A THANKFUL OK COMING HOME ! (officer's kid)

MASSABESIC FOREST, MAINE, USA


Just returning from reading the blog of an old friend. Sometimes you have to grow up before you know who your friends were from your lifetime. I highly recommend taking care of yourself physically when you are young so when you begin to get older, you can rejoice in the knowledge that comes to you in your later years instead of spending all your time complaining of getting old. Of course, things can happen no matter what shape you are in when you arrive in your senior years, did I really just admit to that?, So eliminate as much of the odds of not being able to enjoy those years as possible.

I think I am supposed to say at this point in this post, that this current celebration of wisdom is not necessarily brought on by age, but by Christ and allowing Him to take full hold to my life.

Let me tell you a few things about me if you are not a regular. I'm 52. I was adopted by Salvation Army officers in Buffalo NY at the age of two. Snatched from the jaws of the NY State Foster Care system by the love of God and Bob and Jean and sister Robin. After being bounced around from foster home to foster home for whatever crisis that may have taken place in one of those homes that caused me to not "take" to the man figure of each home until the Strain's showed up. My adopting dad, Bob, was the first man to win my trust in my first 2 years as the story was told to me.

My biological parents were respectively a surgeon and nurse. Nurse mom was from England. Surgeon dad, origin unknown. I'm just glad he was either pro life or in the 1950's middle class it was uncommon of to be any other way.

So the point of this little synopsis is to tell you why I love Jesus so. And why at this age, I seem to be falling in love with the organization of my now deceased parents: The Salvation Army. Yes, I said that also.

Oh, it's not going to be a long story. Just a reason why I am beginning to say the things I will say in the posts to come perhaps.

I was thinking earlier tonight in a comment made on the blog of the before mentioned friend, that I can still smell the smells of my youth. The old Salvation Army meetings. I remember bowed over in my seat as if praying staring at the red/maroon carpets of the old corps halls. A corps hall was what we called a chapel or sanctuary or whatever you call the main gathering place where you may or may not worship.

Here are some of the smells that I can summon up today as if they are still here. The smell of the old red songbook filled with words that told of what would happen should you lay down your sin of "strong drink" or tobacco and give your life to the "Lord" And if you quit your "fornicatin" and lived a pure life. I think what was maybe lost on me way back when, and to many today is the notion that you had to lay those things down to get to Jesus. In my mind, I may have had the cart before the horse as they used to say. I think my generation may be the last generation to be able to use the euphemisms to get a point across, so enjoy them while they last. 50 cent and puff daddy gonna be tellin the stories to come. What I came to find out later is that first you come to some idea or willingness about Jesus making your life what it was supposed to be first, then letting Him help you out of your "evil ways" after. Lots have this idea that they have to become something they are not to come to God. But in fact as you've heard many times, you only have to come as you are. And be willing from there to let Jesus lead you along. The strong thing is to be willing to allow the change to happen. Most likely God was the one that came to you as I'm interpreting these days.

But back to the smell. I can still smell them old song books. I can smell the people off the street. I can smell the musty smell of an old cornet. We put those old mouthpieces up to our lips thinking a good wiping with our white shirts was going to remove the germs of the aged saints that blew the horns before us. We're still here, so I guess there was something to those not so bright white wrinkled dirty collared shirts of an 8 year old boy. I can only say dirty collared cause my mom went to be with the Lord about a year ago. No one best say that Jean Strain's boy had a dirty collar. But I did and all the time and it didn't have nothing to do with her laws of cleanliness. Which were legion. I was, as she affectionately used to call me, "pig pen" from the Charlie Brown cartoons.

OK, so maybe now as I think of it, all I can still really smell of the old hall was thE red songbooks. There is something profound in that smell to me now as I think about how I want to spend the rest of my life helping out the cause of the Salvation Army. Maybe its time to sit down and read that red book of my childhood. Back then I was more busy learning to read the music notes of the tune book we used to accompany the singing with on our dented silver or brass horns.

Maybe in that book is the secret of my now joyful happiness brought on by laying down my "evil ways." Maybe 'cause Jesus did indeed take me as I am and now puts my not good for me (a better way to say 'bad') habits behind His back to be 'remembered no more'. do I now spend my present days asking Him what He'd like me to do with the rest of my day? The old chorus, "How can I better serve Thee Lord, comes to mind" as does, "All my days and all my hours, Shall be Thine, O Lord...".

Maybe I'm just recapitulating 'cause my time is short? I really hope not, cause I want to live out many more quality days doing just what he made me to do in the first place. To be here for those that can't get on with their lives because they made a mess of them. And I can tell them that no matter what caused the despair they now drag around with them from day to day, they can lay it down at the feet of the spiritual friend and creator of their lives and experience the joy that they never dreamed possible this side of heaven. And best of all, better than just experiencing it for themselves, they can lead others to the well of deep satisfaction from which joy springs forth. And that is a joy on a level you can't even imagine until you see someone rediscover the first Love of their life.

It's a crazy notion, this Jesus is. It don't make no sense in a world of touch and feel and grab and go. But when you discover the truth of it, its the only Thing that does make sense. And its something like Glory.

What do I mean when I say in the title 'something new may be something old'?

My dad used to tell stories and I witnessed a couple of them when he was the corps officer. (the pastor or minister of a Salvation Army church). Stories of drunken men stumbling to the altar at the front of the corps hall, and there,kneeling to receive Jesus and on standing to their feet, sober! Once a sinister looking fellow went forward to give his life to Christ and when he got up and walked away, he left his handgun behind. I remember walking the streets of Chicago at the age of 10 with my dad in his uniform and a homeless hollow eyed destitute man came up and ask him for change for a meal, and my dad would walk him to the diner to be sure it was a sandwich his money bought and not a pint of "the hot sauce" as my dad was fond of calling it.

Well, the Salvation Army, like any determined, healthy institution is reanalyzing its mission, and going through some re-thinking exercises these past several years. People trying to decide what the mission of the organization is in this present age. Well, to me the answer is as clear as it ever was! Save the lost. Feed the hungry. Love the unlovable. Clothe the naked. Whatever it takes. Just like coming to Jesus is the same as it ever was. What turns your night into day? Your weeping into laughing? Your pain into peace? Your sorrow into joy? It's the same old story. Jesus does.

It's not a popular notion. I guess it never was. But its simple enough for a child to get his head around and simple enough to make one feel young, alive, and vibrant again or perhaps for the first time. And that I think is the point.

Jeff Strain
Maine, USA