Recently I had a conversation with my daughter concerning one of her friends. I had commented that the teen’s family had some issues that I was struggling to understand. The parents of the teen seemed uncaring about where the teen was or, when or how the teen might get home, if the teen ever got home. Abigail is the least judgmental person I know and in her very direct way, said to me, “You didn’t have parents with issues.” To which I responded almost reflexively, “I did.”
My mind then found its way back 40 years to 922 Franklin Street. My life was a bit “issue filled”. Before I was 14 I had been arrested twice. Should have been arrested several more times but I was sneaky. I wasn’t Al Capone and it was mostly kid stuff but still . . . My closest friends at the age of 14 would all eventually take up residency in the state penitentiary – every one of them, except for one. He committed suicide. On the weekends I could be found on the streets of my small town at almost any hour of the night.
My parents never knew. My sister who will be reading this may even be shocked, just a bit. They didn’t know because at home and school, I was the perfect kid. I got almost straight A’s, mowed the grass, hung up my clothes, was quiet, played baseball and loved apple pie. But the weekends and summers, well, fourteen year olds shouldn’t know what I knew or do some of the things I did.
That’s the bad.
Let me be clear. In my case, the issues that plagued my parents did not revolve around parenting. The lack of supervision was a symptom of other things and the fact that they really did think I was perfect. I know, hard to believe. My parents loved me and it was what sustained me during a very scary part of my life.
Then came the brown haired girl down the street asking me to go to church. I said sure. What 16 year old ever told a cute brown haired girl no? So, I went and never stopped. The church became a safe place. It was a place where Youth Sunday School teachers would drone on about Moses or Noah or some other dead guy. But that was ok because those boring youth teachers were there not because they liked teaching (obviously) but because they cared about the youth of the church. Mr. Branscome could kill the best story of the Bible, but he cared.
Then there were the youth. Mostly new faces for me but they adopted me, the only kid in the group whose parents didn’t attend. They let me go out to eat with them. They didn’t make fun of my clothes. They invited me over for cards and we shot baskets together. One night six of them lined the walls of my living room just to say hello and welcome me to church. I became one of them and it was as if I had always been.
My life changed because of that church, that Sunday School, that youth group - in Grenada, Mississippi. I went back not so long ago. I thanked them for all they had done and said, “God saved my soul, but you saved my life.” That’s what churches do. Thanks be to God for boring teachers and non-judgmental youth. Even for kids with . . . issues.
And that . . . is the good.
