Bored
I only went because I was bored.
I was a 6 month old baby Christian, but I looked and acted like hell. Just 15, I'd already been hurt, bruised, used and abused. And I was ANGRY. I dressed in blue jeans and a green army jacket, I smoked, I swore and I stayed away from people. The music I listened to was hard, raunchy, angry and dark with death. Death music.
I only went to this "Christian" concert because a friend was going, and since I HAD no other friends, and it was Friday night, and, well, it was better than drinking all by my lonely self somewhere in an alley.
I sat in the car for an hour. I did the same thing most times when we went to Bible Study at Dave Malkin's home. I didn't fit in. Most of the adults just blew me off as a rebel. That was fine with me. I had an image to protect. I had my heart to protect.
But for some crazy reason, my feet disobeyed my mind, and I walked in to the school auditorium. I immediately regretted it when I saw the "concert artists". - two very straight looking guys with two guitars sitting on two chairs. Oh, man, I thought. Why didn't I stay home?
I was about to leave, when they started singing:
Keep the fire burning, the fire of your faith
The Master is coming, the hour is so late
The battle grows savage, He told us it would
That Christ is the Victor must be understood
Their voices were CHURCHY. They were two guys I couldn't even LIKE. So why couldn't I move from my seat?
Then they sang:
Sometimes in the nightwatch of my room,
On my back I lie and stare at my ceiling
I see this cross up there, crown of thorns in His hair;
And it melts my stubborn heart, and sets me to kneeling...
As over me He stands, soothes my wounds with a nail-scarred hand;
I'm warm, I'm real. You can give yourself to Me...
I was about to cry and I didn't know why, and I couldn't stop it, so I walked out. These guys did in 5 minutes what no one had done in 10 years - reached over the wall and touched my scared, scarred heart. So I had to run, you see. They got too close to my pain. Jesus got too close to my pain.
Everything in my life fell apart in the next few weeks. Suicide was a constant thought. Those stupid Christians had violated my Sanctuary of Pain, and now I KNEW how lonely, how utterly lost I was, how hurt, how broken and crippled I was. I wished I was dead.
Later. It was the weekend of my 16th birthday. I was so depressed and sad, I was sorry I was ever born. I felt so unloved. My one and only friend called to pick me up for coffee. When we got there, guess who was there? Dick Williams, one of the singing brothers I'd walked out on. I was so angry. Angry that my friend tricked me into meeting with Dick, angry that he cared so much that he risked my anger because he couldn't stand to see me hurt.
Dick had a block-long Bible, and he read scriptures to me. I hazed out. "What a nice bunch of words", I thought to myself. He might as well have been talking to a dumb snail. He finally noticed the glassy look in my eyes and said, "Can we go to my car and pray?" "Sure", I thought, ready to do whatever I needed to do to get rid of him and back to my misery.
In the car, Dick took my friend's hand and mine and prayed. Then he said, "My son, I know your heart. I've heard your prayers. I love you and I will answer you in three days." I knew this group believed in prophesy and "God talking to you", but this was too much. My first reaction was, who is he to speak for God? My second was, "How did he know?" NO ONE knew I'd prayed a desperate tear-filled prayer that week to a God I didn't even think really loved me. All I'd asked for was friends. Just friends! I was so lonely. I just wanted friends, but I didn't dare believe God would give that to me. In spite of my cynical heart, a spark of hope was kindled in me that night as I said goodnight, that maybe God really DID care for me. One thing for sure; if this was all a lie I'd never trust God or anyone again. Fear - and experience - told me I wasn't good enough for God to do anything good for.
I was in church with my one friend on my birthday three days later.
After church, several kids my age converged on me and asked me - no, dragged me out with them for the day. I was too shocked and shy to say no. They treated me like an old friend! They joked with me, asked about my life. By late afternoon, I was crying. "I love you, and in three days I will answer..." These kids touched me. They even hugged me! NO ONE had done that before. God really did love me - ME! It was too good to be true. I silently cried all the way home. "Thanks, Jesus", I said quietly over and over.
I hardly slept that night. I found Dick and Gary's album my friend had bought me which I had buried deep in my closet where it couldn't hurt me. Now I opened it and played it, over and over and over, in the dark, all night long.
"I see this cross up there, crown of thorns in His hair
And it melts my stubborn heart, sets me to kneeling;
Then there's a glow that I feel within my room,
Like a friendly fire one feels on a chilly day
As over me He stands, soothes my wounds with a nail-scarred hand; A big strong hand, once plied a Carpenter's Trade"
I would have never listened to this group. Their music was churchy. It wasn't my style. Their voices were too normal, their dress too straight. But Jesus was in them, and I FELT Him. There was POWER in their simple words and songs.
Yet, if that was all, it wouldn't have meant much. But one of them dared to not just write me off as a rebel. He met with me, I, poised to strike like a cobra - and he reached into my heart, and in the same simple way he wrote and sang his songs, said, "I care about you. JESUS cares."
It wasn't just the music that reached me - it was the message - and the messenger. They were - REAL.
In an age where slickly produced Christian music is a priority, I remember how God used two nobodies to change my life. And it makes me want to stop trying to "relate" to kids and just BE there for them, with them, like Dick was for me. They never did another album. But one fan has worn their album out, one who no one, no matter how slick or famous or "professional" could ever have reached. They did.
Thanks, Dick.
