Deeper Commitment

What a day. Breakfast of Daddy (Bisquick, actually) pancakes. Baths for both kids. GACC Children’s Christmas program practice. Play date for Amanda. Nap for Luke. Award-winning chili made. Amanda’s school Christmas program with donkey costume. Grocery shopping w/o list. Feeding Luke. Cleaning up Luke’s mess of Jell-o, grapes, a napkin, and a strong right arm. (Amanda with Grandparents tonight!) Cleaning Luke. Luke to bed.

After all that, I started my own cleaning. I wish it had been another Jell-o mess. No, I am starting to go through THE FILE. You know that file. You have one. Everyone has one. It’s the filing cabinet where the not-quite-lock-box-worthy stuff is. Manuals to stuff that broke 5 yrs ago. Warrantee papers to I have no idea what. Brochures to Kissimmee/St. Cloud, FL. (Has anyone ever gone there? I bet you have a brochure from there, too!) Instruction manuals from your first cell phone, but not your latest, because you might need that one. Our file also has transcripts from high school, SIUC and Milligan College of Cindy, and one of my SIUC transcripts. (Cindy’s grades were WAAAAYYY better than mine! If only I had "applied" myself.) I found 10 yr old budgets and board minutes from the church we stopped attending nearly 3 yrs ago. I bet your papers are somewhat different - but, I bet you have a file like this one.

Well, something else in there stopped me in my tracks. It was a Testimony Worksheet that Cindy had completed. Next to it was a 3 page, hand-written, single-spaced copy of her testimony dated 6-12-90. Before tonight, I don’t remember ever seeing it. I would like to pull a couple of lines from it... if you don’t mind.

"Before deeper commitment, I had a lack of purpose. I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I drink, etc.? What’s stopping me?’ And even though I didn’t do those things, I definitely had some mixed up ideas about right and wrong. I was having ‘fun’ with my friends, but now my life has a deeper meaning. I have more peace, more joy.

I started going to church and was baptized when I was in about 6th grade. And, I’ve always been a "religious"-type person, because I didn’t do a lot of outwardly wrong things, but yet I didn’t have a mature relationship with Christ. Around my sophomore year, I began to take my faith more seriously.

At church camp one summer, we played a simulation game called "Success Story." At the end of the game, the trumpet sounded and we were all called in. And because I had spent all my time running frantically all over the place, and had literally pushed people away who were trying to tell us to repent, and not follow the ways of the world, I lost the game. I went to hell. It really hit me, too. I described me exactly: here I was, chasing after all these things (good grades, fun & friends, being the all-around best) and I wasn’t taking time out for God. Since somewhere around that time, thanks to a couple of great youth ministers & great activities like Bible Bowl, I’ve regularly attended church with a deeper appreciation for it.

More than anything, I would like to say that my prayers are being answered. My life is so much better because I have an inner peace, a real fulfillment. And even though I still have my bad days (even weeks) I know that everything is going to be ok. It is most comforting of all to know that I have eternal life."

On the way to St Louis in what ended up being our final trip to Barnes, Cindy made me promise that the next Mrs. Joe Howerton would have a deep faith in Christ above all else.

She set the bar very high.


Random thought for the day: "Did they use to tell scary ghost stories at Christmas? And that makes it the Most Wonderful Time of the Year?"