My Faith Story, Part II

I entered college in August of 1991.

Hold on a minute, I need to recover from that.

Where were we? Oh, yes: college, August, 1991. My college choir director put me in contact with the music director at First Presbyterian Church in Raleigh who hired me as his tenor section leader. For the next nine months I went to church every Sunday morning, dutifully sang the music placed in front of me, and felt absolutely no connection to the church or God. It was a gig, it paid, that was it.

I had a conversion experience one morning in the shower. I remember distinctly hearing the voice of God that morning. What God said I don't recall; I don't even remember if it happened during my freshman or sophomore year. I just remember being very afraid. If I knew then what I know now about mental disorders I would instantly have assumed I was experiencing a positive affectual symptom of schizophrenia. My fear subsided quickly and was replaced by a feeling of longing. I couldn't say, however, just what I was longing for.

My conversion experience wasn't enough to put me back on the path to faith. Something much more dramatic had to happen in my life to capture my attention and point me towards God.

My father had been diagnosed with emphysema a year before I entered college. His illness had helped me decide to go to college fairly close to home -- the NC State campus is about an hour and a half from my family's home. I anticipated that one day the phone would ring and I would be informed that I needed to come home quickly. When that day came, I didn't want to be dependent on airline schedules; I wanted to know I could hop in my car and make it home quickly.

The phone call I awaited with dread came on October 6, 1992. My father had been taken to the hospital after collapsing in his bedroom. I wanted to come home immediately but my mother told me not to worry, that things would be okay and that I should stay and finish my midterm exams. Fall Break was only three days away, and I'd be home then. Two days later, I could the situation was going from bad to worse and my sister encouraged me to drive home. When my mother didn't object, I knew things were much worse than I had been led to believe.

I limped west on Highway 70, afraid to take my car on the interstate. I remember praying, "God, if it's time for him to die and for his misery to be over, then I am at peace with that. Just please let me get home to see him before he dies." My "Check Engine" light came on, as it was wont to do in those days, but I got home in just about two hours. I dropped off my bags at the house, called my mother in the hospital room to see if there was anything she wanted. (I remember taking up Oreos; I don't recall if they were for her or for me.) I got to the hospital at around 3:00 on the afternoon of October 8, 1992.

My father died at approximately 6:00 that night.

I had requested something of God, and He delivered. In retrospect, I think that's a lousy reason for going back to church. Theologically it seems almost heretical to follow the teachings of Christ only because He has done me a favor (other than the favor of crucifying Himself for my sins, but that was a favor for everyone, not just for me).

In the aftermath of my father's death my yearning for God became more acute. I sought to learn more about the Presbyterian Church since that was where I was spending most of my Sunday mornings. Unfortunately, I didn't get much past the whole Predestination thing. In fact, my last Sunday singing at that church featured a sermon defending that most Calvinist of beliefs. I took it as a sign that it was time for me to move on.

I didn't find a church home the rest of the time I was in college, though in honesty I didn't really try. My longing for God waned over time, but I had permanently regained something in that conversion experience and the death of my father -- I had regained my faith. I no longer considered myself an atheist. I identified as a Christian because that was what I knew how to be. Christianity is a credal religion, and I'm not sure I could have stood up and honestly claimed to believe the tenets of the Nicene and Apostles' Creeds. (To this day bits of both give me pause.)

When my father died two months short of my nineteenth birthday I was put back on the road of faith and restarted my journey towards God in earnest. Two years hence I would seek out both God and my father at a time in my life when I felt no one on Earth could understand my pain, and nothing corporeal could heal my spirit.