Boldness, Forgetfulness, Depression and Shattered Dreams

Boldness was something I learned how to master at an early age. By the time I was six, I had no trouble speaking up in Sunday School. I had no trouble speaking up in my class at school. I had no trouble speaking up to strangers (something we now teach our children to avoid). I had no trouble speaking up in front of a crowd. Actually, I had no trouble speaking up anytime or anywhere.

My parents called me motor mouth. From the moment I got out of bed until the moment I went to sleep again, if there was someone around me, I felt it my calling in life to talk about everything. My first grade teacher complimented me one day for keeping quiet 5 minutes during naptime. My parents put a limit on how many words I was allowed to say at the dinner table. Even friends would get annoyed with me because I rarely gave them time to get in a word.

Talking seemed to be something over which I had no control. It was like my mouth was a funnel with a direct link to my thoughts. Anything I thought just flowed through and out of my mouth. I have since learned that excessive, impulsive talking is something found in many children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

I never let others think that their teasing bothered me, but it did. The old adage that words will never hurt is a lie. I tried to stop talking. As a seven year old, I would stay awake at nights crying because I had done it again. I would make a vow to myself that I would not talk to anyone the next day. I wanted to punish them for being so cruel by not talking to anyone. But that plan only backfired. People would say, “Stephen must be sick today. He hasn’t said a word for almost 2 minutes.” That was all it took to unstop the funnel.

My parents just assumed that I would be a preacher when I grew up. Why else would God have given me the gift of gab? I even preached my first sermon at the ripe old age of eight. You are probably wondering what kind of church would allow an eight year old to preach. Well, it was children’s church, of course. I had written out a sermon as part of a Royal Ambassadors assignment and the next Sunday I stood in front of all the other children and preached (actually read) my sermon.

It is typically believed that talkative people are always outgoing. People think that they are all extraverts and they have many friends. Not true. I still have a problem with the funnel between my brain and mouth, but I am not outgoing or extraverted, and I always have difficulty making friends. I may appear to be an extravert on the outside, but my true nature is that of a hermit. I am happiest when I am alone in a quiet place. Give me a good book or let me write in quiet and I am ecstatic.

I discovered that my talking was a means of protecting myself. If I talked to others, I didn’t appear insecure. If I talked, I didn’t appear shy. If I talked, I didn’t appear nervous. Unfortunately, I was insecure, shy, and nervous whenever I was around others. My outward life was merely a cover for what I felt inside.

I never wanted people to know that I was shy or nervous. I learned how to cover well. The smallest negative comment from others only strengthened my resolve to keep my inward life a secret. The last person that others suspected of being insecure often cried when alone because he felt unloved, alone, ugly, stupid, and boring. Talking allowed me to hide from myself as well.

As many children do, I began to wish that I were someone else. I did not like myself. The thing I enjoyed the most, time alone, became the hardest thing to endure. It was during the quiet times that I hated myself. I could not hide and was forced to face myself. This is something that many teens and children experience.

I often prayed and asked God to help me. I prayed for friends and a girlfriend. I prayed that He would keep me from talking so much. I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. I was at the end of what I could bear. I needed God to carry me and He did.

I wish I could say that I never experience such depression now that I am older. I wish I could say that God took that away from me. But what He has done for me is enough. God gave me the ability to forget. That’s right. I can forget better than anyone I know. But forgetting is not always an advantage.

I remember that occasionally I got to drive our ten-year-old Plymouth Fury III or my father’s eight-year-old Toyota pickup to school. One day as I was preparing to leave school I went to my bus, got on, found a seat, and sat there. I felt pretty good about all of that because I knew for a certainty that I had not forgotten, as I usually did, to bring my homework with me. I also had my trumpet case and my jacket with me, other things I tended to leave at school. So I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I had not forgotten a thing. The buses began to take their turns pulling out of the loading area and onto the road. I glanced out of my window into the student parking area and noticed a particularly familiar white Toyota pickup. Assessing the situation, I quickly went to the front of the bus and announced to the driver that I needed to get off of the bus. She asked why. I told her that I forgot something. She gruffly said, “I can’t wait for you.” I responded, “That’s alright. I’ll get a ride.” I waited until every bus had pulled out of the schoolyard before I walked over to our truck and drove home.

My forgetfulness is wonderful. It is selective. It is thorough. Yet it is not permanent. While it is a real struggle for me to remember events that were traumatic for me, I can remember them if I really want. Many people are often reminded of their past by similar events, a face, a word, a smell, or even just a nagging feeling. Not me.

I guess psychiatrists would say that I am not dealing with my past. The truth is that God has already dealt with it. He forgave me of the things that needed to be forgiven. God has forgotten about them, so why should I let Satan continually depress me by reminding me of my past mistakes and weaknesses. I don’t hold people accountable for things that they said or did when they were children. Sadly teasing is a part of life with which every child must learn to deal. I don’t blame my parents for punishing me when I was not wrong. People make mistakes and we can all learn from those mistakes.

I still get depressed at times. And it is precisely at those times that Satan attacks me by dredging up old memories. But with God’s help, I get past the depression and once again forget the things that Satan wants me to remember. On our own, we will harbor resentment. Through God’s strength we can forgive and forget. I’m not even certain why it is called depression; after all, it is amazing how good you can feel after spending some time alone crying.

Depression is not the only reason I have cried in my life. One night, as our family was preparing to move from Virginia to Maryland, I went into my parent’s room crying. My mother thought I was sad because I was leaving my friends behind. Well, in a way I was, but that was not the real problem. I told her that I had been thinking about things instead of sleeping—something I did, and still do, a great deal. I explained to her that I was sad because my friends were not saved. At that time in my life I thought, as did my parents, that I was saved. I told my mother, “I’m afraid because my friends will die and go to hell and now I can’t tell them about Jesus because we are moving.” I don’t remember the exact words she used, but they helped ease my ten-year-old mind.

Concern for the lost at an early age is something my wife and I have in common. While my evangelistic platform was a pulpit in children’s church, Wendy’s platform was the front porch of her neighbor’s homes. One day her mother received a phone call from one of these neighbors. Now, when a neighbor calls you about your child, you usually expect something like this: “Was your little Johnny one of the children playing ball in the lot behind my house? One of them broke my window with the ball. I’m not sure who did it, but I want someone to pay.” This was not the case. This neighbor’s message went more like this: “Are you Wendy King’s mother? Did you know that your daughter is going around the neighborhood, knocking on doors, and telling people that they will go to hell without Jesus?” If only adults had the courage and boldness of children.

Even before I had accepted Christ as my personal Savior, my friends knew there was something different about me. I wasn’t odd like Eddie Haskell on “Leave it to Beaver,” or nerdy like Ernie on “My Three Sons,” or even strange like Eddie on the “Munsters.” But there was something different about me. I did what I was told, I tried my best in all that I did, I never told dirty jokes (unless I didn’t realize that they were dirty—which was the case on occasion), and I would talk about church and Jesus. I am reminded of my first week in the fourth grade…

On the first day of school that year, I walked into my class beaming with pride because I had a brand new Superman lunch box that had a matching Superman thermos. I was so proud of my new glass insulated thermos. My mother knew how excited I was. She sent me to school with a thermos full of hot, steamy Campbell’s Tomato soup. I was thrilled beyond explanation. The instant I got into my seat at school, I began sharing with others how lucky I was. I opened my red, white and blue Superman lunch box to show off my matching red, white and blue Superman glass insulated thermos. I demonstrated how the metal clip held the thermos in place. Holding my Superman lunch box high in front of everyone, I flipped the metal clip open and watched in slow motion as my prized Superman thermos slid out of the now unclipped slot and fell toward the hard, tiled floor with concrete underneath. The sound that followed rang in my ears for the next ten hours. Immediately I began crying as I picked up the sloshing thermos that also clinked with the sound of thousands of little slivers of broken glass.

When my classmates teased me about crying over the broken thermos, I tried to cover by saying, “I’m not crying because my thermos broke. I’m just upset because I don’t have any money to buy lunch and my lunch is ruined.” The truth is that I was devastated to lose my Superman thermos. I knew that my parents could not afford to buy me a new lunch box with a matching thermos. I knew that I would have to eat cold sandwiches all year for lunch and drink milk from the cafeteria. And I also thought that I would get into trouble for breaking my thermos by showing off to others. I guess it was true in this instance that “pride goes before the fall.”

Later that same week, a female member of our class confronted me. In my days, girls were typically bigger than boys by the fourth grade. At least that is how I remember things. She boldly asked, “Is it true that you Christians believe in turning the other cheek?” Not fully understanding that passage of scripture, I told her that it was true. She then proceeded to slap me as hard as she could across my face. Shocked, stunned, stinging, and sulking over a wound inflicted by a girl, I starred wide-eyed in utter disbelief at what she had done. What would cause somebody to simply lash out at another person like that? Just because I was from a Christian family? Because I was a white boy in a predominately African-American school? Because I was a boy and she hated boys? I don’t know that I will ever know the answer to that, and I wasn’t exactly feeling philosophical at the time.

The worst part came next as she and her friends tauntingly said, “Let’s see if you turn the other cheek or not.” With my head spinning and my face burning from anger as well as the slap, I felt my head slowly turn. With my reddened cheek turned away and a clean, pasty-white face exposed toward this girl, she proceeded to give me something that I no longer had with my Superman lunchbox—a matching set. I sat down in my seat and tried as hard as I could to be brave. After a few seconds of listening to the comments going around the classroom, I collapsed with my head on my desk and began sobbing uncontrollably. This only fueled the fire of insults that I heard passed around about the “Christian.”