Not A Hard Choice

The second half of my life is better than the first half. I don't know about everybody else, but I will say that the second half of my life is being lived with more attention to the things that are important to other rather than what is important to me. Now that might not be entirely accurate, actually, maybe, better said is that the things that are important to me are the things that are important to others. There is a slight difference! Maybe, not so slight! Confused yet?

In the beginning there was me and then I decided what I wanted for me when I wanted it how I wanted it where I wanted it - and if I wanted it. I created my own realities and placed everybody into my boxes as I saw them. I judged them, labeled them, named them, framed them and anything else I wanted. The "I's" and "Me's" making you ill yet? Because of the orphan-thing background, I guess that people became marionette-puppets and such in my world. If I controlled them then what; they could not control me, which meant that they could not hurt, abandon, desert, forsake or trash me. That worked for a season or two and only under non-circumspect circumstances.

Upon inspection of the circumspect circumstances I realized eventually, at that half-way mark in life, that I was being treated as I was treating others. Not such an earth-shattering revelation some might say. For me, I was in shock and awe at how things came back upon me. Almost everything came back in direct proportion to what I had callously done, or not done to or for others.

I was in a dark apartment on the other side of the planet and in a flash (which lasted 9 hours) God showed me what a miserable and mean person I had become. It shook me to my very core. Of course, I knew that I had done this here and done that there. I felt remorse and sadness over the relationships that did not work or that I walked away from. I felt melancholy about the wrong choices I had made and the impact those choices had upon others, but, until this moment in conscious contact with God, I had not understood the gravity of my life and its sledgehammering impact upon others. In this experience I was hit squarely between the eyes and a direct-hit piercing my soul with all of my actions. I dropped to the floor and asked God for forgiveness for hours and He revealed to me the incorrect nature of my journey.

God reminded me that I had a number of people that I needed to make amends to. He reminded me that I had been self-centered and callous of others emotional needs. However, just as God works, He also showed me that my life could be made good and decent and an example for others. In this evening on the B-side of the planet He took time and showed me that I was worthy of His Love because Christ loved me when I was unworthy of His love. To top this, He showed me that I could be a beacon for the masses on how to climb out of the fallen state of isolation and self-nothingness and to lead each of the pieces that make up a mass to do something kind for someone else without expectation or reward.

That day was October 21st, 2000 and the place was an orphanage in a far away land and on that day while I was where I was not suppose to be, a horrible, horrible, horrible thing happened. On that day at lunch while I was suppose to be on the third floor of this forgotten orphanage working with the special needs children, I took a wander to the second floor which was restricted to us foreigners. I took the few steps off the landing and quietly slithered through the abandoned hallway. No caregivers, no nurses, nothing but the putrid smell of alone. I heard a child-like whimper up ahead and I moved cautiously toward the noise. Into a room I crept wandered toward a crib that was pushed up against a wall with paint peeling in large flakes into the hard wooden slat. There laid a baby child, an infant at best. The eyes moved back and forth till they caught sight of me. The skin color was ashen and horribly dim. No life seemed to be coming from the skin tone and the child had not been cleaned for some time. I leaned in and lifted the urine soaked child into my shaking arms. This little wee one was inches away from my face and our eyes met. The little child's fingers gripped my hand and held on with the strength of a warrior.

We stood there in that room for some time. I paced back and forth as I experienced this child holding on to me the best it could. The tears welled up in my eyes and all the way down into my gut/soul. I wanted to scream out in such pain. This child was me once upon a time 38 years earlier. I had my crib and trashy ridden upbringing. I prayed out loud to God asking God to look upon the child and to take the pain away. I turned my head away and looked out of a window across a rice field and rocked the child who was still holding on to my fingers. I took notice all of a sudden, that the grip released and the child's hand fell away. I dared to look down from the bottom corner of my eyes and saw that this precious little child of God had died in my arms ................................

Did I ask God in time to save this child? Did this child go to Heaven? Yes, I believe so ... As so very important as this child was to this world, it was the message from God, my Father in Heaven that I needed to have a old fashion "sit down" with the Almighty and get straight. For I learned that day that life could and would be in my hands and if I was deluded, confused, double-minded or self-centered, children would die.

That day in the orphanage and that evening and next morning with God is the foundation of my existence and the purpose of my will now. My will is not mine anymore for it is His will and I am the deciding factor for the promulgation of what was shown to me or the death of all that He worked in me.

Not a hard choice!

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