences of these lessons I taught more intensely than I did, for what you teach others is what you are truly teaching yourself. The twisted message of hate and Hell, punishment and condemnation, is a lie from which I suffered deeply. Forgiveness truly is the way out of this lie, but only when forgiveness is truly understood and correctly undertaken. It wasn’t God that I must seek forgiveness from, for He had never judged nor condemned me. It was myself that I must learn to forgive.

…And you thought miming was embarrassing. Haha!

In freedom and openness,
cc