"Blessed are the rule followers" is not found in the Bible. But I lived as if it were. I thought life was all about following the rules. Teach me the rules, sit back, and watch me work my magic. I was a master rule follower. I lived as if my life depended on it. As a church kid, I seemed to pick up somewhere that God was all about the rules. When other kids were causing mischief, I followed the rules. This made me weird. Even among the other church kids, I was different. But I wanted nothing more than to fit in and feel normal, especially around the non-church kids at school.
In the third grade, I met a kid in my class named Jon. Jon was normal. He looked like one of those boys you'd see on an '80s commercial selling GI Joe's or Fruity Pebbles. He was an average, all-American-looking white kid. On one field trip bus ride, I noticed Jon was listening to music on his Walkman. I'm guessing it was the middle to late '80s. Jon offered me a listen. What I heard sounded angry. I asked him what it was. He said N.W.A. I wasn't familiar. Fresno, my town, was crazy in the '80s. Even the regular white boys were rocking N.W.A. (the hardcore gangster rap group straight out of Compton). I didn't offer him a listen of my music. On my Walkman, I was rocking Psalty, the singing songbook, a Christian kid's album. Imagine Barney the Purple Dinosaur singing and dancing with kids. Psalty is like that, except instead of a dinosaur, picture a man-sized blue songbook singing praise songs. Psalty didn't seem normal in the angry world of N.W.A. (but apparently, they weren't angry. They just had attitude. That joke will be lost on some of you).
Looking back, I think my worldview was odd. When my biological father was still living with us, he got connected with this ministry called Promise Toys. Promise Toys wanted to be the next big thing, in toys, for church kids. This was in the '80s when everyone feared Dungeons and Dragons and kids accidentally getting wrapped up in the occult. My father, sister Enid, and I would go from church to church sharing the Promise Toys presentation. It slammed everything from the Smurfs to He-Man. The problem was I loved the Smurfs. I'd carry a plush Smurf toy everywhere I went. But now, this was considered evil. And good church boys don't like evil. One day, as the Promise Toys presentation encouraged, I turned over all my favorite toys: He-Man was gone, Skelator, and no more Smurfs. As if I wasn't weird enough: "Did you catch the Thundercats yesterday?" "No, we're not allowed." I was now the church kid who couldn't watch the cartoons or play with the toys that everyone else did.
In '89, Enid (my sister) and I got Batman t-shirts we wore proudly. Everyone was wearing them. One church lady told us, "Christians don't wear shirts like that." It was the only shirt I remember that made me feel like I could fit in. For a weird church kid, fitting in felt vital. Looking back, I remember wanting to know if I was okay. Was I normal? I didn't feel okay or normal. I felt like an outsider. Everyone else learned how to be cool, but me. I always felt like a big dork.
One day our neighbor invited Enid and me over for her birthday party. She had loud music playing in her room with all these little girls twirling and dancing. Enid and I sat away from all the fun with our arms crossed in the most judgmental church lady fashion. We had heard in church about the dangers of partying and dancing, and we were not falling for that trap. Not today, Satan! The neighbor's dad came up, chatted with us, and said, "Do you guys realize you're the only ones not having fun? This is a party. Get out there and have fun." We didn't. But I look back on that day wondering if all my rules made me miss out on fun and being a kid.
When people kissed on T.V., Mom would say, turn around (I still look away to this day, in my 40's). The lesson I learned wasn't anything that was ever said but was that there's something wrong with liking girls. This got complicated when I started to like girls. It was an overnight kind of thing. All the other boys seemed smooth with the ladies, but not me. I liked girls, but they didn't seem to notice me. Mom thought I was handsome, but no one else recognized that. I was a weird church kid with a horrible secret; I liked girls. In junior high, I updated my look, thinking this would be my answer to fitting in: I wore some overall jean shorts and a black short-sleeve button-down shirt with big white polka dots. I know what you're thinking, doesn't sound like much. But it was super fresh. I'd wear a White Sox hat with black Jordan's Grandma got me. I looked amazing. One day a girl knocked me down, sat on me so I couldn't get away, and planted a kiss on me. I was so shocked and scared. I missed my first kiss.
One year I was at a church event, and my cousin was selected to participate in a presentation for a banquet. There was music and dancing. I sat there mortified. My family instructed me to hang out with him for the rest of the afternoon. I was stuck with the weird kid who danced. As we left the presentation, a church lady stopped my cousin and said, "Your presentation really blessed my heart." At that point, I realized that being a church kid weirdo was valued in this culture. The following year, the lady in charge of the banquet stopped me and asked me frantically if I'd be in that year's presentation. I remembered how foolish my cousin looked the year before and kindly said, no, thank you. She wasn't accepting a no from me. She went with something about me feeling bad being the one kid who missed out. I assured her that I would be okay with that. I felt if I did the presentation, I'd never get married. I'd forever be the kid who did the silly dance in public. Church ladies would love me, but they weren't the ones who I was trying to impress. I liked girls. I looked forward to this event each year to meet girls.
We moved from Fresno to a neighboring town, Clovis, halfway through my first year of junior high. It was the land of cowboys and preppies. I made a new update to my look. I got this hooded black coat with "Sox" written on the back. It was a White Sox coat to match my hat. My new look was a bit thuggish. I was probably the only thug wannabe who knew nothing about N.W.A. but could sing every Psalty song that had ever been released. I made only one friend at my new school. He was a gang member, or at least that was the rumor. We'd walk around school together, and he'd get girls' numbers for me. I never asked him for them. Apparently, the thug look was getting me more attention in Clovis than the church boy look in Fresno. When I got to high school, I embraced my church kid persona and started a Christian club. Here, it was safe to be a weird church kid; it was actually valued in the '90s to be a bit weird. I found my tribe.
What do you do when your problems are more N.W.A. than Psalty? I had a gritty problem. Real-world drama. Sunday School didn't prepare me for a massive stroke and being half paralyzed. In Sunday School, God always responded, showed up, and worked miracles. No matter how often I heard the stories, Daniel always survived the lion's den, and Peter always walked on water. What do you do for the problems that aren't pastel and sweet, like Easter Sunday and Psalty the singing songbook? I lived in an N.W.A. world with a Psalty faith, plenty of rules, and too much guilt over all the rules I didn't live up to. I needed a real God for real problems. I had spent my professional life as a pastor telling people God was able and strong. Now I was in a position where I needed it to all be true. The big questions started: Had I lied all those years in ministry about God's abilities? Was my faith the right kind? Was God hearing any of my prayers? When you grow up religious and go through something significant, like a stroke and losing the ability to walk, you think you can follow the rules out of it. If I'm good enough, God will have to heal me. This got tough the longer I waited and the angrier I got. When I got angry, I'd think, there I go, I missed my opportunity to get better. How can God heal a guy with such angry thoughts? Eventually, I heard this thought in my heart, maybe from God or maybe from all the God lessons working through my brain. I heard this: "It’s not your goodness, Israel, that will lead to your healing, but God's goodness. If God heals you, it's because He's good. Not you." I liked that.
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