The Hook

It was the week after Christmas in 1987. I was an outlaw, and that my friend is a huge understatement. (I will tell the story, but not now it’s too painful)  My soon to be wife Joani Peters and I were in Pasco Washington as her Grandmother had become ill and was in the hospital there. Joani and I were living in “sin” if you could call it that, looking back it all seems like it was part of God’s plan.

I am often amazed at how humanity attempts to do God’s job. How we look at things and judge them. We only see a small part of the picture or as a good friend of mine wrote “We see through a glass darkly”.

Joani came from a much contrasted family. She had an awful childhood. Her parents were serious drinkers who dragged her along. She spent many hours alone in the car while her parents got drunk in the bar. Many time she witnessed her dad in fights either beating someone or getting beat. You get the picture, it was ugly. On the other hand Joani’s grandparents were intense Pentecostal Christians. The loved her and prayed over her. Her memories were mixed with the fear and horror of one life, and of lying on the couch at her grandparent’s house. With the security of her Grandmother Florence stroking her hair and telling her that she was “the apple of God’s eye”.

The year before her Grandfather had passed away, and this had affected Joani. We met soon after, and she often told me that I reminded her of Lowell her grandfather. I don’t know how but she found comfort in it and our relationship seemed to be deepened by that.

Now her grandmother Florence was seriously ill. Joani and I were in Pasco to visit her.  Joani’s aunt and uncle pastored a little Pentecostal Church in Pasco. I was about to learn a wonderful lesson that is engrained in my thinking, and probably one of the cores of my faith. Every person that I had known very well that professed Christianity seemed judgmental and rigid.  There I was trying to do God’s job, because I judged them before I ever knew them. I was in for a surprise.

Glen and Jeannette asked us to go to dinner with them. We met them at the Red Lion in Pasco. It happened to be Friday so I thought that I would impress my religious hosts by ordering fish and wine. My Catholic neighbors had done this and I thought this would be a sign to them that I was “hooked in”.  

At dinner I boldly said to Glenn “I believe in God, I believe in faith healing,” and I did. I had an experience years before that had convinced me of the reality of God, but I will tell about that later. I continued my dialog. “I can’t reconcile Christianity, here you have some man who grew up in a different culture, he may be of a different religion and he is trying his best to serve God, and Christianity says that he is going to hell”. I had struggled with this since I had first contemplated God.  Glenn looked at me. I braced myself for the answer that I had gotten in the past. He replied “That is too big for me” I was shocked as he continued, “only God can judge that, and it’s too big for you John” he continued in what turned out to be one of the best sermons I ever heard. “You need to stop stumbling over that, and respond to God in the way that he is dealing with you.”

I learned that grace comes wearing different clothes. It may come looking like my friend Bill with his long hair and his guitar. Or it may come with its hair in a bun (so tight that it smiles all the time) and a long dress. It may come from religion, and it may come on streets. But this thing that I am convinced of grace is the language of God.