13. July 2008 by Frank.

I can’t remember what year this was or any body’s name. I remember events clear as day but I can’t place them in time or recall names if it happened within 5 years before or after the stroke. It’s peculiar. To say the least.

Anyway it was during one of Sumrall’s big camp meetings. I was going to every service night and day really enjoying every moment of it. About the middle of the week the evening speaker was some guy who was very big in Europe but not very well known here. I can’t recall his name for the life of me but he was a very powerful speaker. He was preaching on the subject of being called to go into all the world and preach the gospel. Since I had always felt that I was called and since I had constantly run into people determined not to let me do it in their churches, his words really moved me. He inspired me like I had never been inspired before. So when he gave an altar call only for people who believed God was calling them, I couldn’t get there fast enough.

Dr. Sumrall was right next to me. After we got up he slapped me on the back and shook my hand. Talk about excited and fired up. I was about to explode with enthusiasm for the rest of the night. I could barely sleep that night. I made the decision to go in the morning and make an appointment with Dr. Sumrall to find out what I should do next. I felt like a little kid who had just been given the keys to the candy store. Within a couple of minutes after I made my way to Dr. Sumrall’s office, however, I felt like I had been sucker punched in the face. I told his secretary I wanted to make an appointment to talk with him. She informed me that he was much too busy to talk to someone like me and that I could speak with Brother Murphy if I really needed to. Since I felt Dr. Sumrall was the expert in going into all the world, I didn’t have the slightest interest in talking to anyone else. It is very disillusioning to find out that you aren’t important enough to get an audience with your pastor. She then suggested I go to listen to that morning’s speaker, a man who ran a missionary school out of Central America.

Again, I can’t remember the name but Sumrall had highly endorsed him. So having the wind knocked out of me but still chomping at the bit with unbridled eagerness, I went to listen. It started out great, a little background, and then, “If you’re one of the people who answered the altar call last night, I’m here to talk to you! We need you. We have a place for you!”

Thank you, Lord, this is it! Wow! It was finally coming together. It was right in front of me!

Then he said, “ BUT, if you have any debt in your life, you are useless to God! He can’t work with you or use you if you’re tied to this world financially.” He elaborated further but I stopped listening. Now I was sucker punched in the gut and kicked in the groin a few times for good measure. I had just bought a house for my family a few years earlier, we had car payments. And that made me useless to God.

USELESS!

I was devastated. I had come to church that morning full of joy, certain that I had finally found the path God wanted me on. I left the service and went outside and wept bitterly. All I wanted to do was serve God but I wasn’t good enough (important enough) to talk to my pastor and because I didn’t have enough money to pay cash for my house, I was useless to God. He couldn’t do anything with me. Why on earth did he bother calling me then? Didn’t he know I owed money? Needless to say, I didn’t attend the rest of the camp meeting.

But that wasn’t the end of it. I didn’t just give up and quit the church. Two or three weeks later during the Sunday morning service, Dr. Sumrall was answering questions that had been mailed in. I apparently wasn’t the only one who had been knocked off their feet during the camp meeting. The question was why would someone feel the call of God quite strongly but then find nothing ever came of it? Why would it seem so clear but then never work out any further? His answer was simple: sometimes God just wants to test to see if you’re willing to do something. He didn’t actually want you to do it, he just wanted to find out if you were willing to do it.

This hurt me even more. Now they were telling me that God was just playing games with me.

This very nearly ended my faith. It caused me tremendous doubt. But I didn’t give up. I hung on. And soon I heard and saw more things that made me turn my back on this kind of church. I left Sumrall but I kept trying to follow God. I knew I was called. It took the stroke rewiring my brain to finally cause me to break away from God.

So what do you think? Was Sumrall right? Was the missionary guy right? How can so-called men of God proclaim stuff like this? And if Sumrall was right, why would God do that to you? Why would he dangle a carrot in front of your nose for years, then snatch it away, and say, “Just kidding!”

I read a lot of atheist blogs and see quite a bit of trying to show Christians the error of their ways. But from my experience, Christians discouraging themselves and each other is far more effective at hindering the cause than anything the atheists come up with. I mean, seriously, if God won’t even play straight with you, what’s the point?

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11. July 2008 by Frank.

Have you ever been to the long term care ward of a hospital? Have you ever been to the oncology floor, particularly the section where they send you to die because there’s nothing left they can do for you? For that matter, have you ever been in the psychiatric ward?

If your answer is no then you need to go. You need to see human suffering up close and personal.

It will shake up your delusions. It will disturb you. If you have half a brain it might even make you question your faith.

Why would you want to do that?

If you think God created the world and everything in it and that it all works according to his plan, then you have to ask why he allows his creation to experience such agony. Why doesn’t he do anything to relieve the suffering? Why doesn’t he answer all the prayers going up for all these miserable people?

Let’s get personal. My mother died in agony, three weeks of internal 3^rd degree burns. My mother in law died a lingering death over an 8 year period in which she could not speak, move, or communicate in any way. My uncle died of throat cancer, you can imagine how ghastly that was. His wife, my aunt, died from Parkinson’s. My cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident along with his pregnant wife. My best friend died of colon cancer, eaten alive to the point he no longer even resembled a human being. Another family member endured schizophrenia, hearing voices that nearly drove him insane. My natural father died from diabetes. My wife has epilepsy and is partially paralyzed. I live in pain.

A couple of handfuls of people in just one small family suffered all that. Multiply that by a billion or two. Some far worse, some not as bad. And yet the religious will continue to insist God has everything under control and it’s all somehow part of his plan. They spent $40,000 in three weeks on my mother alone for pain killers because the agony was too much for her. God did not intervene. He didn’t intervene in any of these examples. Why not? All these people were Christians, God’s own children. I thought a parent would do anything to keep his children from suffering.

I walked away from faith because this is one thing I have never seen anyone of any faith adequately explain.

Don’t tell me it’s because of sin. Jesus cleansed us from all unrighteousness. He removed our sins as far as the East is from the West. Don’t tell me it’s because of Satan. He’s defeated. But it seems to me people somehow think he’s just as omnipotent as God. How can that be? Don’t tell me our light and momentary suffering here is nothing compared to how wonderful it will be after we die. No one has ever come back from the dead and told anyone how wonderful it is. There is no proof of an afterlife.

As long as you’re not up close and personal with anyone suffering like this, you might be able to shrug it off. It will all make sense someday.

But if you have experienced it several times you have to wonder how God created anything that involves so much pain. Personally, if God judges us for what we did during our piddly existence here and then rewards or punishes us eternally for it, I think we should hold him accountable for what he did or didn’t do to ease all that suffering. Assuming he actually exists.

If he doesn’t then there is no plan or reason or explanation. Isn’t that much simpler?

Shit happens.

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5. July 2008 by Frank.

Sometimes I go through periods where nothing interests me. These can last for days or even weeks. It’s almost as if my brain shuts down. I still go through the motions of daily life but I’m not really there. I’ve hit one of those periods the last couple of weeks.

This may sound like nothing but I assure you it isn’t. It’s one of the stroke effects I find so dangerous. When I start feeling like this, I realize I am sliding down an incredibly slippery slope. It would be very easy to just give up, sit in a chair, and drool on myself for the rest of my life. That was one of the first things that terrified me and it still does because it’s still so damned easy.

It’s hard to believe I’m still fighting this ten years later.

When this happened to my mother in law, I had no idea what she was going through or what to do about it. You could see the light going out of her eyes, you could hear how lost she was in her voice, you could see her giving up. So what did any of us do?

We prayed.

Did God stop her slide into oblivion? No. Did any of us really help? No. Instead of lavishing attention on her and trying to help her keep her mind active we let her slide away because we were ignorant. We thought her lack of interest meant she wanted to be left alone. Am I certain that would have made a difference? No. But I know from my own experience that it would have helped.

She quickly lost the ability to communicate. Then she lost the ability to move. She had given up living. But instead of death she entered into a sort of living hell. She lingered in this living but not alive state for 8 long years. God is not merciful.

What frightened me then and still does now is that I catch myself acting just like she did at first.

It’s bad enough being trapped in a body that is wracked with pain all the time but the thought of being trapped in a body that can’t move or communicate pushes me over the edge. I hate the thought of a living death like that. My admiration for the late Christopher Reeve knows no bounds. He could still communicate, however. And I know many others have suffered far more than I have. My best friend was eaten alive by cancer, talk about pain. My mother died in absolute agony last year. So no, I’m not feeling sorry for myself, saying, “woe is me!”

But I am saying these things motivate me.

When I fall down that slope, I slide for a long ways. Then I remember.

When I remember I get angry. When I get angry, I get really angry. I’ve often thought it would be really nice if I could just HULK out for a few days. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite work that way. I usually just start blogging.

So that’s my angry blogger story. Kind of a letdown, isn’t it?

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