Tell me what you think. (Essay for School unedited) Tells you about me too.
Innocence like a Newborn
We all start off in this world crawling around, discovering what we can and more often than not, tasting things, grabbing at anything in sight. At a young age, we are all innocent; curious to find out the truths behind life.I was only nine, taking life for granted – not knowing one thing from the next, until it happened. Today, I realize that even at the age of nine, my life was changed forever.
It all started in a chain effect before I could understand it – before I could realize what I had before my eyes. Just three short years after we had moved out to Arizona from Connecticut, I must admit I was a pretty happy guy. I entered into this new place, with new surroundings and tackled everything head on. I made new friends and already had many good times – but I wasn’t thoroughly happy, it felt as though something was missing. My family was a Christian family and I grew up going to church but never really thought about the meaning of it. I just knew it was the right thing to do.I had little choice in the matter either way because of my age, so I always did it and never gave it a second thought. Then one day I woke up and saw things different.
Growing up in a Christian family I had all sorts of influences that were religiously based. One thing probably stuck out the most. He was a comedian, David Meece. The tape was made in 1987 or very near it. Taped live, everyone could experience everything as if at the show and laugh with the crowd. Starting off smooth and funny with the humor of today, he would interest the audience – giving the effect that he knew something that they did not. After about an hour (and on the second side of the tape) he talked about Jesus hanging on a cross, but made like he was at the scene. Jesus’ eyes followed him around, and the man in the crowd looked into his face. He knew the man that so many had called the Son of God. Hanging from a cross Jesus hung looking at him the whole time.It was a nice effect, fine tuning the comedy on a serious note. Meanwhile after the skit was over he sung a song that is most like the song “Jesus Loves Me”. After the songs were over, there would be lots of clapping, and then he told anyone who wanted to accept Jesus to come up to the podium, and if anyone couldn’t, that he would say a prayer to bring Jesus into their life.
The truth was a hard thing to swallow; I was living as a child of the world, not really knowing why I was a believer, or what the purpose of anything was. I knew the answers but I wasn’t sold on it. It was on that night that it all struck me, and I lay with my head near my parent’s stereo that was in my room. I listened to the whole tape, and I felt so badly how I was living that I got down on my knees and started crying. I could do nothing more but look into the black tape spinning in the tape player, and listen to the instructions he was giving, hanging on each word. My knees made marks to where I knelt on the blue carpeting in my room. I will never forget that summer night, because while most kids were sleeping, I was crying for the Lord to come into my life. I closed the door to my room and accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and savior.
The truth is an easy thing to accept, but living it out is the hard part. I have fallen out of my faith once or twice in my times through high school, where all I wanted was to fit in. I would sacrifice anything to try to look like everyone else, and I was turning into everyone else. Why did a Jesus freak have to be so different from everyone else? A Jesus freak can be the same or totally different, in fact they can be stealth and appear as the most common person that someone can meet. One thing to look for is the lifestyle they live and the actions they make. I moved to Portland after my senior year in high school and God lit that torch that was smoldering before. Now my heart is a blazing inferno, living for God.
It took me years, and years after the tape to finally get to the point where I could open my eyes and really look at my life, and see what I was doing wrong. Some people walk throughout life and never realize it, but I pray they will. It is funny to say that you have to be a certain age to accept the truth. I don’t have to be thirty to know what the truth feels like, it has changed my life forever, and I couldn’t be happier.
© J.A.D. 2004
