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My maternal grandmother was a staunch catholic, we had to go to church every Sunday or there would be hell to pay – literally. When Nan died in 1969, mum was by then fed up with religion and all of its falseness. I was 10 years old when we stopped going to church meetings regularly. The last time we went on a Sunday, I performed what I thought was a heart felt prayer to the God I believed was there, “God I know you’re there and I know that Jesus is your son.”. As it seemed in response to a simple statement of faith – suddenly they diagnosed my clumsiness as shortsightedness – getting glasses in turn gave me better results at school.
My family decided to move to Melbourne, Australia in 1972. Being shy and introverted, I had a ‘hell’ of a time introducing myself and fitting in. So at the age of 13, I was introduced to the homosexual scene where I thought I was accepted and fitted in. For 10 years I went deeper into the scene, doing anything anyone wanted of me. The early 80’s saw the onset of AIDS. By this time, as I look back and analyse my actions, I was searching for something more than physical satisfactions but not knowing where to look. It was a game to go into priests’ offices and say “I’m gay, can I change?” and waiting to see their faces. It’s not too clear how long it went for.
In late1981 my mother committed her life to God and went to a small Pentecostal church of 200 people. She needed someone to take her there and back. As I was still living at home, I offered to be chauffer. Instead of leaving mum there and returning later for her, I stayed for the meetings. These people seemed crazy; idiots – but that was their bag so why should I get offended. I was going there for about 3 months and in that time none of the young adults came up to even say ‘Hi how are you? or Who are you?’ This didn’t phase me much because to me it was usual. However, it was ammunition for the Holy Spirit in the future. All of my sexual antics were hidden to the outside world. Mum encouraged me to attend a youth group Easter camp.
Music, philosophical songs (middle of the road stuff) had long been my emotional support since I was at least 5-6 years old. At this camp in 1982 I heard a song – chorus which I will never forget. In a small chapel the song “Sing hallelujah to the Lord” in all of its rounds, sounded like a professional rehearsal yet it was only a usual Sunday meeting. Much of the Christian rhetoric I stayed clear from. However I met up with a young male missionary who was on sabbatical from Africa for a few weeks. Both of us had one God-given gift in common – art and drawing. To my astonishment, Steve was willing to talk to me, seeming to accept me as I was. This was a very unsound feeling to me. Only twice before had I felt a friendship, once at age 4 through primary school and a different friend through 2 years of secondary school in England.
While I was playing chauffer to my mother; a young man at work (Holden production line) was trying to win me as a friend. John was a stock chaser while I fitted windscreens. We were about the same age, and discovered a lot in common; – both enjoyed tenpin bowling, had averages around 180 and as a result had the opportunity to enter many competitions. Unbeknown to me he was a Christian and trying to convert me. A week after I returned from my Easter camp my world turned upside down! John was killed on his way to work, riding his motorbike into the back of a stalled truck. I worked that day without much thought on work. John’s funeral came and went. Life went on as usual for another month (April), going to gay saunas’ every so often, going to work and taking mum to church. I spent my quiet times at home drawing and painting. It was one of my emotional outlets. This was me – insecure, introverted, shy ‘never say boo to a goose’ but all of this was about to change.
As mentioned earlier 12 years before I had made a statement of faith. On Sunday 16th of May 1982, God required that statement of me. The meeting started at 7pm there was the usual waving of their hands and babbling in gibberish. The sermon was on 1 Cor 6:7-11 but this went right over my head the same way all the others had in the last 6 months. The congregation began to worship in song, most of them with their eyes closed and their arms raised. After about 15 minutes when everything was silent, a feeling, I will never forget started inside me around the sternum and rose quickly through my head. When it had risen to it’s height I was totally in tears. These words came through my mind & not in my own voice “You know you are hurting the one you know is there.” & straight afterwards was “Take what I have for you now or die the way you want!”. This was Gods claytons choice to me. I had to say yes God, in 30 seconds God had reached down & turned my life around. In those two statements the Holy Spirit gave me a ‘2 hour’ sermon, then after all of the above had sunk in and before I realise the extent of what had happened, God-Father followed up with a six word sentence “Perfect love casts out all fear!”.
For some reason no-one saw what happened that Sunday. I walked out of that building a different person, not a new person but one who has had God reach down and take away the crud that the world has piled on me. Leaving the building, I asked Father a certain question – “If this is your love Lord – where is it?”. That question was to be answered over the next 18 yrs.
After meeting Michael at the weekly Sunday lunch, he invited me to go to the church he attends in the evening, in one of the inner suburbs of Melbourne. The congregation was of about 400 people, just after the meeting started, the pastor asked if anyone had an experience with God on the last week to come and share it. Father filled my mind with one word- “GO”. So I went of to the front,(introverted, shy me).Some how I was up in front of 400 pairs of eyes. “OK God, what do I say? – you got me up here”. During my testimony of what happened the week before, I realised that there was absolutely no fear of being laughed at or ridiculed. This was too much for me, before I had finished tears were streaming down my cheeks,(the whole church was watching). At that point Father reminded me of the words he gave me the week before- “Perfect love…..”
A King James bible was bought for me and I could not get enough of it. Reading through to John’s 1st letter, there it was, 1 John 4:18. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear; because fear has torment. He that fears is not made perfect in love”. I pondered on it for just a few minutes when all the events of the last 6 months came flooding back, being alone in my room I went into spontaneous worship with my favourite chorus “Something beautiful, something good’
Mike & I went around to several churches to different ways to worship. One of them was a certain Brethren groups. We had read the meeting times wrongly & arrived just before the meeting closed. Sitting in the back row was an elderly man who recognised me. His name was John & knew me from work. A stock-chaser, my friends boss. John was very surprised to see me as I was him. We exchanged pleasantries then John came out with some information that set off the tears all over again “You remember young John?”
“Yes of course.”
“Why do you think he was befriending you?”
“You mean John was….” that was all I could get out. Father again intervened “You will see him again”. He turned my mourning into tears of joy.
God had taken the crud that Satan and the world had put on me to show my true character & Personality.
both enjoyed tenpin bowling, had averages around 180 and as a result had the opportunity to enter many competitions.
Hi David H,
Sorry to hear about your early troubles in life.
I have been into 10-pin bowling since the age of 5.
If you like I can PM you to discuss bowling with you.___________
God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.org _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
”Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” – JEHOVAH GODHi Miia,
I had a backer in (200 and under) big money leagues.
This reminds me of a thread Gene started… … (Link)
I developed techniques in the early 80’s that the pros weren’t even using yet.
Thank you for asking
Ed JI had twisted left knee at 13, so no field sports, so, went to local bowling alley, and the owner, Victorian champ at the time gave me free lessons, he said we had very similar styles, that was 1975. started league on 128 went soon to 190. got 277 highest. got some stories I could tell about Fathers intervention in my games.
Ed, no unfortunately, we only have one wage coming in. otherwise I would, I have $400 ball sitting idle here, lol. has one of those ‘bombs’ in it. The last 3 competitive games I bowled were all over 210. That was 10 year ago.
Hi David H and Miia,
I had a catastrophic bowling accident in Jan of 2,000. The tendon that runs down to my ring finger
snapped off of my bicep muscle when I was releasing the ball. The bicep muscle fell over
to the side (like a cartoon would portray a muscle falling down to the bottom)Have you ever seen little kids doing elephant, where they hold their nose with one arm
while the other arm goes through the loop that is created and they make elephant sounds.
Well that is what I looked like as I was flapping my arm around in pain and making moaning sounds.It knocked me out of the sport. At first I couldn’t even pick up a gallon of milk.
Pain pain pain with any movement of my wrist. The pain slowly went away and my strength
also began to come somewhat back too. The Dr. said there was no reason why I couldn’t bowl.So in the 2011-2012 season I got back into the sport with a 168 ave. In
the 2012-2013 season my ave went to 174, the next year 175, and this year 182.
I was 197 ave when I got knocked out. So my skill level has come back to some degree.Lanes are considered either “grind-out” or “blocked”. Blocked being a very easy lane condition,
and grind out a very hard condition. 220 on the block = 185 on the grind out. Today’s grind-out condition
is called a “sport-shot”. I have always bowled leagues on the tougher lane conditions (they are more challenging)___________
God bless
Ed J (Joshua 22:34)
http://www.holycitybiblecode.org _________________________________________________________________________________________________________
”Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.” – JEHOVAH GODEd and Mila, father must have made bowling my game. my parents bought me my first bag, ball and shoes, I still use the shoes they 40 year old now. lol. Beige coloured lase ups with total leather sole , slide well still and very comfy still.
My main league was Friday night 9 pm 4 man team 28 teams, 9 till around 12,
I started at 128, my first league av, went to 190 very quickly, there were 2 teams called Spartans 1 and 2, they had good bowlers, they were frustrated in getting 1 and 2 by my team every year lol. we usualy came second, won some pretty handy prizes, like a ‘hot rocks’ bbq, and the highest money I got was 3oo. for first place in city doubles. we got 1228 scratch in 3 games. I got just under 200 avg as in like 589, and frank got the rest.
Sorry David I never saw this. Well good on you! Don’t know much about tenpin bowling but obviously Ed does.
Hi Miia,
David probably already knows this stuff,
here’s a video explaining what I mean____________
God bless
Ed J
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