MEMORIAL DAY

I started writing these little thingies (I'm still trying to figure out what to call them), because I wanted my children, and my grandchildren, and now my great grandchildren, to know who I really and truly was when I died and left this earth. I wanted them to know "me" beyond the flesh and bones and blood. Beyond the foibles and mistakes and failures - Who was really living underneath this skin of mine. 

All of us begin to wear masks and hide who we are very early in life. Soon we become so good at hiding, few people know who we really are. I always thought the Lone Ranger, Batman, Superman, and many more masked warriors were cool – until I realized they were just “me and you” hiding behind masks so no one could penetrate to the real person hiding deep down inside. So, I began writing and writing and writing, until some would perhaps say, “stop with the writing already – we get it.” But, now it has gone beyond my immediate family. I want other people to know who I really am, and who my Big Brother really is.

When I was ten years old, my mother took me for swimming lessons to the old Huntington Park High School indoor swimming pool. There were 90 or 100 other kids taking lessons too. I was afraid of the water and never really learned to swim. Just got wet, and stayed afraid of the water for 5 years until I got some swim fins and jumped in the ocean, never to look back again. That is why I keep on writing – because Jesus has to be experienced. Because people need to take a good look at Him – and then plunge out into the ocean and learn to swim in and with Jesus. No need to waste 5 years being afraid of the water, jump in and swim – Jesus is your life preserver, and someday you may even walk on water if you want to. Here is how it started for me.

MEMORIAL DAY

Memorial  Day has a special meaning for me.  As a five  year  old boy  I remember standing on Central Avenue in south  Los  Angeles watching  a World War II parade celebrating the end  of  hostilities.  Trucks, tanks, and soldiers came down the street. It was a big event for a small boy.  Time passed and the small boy  grew up. As a teenager,  I became involved in activities that  brought me into contact with local police and the juvenile court  system.  These contacts resulted in my being placed on probation under the watchful eye of a probation officer.

For  the  1957  Memorial Day holiday weekend,  some  high  school seniors  planned  a Friday night beach party at a  secluded  area below  the Huntington Beach cliffs.  Forty feet above  the  beach were  oil wells that stretched along the highway toward the  City of Huntington Beach.  On the beach at the base of the cliffs were 30 or 40 high school teenagers engaged in drinking beer, wine and other  forms  of liquor. It was a normal, typical event  for  the kind of people I hung out with and called my friends.  

 

By  May  30, 1957, I had been arrested several times  for  alcohol related  offenses. My driver’s license was restricted; my  concern for  my family was non-existent; my life was spent at pool  halls or in my car or just bumming around. I attended school but did no school  work; my grades plummeted, and I was  suspended  when  I threw a “cherry bomb” into school hallways and restrooms. I lied, cheated and stole. My mouth was foul; my heart had become  stone, and  people  had  no meaning in my life except  to  be  used  and abused.  My  friends were cut from the same cloth.

It was with this background that I drove my 1950 souped-up  Oldsmobile Coupe to the Huntington Beach cliffs on Friday night, Memorial Day weekend of 1957.  The night was dark; a large bon fire was lit, and teen age kids began to arrive. There was drinking and  partying in  progress.   Then the police came.  I could not afford to be caught, it would have been a violation of my probation.  So,  I ran! With a friend I ducked between the oil well pumps,   dodging our way in almost pitch-black darkness,  avoiding the  probing flashlight beams of the police. And then,  seeing  a dark  spot where we might hide, we leaped to the safety  of  what looked  like a shallow hole.  Instead, in our drunken stupor,  we jumped off the edge of a 40 foot cliff into a black abyss.

I don’t remember hitting the ground. I was “out” for a minute  or two.  Three things stand out in my memory, as clear today as that instant  in  time  40 years ago.  First, I was  sober  when  I regained  consciousness. Second, my mind spoke the words,  “Jesus Save  Me,”  I knew that I was facing eternity, that I  was  lost without Christ, and that I needed the Jesus of my grandparents to save me. Third, I knew that my right ankle was seriously  broken.  As  I lay face down in the sand, I was a sober, scared and  helpless teenager in need of help for my soul as much as for my body.

Upon  impact,  my  ankle had hit a rock and  shattered.   Many  hours later, ambulance crews arrived and transported me to Hoag Memorial  Hospital.  At  4:00 a.m. a surgical team began  the  task  of reassembling  my  ankle,  I was wearing boots  which  fortunately kept everything together.  After 50 years, the surgeon’s screws are  still  in place and a winding 3 inch scar  serves  as  a permanent reminder of that memorable weekend.

Today, that scar reminds me of the goodness of God in sparing  my life  that night.  It reminds me that there are  consequences  to behavior.  It reminds me that the Sunday School lessons,  and  the prayers of parents or grandparents are embedded in the memory  of young foolish teenagers bent on their own destruction.  That scar reminds  me  that God loves mankind and that he seeks  and  saves those who are lost.

I did not become a Christian until 1959, two years after my ankle was broken. I went back into the excesses of my lifestyle, but  I could  never shake the memory of that Memorial Day event.  Oh,  I continued  to  reap the wages of sin for two more  years,  but  I always remembered that my head could have hit the rock instead of my  ankle.   That  I might have been sent to a  mortuary,  not  a hospital.  For two years, I knew that my life was “out of joint.”  That  I was caught up in living a lie that was not satisfying  my inner  soul.  There was no peace or happiness, only  waiting  for another Friday night to come along.

Then,  at age 19, God caught up with me. After a  Sunday  evening church  service in Bell Gardens, I pulled my car over  on  Colima Road  in  Whittier,  turned the engine off, put my  head  on  the steering wheel, and gave my life to Jesus Christ.  I later  wrote my probation officer a letter stating what had happened to me.  I never heard from him again.  I had stolen various things in  the past,  and  I took back what I could. For the many wrongs  I  had done that could never be made right, for the pain and suffering I caused many people, I could only ask God’s forgiveness and try to spend the rest of my life doing what was right in God’s eyes.   I later applied for admission to a Christian college. I was  unable to  graduate  from high school with my class and  had  to  attend summer  school  on crutches in order to get  enough  credits.  My grades did not look very good the last two years of school, so  I had  to  explain  the changes in my life to the  college.  I  was accepted and began the journey that would take me to six colleges and  universities over the next 13 years and a lifetime  of presenting the claims of Jesus Christ to lost men and women.

I have now lived over 50 years with that scar on my ankle. I have about 99% mobility,  just stiff enough to remind me that sin has  consequences, and just good enough for me to thank  God  for his  mercy and kindness.  I am thankful for the faithful men  and women whom God placed in my path during the first 19  years of my life who pointed the way to Jesus. Most of them never  knew what the ultimate outcome of their witness would be. 

But, God is faithful isn’t he?

If you have read this far, here is a PS for you - several blogs in the past, I suggested that everyone should write a two page “personal testimony” that you could share with others. To wit, “here is how I came to know Jesus as my personal Savior.” Now listen – here is the question you have to answer. Do you have a testimony that you can put on paper? About how you came to know Jesus as your personal Savior? Not about how good you are, not about how you go to church, not about how smart you are, or how kind you are, or how generous you are – but, about whether you know Jesus as your personal Savior. If you can't write that two page paper my friend, take a few minutes and settle that question right now.