Everything
that happened in my whole life up till now was preparation for the Seed
to fall into my heart and take root. Breaking up with Elaine continued
to be agony to my heart. There wasn’t a moment in the day that I didn’t
ache. I was bewildered by my condition, and slowly began to realize that
the problem or need I had wasn’t for a girl friend but for something
deeper. I realized that I was simply a bundle of needs that God was
going to have to save, but I didn’t know what or who or how to proceed.
I realized that I had no one in this world at that time that I could
look up to for answers. I began crying out to God to send me some that
could help me. That prayer wasn’t a conscious or learned prayer. It was
something from deep in my being that I needed and wanted. The evening I
prayed those things was shortly before meeting Doug in the fall.
I remember
during January and February taking walks in the evening and often
looking up to heaven, thinking, “God, I know you are up there, but you
are not down here” as I pointed at my heart. While at college, like I
wrote earlier, I had been taught many things by Christians with good
intentions that weren’t always true, or were only half the truth. I
don’t fault them, but I began to see that they had only understood and
believed half a gospel. In college one of my main struggles had been to
believe God really existed. So I thought that once I believed He existed
I would be saved. Now I was beginning to realize that it wasn’t just
believing with the mind that I was required to do, but believing with
the heart, with my will.
I see now
that many who are Christians, or who call themselves Christians, only
have Jesus with them. He is their dear friend. But that position
is no better than that of the Old Testament believers. Jesus said that
the Spirit “is with you, but shall be in you.” That
word “in” made all the difference in the world, and I hadn’t understood that
or entered into the reality of it.
Teaching was
still a nightmare for me. There were some bright spots, though. One was
a field trip our classes took to the Field Museum in Chicago. We needed
several chaperones for the trip, and I asked Doug
(in the photo to the
left) to go along, to which he gladly agreed. I shall never forget
sitting behind him as we traveled. I asked him, “What are you thinking
about?” He responded, “Oh, I am singing to the Lord in my heart.” I was
floored by his response, and longed for that same simple friendship.
Another time I invited him to come to the art rooms at Wheeling one
evening while I had to work there. At one point he picked up a pair of
shears and said, “Hmm… one of God’s favorite tools…” How true! God sure
was using them on me! I truly wanted to die…
While
growing up, our house always had religious books around. Many of Grandpa
Dibble’s books had been passed on to my mom when he died. One was The
Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. Picking it up one day, I
glanced at the first page. “All is vanity…” I had to put it down again.
That was too close to home for me, to near to the heart of my dilemma. I
couldn’t open it again for several weeks, realizing in the depths of my
being that to have God I must leave the vanity of this world. At the
same time I was often reading John 15 and other scriptures while on my
knees. No one ever taught me how to pray. I learned it by necessity,
driven by the cries of my heart. I learned to pray on my knees often
with my face to the rug, not because I read it in a book, but because
there was nowhere else to go for relief from the perplexing absence of
God in my being. Who really learns to pray but he who needs God
desperately? It is like Peter when he was sinking in the water and cried out
to Jesus without thinking, “Lord, save me!”
In the
gospel of John I began to see the link between joy and obedience. Now
the issue for me wasn’t whether I would go to hell or not. It was my
need for joy. It was my need for real life within. Obedience became an
issue. My problems with inward sin became an issue, as did my lack of
ability to live without sin and my unwillingness to give myself totally.
The other
thing in my life was that I had tried and tried and tried to love others
as I knew I should. I knew I often fell short, and saw the contradiction
between my life and the life Jesus talked about. One of the things that
exposed me most was that I couldn’t love my dad. It was too much for me.
I knew something had to change, because I wanted to love like Jesus, and
heard His command to me to love like that.
One
interesting side note is that I bought my first car in February. But I
knew by now that the happiness I experienced would be short-lived like
everything else. I was thankful for the car, but was hungering for more
lasting things. Sure enough, by the end of February the new car didn’t
excite me in the least.
The first
weekend in March 1977 Fred Tomlinson, a pastor of a church in
Stouffville, Ontario, Canada, came down to speak in our area. Fred had
been an elder at the house fellowship in Liverpool, England, while Doug
was there. I was coming
sporadically to meetings at that time. I remember going to the Sunday
morning meeting a group was having, and Fred was the guest speaker. He
spoke from Ezekiel 36 about the new heart that God wants to give us. The
word went to my heart like an arrow. After the meeting I went up to Fred
and said that I agreed with everything he had said, but I didn’t have
the new heart. He asked if I could come to the house he was staying at
in the afternoon. I said yes, and met him there several hours later.
Fred on Jon
Porcher’s motorcycle The house in Palatine,
Illinois,
giving
Mr. North a lift where I was born again
Fred was a
very friendly, gracious man who truly knew the Lord. We sat and talked
about many things, including fears that I had as a result of watching
the movie The Exorcist. When we began to pray, I confessed my sins and
repented again. I asked for a new heart, the nature of Jesus, and for
the Holy Spirit to come in to me. I was conscious that faith came to my
heart and I knew God heard these requests. They were mine! Nothing
outwardly happened. I left for home, wondering if I would be able to
love my dad. The day was March 6, 1977.
My New Life - 1977
I was
thrilled to find that I did love my dad and that my heart had changed. I
can say that for the first time faith came into my heart. I knew the
work was done of being born again, though there was so much I did not
understand and could not explain. But I knew I was new! I knew that God
was no longer only “up there” but was down here in my heart. I loved
like I couldn’t love before. Teaching at the high school remained
difficult. I would go at lunch breaks to the forest preserve and pray my
heart out to God. Because things had changed in my heart, things began
to change in the classroom as well, slowly but surely. I gathered up the
medals and awards I had won through the years and threw them in the
garbage. My dad found them later and
got mad at me for throwing them
away. I made it clear that they didn’t mean anything to me anymore
because God had come into my heart. Seventeen years later I found most of those
same medals and awards when I was sorting through my dad’s things after
he died. Since having or not having them was no longer an
issue like it was in those early days, I have kept them. Also, soon
after being born again I made a point of returning anything I had ever
stolen that I still had. I also went back to the Sunnyside Market in
Wheaton where I had stolen so much candy while a kid. I offered the
store manager money for what I had taken. I guess you aren’t surprised
that he thought I was a bit strange! He wouldn’t take the money. But my
conscience was clear. It is important to make right all we can after
coming to the Lord!
So what had
happened in me, spiritually speaking, those several years before at
college? I had responded to what I heard, that Jesus could forgive me of
sins. People had talked about being born again and receiving the Spirit
of God, but I saw later on that without dying to self and yielding
completely to God, He couldn’t pour out His Spirit in truth. Whether I
shall be proved right or wrong when I arrive in heaven, from this point
of view I believe I was born again and received new life that March day
in 1977. We respond to what we hear. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing
by the word of God. If we don’t hear that we can be free from sin, have
our heart of stone (that old nature, the Adam nature, the sinful nature)
removed and a new heart, the heart and nature of Jesus, put in its
place, most of us will never receive it and make it real in our lives.
Many are certainly born again despite not having heard of this truth.
But there are also so many who are struggling to live the Christian life
because they have never received the life of Jesus into their hearts.
Summer
vacation finally arrived. I had survived my first year of teaching. I
had begun meeting with Doug, Linda, Jon, Bob and Kathy every week at
Bob’s house in Rolling Meadows where he lived with his mother. Without
putting a label on it, we had formed a church and were clearly joined in
heart and soul. After several attempts at names, we gave ourselves the
name New Life Christian Fellowship. At the right is a photo of the car I
bought in February, 1977, and of Bob’s house where we lived and had our
meetings.
I had always
dreamed of taking a drive out east, and had the opportunity in June,
since teachers enjoy almost three months’ vacation each summer. I first
drove to St. Louis to see my sister Irene and her family, then headed
through Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia. I stopped in Washington
D.C. to visit my sister Anne. I saw the first Star Wars movie there with
her. Then I went on to Maryland, Connecticut and Vermont, camping along
the way until I arrived in Stouffville, Ontario, Canada for a few days
before heading home. The time there was great. I spent a weekend with
all of them, seeing firsthand a church moving in the Spirit and love and
holiness of God. The brethren there made a tremendous impact on my heart
and life for years to come.
After getting back home,
it wasn’t long before I moved in with Doug and Jon into Bob’s house. We
were set to go on as a new church, excited about what God was doing, and
thrilled with what He was showing us. Because of stories that Doug and
Linda were telling us about the work of God in England, and of the
ministry of Mr. North, Norman Meeten and others, we started talk of going together to the summer conference there at a place called
Cliff College. We all ended up going in August. It was a wonderful time
in which God worked profound things in all of our hearts. Mr. North was
a dear elderly man who loved us as Jesus would, and preached with fire,
courage and firmness of so many wonderful things about Jesus. He headed
the fellowships we were linked with. And no wonder, because he was the
most spiritual, and God had obviously set him in that position. Norman
Meeten had led the Devonshire Road Fellowship in England where Doug had
spent time. Norman was completely different than Mr. North, but preached
the same glorious message with incredible urgency, power and clearness
of thought. The photo at the right shows Norman at the microphone with
Mr. North at the conference. It was there at the Cliff Conference that I
believed for the first time that I could really love as Jesus loved. We
met so many wonderful brethren during those days, too many to name.
Before my second year of
teaching art, I set my heart to begin the year in a completely different
way. I decided to be prepared, to be serious from the very beginning, to
discipline quickly whenever necessary. So you can imagine that I
wondered how the first day would go. To my relief the day went well. I
was kind but in a way very matter of fact and serious. Amazingly
the
kids were attentive, and I had very little problem all year. As I
expected, relationships with the kids were better, not worse. I made
some friendships with kids that year that lasted for years after that.
To the left is a photo of me working on a silkscreen print at Wheeling
High School.
As far as my life in the
Lord, I continued to grow. I spent much time in reading and prayer
during the early years of my walk with the Lord. I and the church longed
for God to move, to spread this knowledge that we had come into,
and to add more people to us. We read how God had moved in the days of
Charles Finney and John Wesley, and thought He would do the same through
us. It became very discouraging and difficult through those early years
because God didn’t move as we had hoped. But we also learned that
God is God and can work how He wants and when He wants.
During high
school and college I had saved a lot of artwork I had done, whether
drawings, paintings, prints of different media and sculpture. I also
continued to do art. One day as I was looking through my artwork I
realized that I had some stuff that wasn’t compatible with my Christian
life. God began to speak to me about all my art, until I knew that He
wanted me to get rid of it all. So one day I packed it up and brought it
to Wheeling High School and threw it in a dumpster there. I knew that
for me it was the right thing to do, to sacrifice it on the altar of my
love for Jesus. As I did it, and for some days after, I felt like I had
lost a good friend. But I have never regretted it, and it freed me up
from wrong attachment to it. There are only a couple of pieces of
artwork left that I did back in my early days. The photos of my early artwork shown on
my website were taken sometime before I tossed it all.
At another
time I quit working on any art for a month as a kind of fast to the
Lord. That, too, was hard, but it also freed me up from anxiety that I
tend to experience from working on art. I am a strange bird in many
ways. One thing about me is that I am a goal oriented person. I am
particularly focused on completing a job to have a good finished
product. I find it difficult to settle down and enjoy the actual
creation of the job or product. I marvel at the person who can simply
take his time doing a job without being concerned about how long it
takes. That is one of the negative things about my mindset. A positive
is that I tend to get a lot done, and am not put off by the difficulty
of the project because, whatever it takes, rain or shine, happiness or
sadness, comfort or pain, I generally finish the job. So when I paint a
picture, it is generally the completion of the painting that I look
forward to and will enjoy, not the enjoyment of doing it. Strange, huh?!
So you can imagine the release I felt during a month of resting from
artwork.
Engagement to Kathy -
1978
In my
relationships with girls, unbeknownst to me my search was coming to an
end. God works in every person through the difficulty of relationships
with the opposite sex, and I was no exception. During this year I had
come to the conclusion that if I was going to find a wife, she would
have to love the things that I love, which included the church I was in.
I offered up the whole thing to God, and was becoming convinced I would
never marry. One night I woke up and the Lord seemed to tell me to get
up and open my Bible. So I did, and turned to Mark 8. I read of the
feeding of the four thousand. Jesus told His disciples that He didn’t
want to send the people away hungry. The disciples replied, “How can one
satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?” That was the
answer for me. My hopes of finding a girl to marry were for me
impossible, like finding bread in the wilderness in the Bible story. But
of course in the story Jesus does a miracle and feeds the multitude. God
told me He would provide for my need, either by being all I needed, or
by providing a wife, even if it seemed impossible to me. So I went back
to bed trusting Him.
Not long
after that, a pretty girl named Susan Tortarello substituted a few days
for the other art teacher at Wheeling High School. I was attracted to
her, and she said she was a Christian. I invited her to our church, and
she came a few times. I spent a little bit of time with her, but began
to realize that she was more interested in other things than God. One
evening, perhaps in the spring of 1978, our church went roller skating for
fun at a roller rink in town. Susan came as well. I will never forget
the moment I skated up to Susan at the snack area to buy her something
to eat. Kathy Thiessen came zooming up to us in a way that seemed a bit
possessive to me! I had never noticed before that she was interested in
me, but it became clear that evening. As I thought about things more, I
began to see Kathy in a new light.
So I must
back up a bit and explain some things. Before I moved in with Doug and
the others, I went to the weekly meetings with Kathy. She lived just
five blocks away from me, but I never knew it until I met her at the
Saturday Night Fellowship. We were definitely not interested in each
other at first. She didn’t like the old cool, artsy clothes that I wore.
And I didn’t like the hoop earrings and pantsuits that she wore! Well, there just wasn’t that chemistry between us!
But as time went on, and we both got hungrier for God, it turns out that
Kathy became more and more attracted to me, and I was too preoccupied to
see it.
Perhaps God
wanted me to wait until the roller skating evening to begin seriously
considering her. Only He knows. But begin to consider her I did. I loved
the seriousness for God that she had. And I knew that she loved the
principal of the cross and was prepared to allow it to work in her life.
And she was cute. So we began to spend time with each other. The first
time was when she and I took a brother from India to Chicago to see the
sites. It was a beautiful day, and the brother enjoyed it as much as we
did.
To this day
I am still not perfected in my strength of character and control of my
emotions, but I had made great strides in it since the time I broke up
with Elaine. Kathy and I had our troubles, but our love for each other
grew. At times it was miserably hard to keep my mind on prayer in the
prayer meetings when she was there!
In the fall
some of us from our church took a weekend trip up to the Stouffville
Christian Fellowship in Canada. We often did that in those early years
because we loved to be with the brethren there and to receive the
ministry that Fred and others gave. The Fellowship meeting place was out
in the country. There were several houses there that brethren lived in,
and an old barn had been fixed up that was used for the meetings. Many a
time different ones took long walks along those country roads to talk
with God, get right with Him, or work out some problem they were having.
On the Saturday we were up there, I asked Kathy to take a walk with me,
and out on the country road I asked her to marry me. And she said yes.
And the rest is history…!
A New Job and Changes
in the Church - 1978
In August 1978 everyone in
our church went to the Cliff Conference again in England. It was another
great time for all of us. But come September I didn’t go back to
teaching at Wheeling because the number of students was decreasing in
the school district and two of the eight schools had to be closed. Since
I didn’t have seniority there was no place for me. I didn’t want to
relocate to another town due to God’s work in our church and individual
lives so I had to look for another type of work.
I took a job with a
survey company called Marchese and Sons Surveying in
September for only $4 an hour, but somehow knew God was in it. The
Marchese family was a typical Italian family: close-knit, kind, hot tempered,
stubborn. Mr. Marchese reminded me of a Caesar. Paul, one of the sons,
looked like the man who posed for Michelangelo’s David. Very quickly I got pay raises. They liked me but had
trouble understanding my Christianity, which sometimes caused friction
between us. It was a totally new kind of work for me. I worked outside
in the summer and winter: rain and shine, mosquitoes or no mosquitoes,
snow or no snow. I also worked in the office. I studied for the
Surveyor-in-Training test and passed. While at Marchese my brother Jim
worked there for a while, along with Doug and Tim Higgins. That was
great.
We continued meeting at
Bob Berglund’s house while we lived there. Bob’s mom, a
widow, decided to get married again and sell the house. The four of us
guys finally settled on moving to another house in Rolling Meadows on
Grouse Street we affectionately called the House on Grouse. The church
meetings moved there as well.
About that time a dear
couple from the church in Canada named Ted and Charity Wilcox and
their two twin boys moved down to stand with us in the church. One
weekend while Fred was visiting us he said there was a need in our
church to have clear leadership. After asking the church for input, it
was clear that Ted and I should be ordained as elders, which took place
on that Sunday. It seemed right to all of us, and, looking back, I am
sure it was the Lord’s will. I had mixed feelings about being an elder.
I was very encouraged in my heart but was also so aware of my
inadequacies. We all continued pressing on together as a church through
ups and downs, knowing it was God who was with us and in the work.