Connection: My True Story

Connection.

We were meant for connection.

Connection to God, with each other, even with our pets.

My earliest memory, I was three years old, riding in a stranger’s car in awkward silence looking out the window.

My mind was pregnant with questions... Who was this person driving the car? Where are you taking me? Why are you leaving me there? Where's my mother? Whose house is this? Why can’t I go inside?

It was a cold but sunny day. I was wearing a red jacket for warmth.

I well remember being deposited in the closed-in (but not heated), back porch that was about the size of a small bathroom. Just a stoop where you were meant to remove your winter boots before going inside.

There was no one home. There was no explanation. The stranger told me to stay in the porch and not go anywhere, and then they left.

But more than the penetrating cold being slightly offset by the gleaming rays of golden sun, I remember more clearly than anything the feeling of separation.

I was alone. Disconnected. Bewildered. I never saw my mother again. It would be a while before my father became a factor.

Oddly enough, the light of the sun seemed to speak to me, as if to say, “I’m here for you. I see you. Feel my warmth.”

I remember looking at the sun, making a point of standing where the most light would hit my body and warm me. Somehow, it seemed to offer a bit of comfort.

I was being watched over. But by whom or what, I did not know - until recently...

You see, whenever I recall that earliest of memories, I always see it as though I’m seeing it from someone else’s eyes.

As I considered that odd vantage point, the Lord helped me to see that although I was abandoned that day, dropped at the back doorstep of a stranger, He was there. I was seeing it now, through His eyes.

He had His eye on me. He was watching me with a protective eye.

It would be several months before I became part of a family. It was my father and his wife (not my mother), now remarried and setting up home in Weston, Ontario.

Church was not part of life, except at Easter it seemed. No discussion of God in our family. Plenty of talk about hockey though.

The siblings I gained in that reunion were not particularly welcoming of me. I shared the house with them, but I was always the outsider who didn’t really belong there.

Around the time I was eight years old, I could cuss as well as any sailor. After one occasion of profanity, I was in the bedroom I shared with one of my stepbrothers, when for the first time in memory, God spoke to me.

It wasn’t an audible voice, but it was clear and unmistakable.

He told me to pick up that black book by the window, open it up, and read. It was so compelling, and in a way mysterious, that I had to open that book which turned out to be a small bible.

When I opened it, my eyes fell upon the passage that read, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain”.

I was stunned. I knew that something or someone had just spoken to me. Although I knew I was being told not to take God’s name in vain, I didn’t know who God was.

Maybe a year later, I really wanted to know God. I didn’t know anyone who knew Him or even talked about Him. So, I went door to door, cold calling, asking the person who answered the door if they knew who God was.

I really wanted to know Him, but no one seemed to know. They gave me strange looks and shut the door on me.

Finally, one man did have an answer. He told me that God was a giant cloud of gas in outer space.

I remember being so utterly disappointed. I was really hoping to connect with Him somehow, but apparently, He was a featureless cloud in an unreachable place.

My hunger for God continued into my teen years. No one knew Him, but I wanted to connect with Him. So, I remember walking down the street one day and thought I would just talk to Him.

I told Him jokes and asked if He had heard them before. It wasn’t very spiritual, but it was out of a deep longing to connect with the unseeable, all knowing and hopefully, all loving Creator of the universe.

It would be a few more years before I met Him. It was an experience I may share in another blog. It was like I was a lamp with a nice power cord that had never been plugged in. 

The day when I did meet Him, it was as though I was plugged into the current, the power, an overwhelming love. Light burst from within me as the current of His Spirit jolted my heart and gave me life!

I was finally connected!

God had been directing me before I knew anything about asking Him to speak to me. He had been carefully, lovingly directing my life all along, through many dangers, toils, and snares.

I was home. I had connection.

A connection so real, I can’t imagine life without it.

Tonight, I’m going to host a special class to talk about how to hear God and make good decisions.

It won’t be your typical message. I believe God has shown me some powerful truths about that, and you’re invited to come.

Tonight at 8 PM Eastern will be the first of an ongoing series of bi-weekly meetings where I will be sharing and serving up the mysteries of God that will enrich your life.

If that interests you, simply register at SupernaturalBusiness.com. This will be a zoom meeting, not a webinar, so we can interact and take questions.

My plan is to limit the bi-weekly sessions to 30 minutes of teaching. We’ll see what the Spirit decides tonight.

Hope to see you there at our inaugural meeting!

Scripture for the day: “A man’s heart plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)