Climbing Jacob's Ladder

Some of you who are friends on FB haven't seen or spoken with me in many years. I used to be a big skeptic of Christianity and some of you can remember this. And I suppose it begs the question as to what happened to make the big reversal. Well, alot of it has to do with Jamie. Instead of a guy with a southern drawl, Gidieons Bible and chick tracks in hand, it was Jamie who gave a testimony to me, without ever uttering a single word.

The handsome little man to the left is our son and Meredith's older brother, James Arthur Curtis. He was born January 14, 1996 and died October 25, 1996. He was born 16 1/2 weeks early because of pre-ecclampsia (sometimes referred to as toxemia). He was our first child.
The reason I put his picture on a note that is about him, is because he was part of a story that, although still makes little sense to me, transformed me. He was the one who showed me Jesus Christ. This is very hard for me to write and I have tried it dozens of times because it wasn't right, or I just wasn't sure. But it has nagged at me and I have tried my best at it in this note. Please accept my apologies if I offend anyone. It is the last thing I want to do.

I had been vocally skeptical of Christianity since I was about 13 years old. I went forward in a youth event and was baptized in the local Baptist church at 12 years old. But I had no idea what it was all about and questioned it for the first time, after the baptism. Between that point and October 1996, I became steadily more critical and hostile to Christianity in almost all forms, particularly evangelical Christianity. I would argue with cousins, friends from school, whoever wanted to spar with me, I was glad to let them know ‘how things were’. I remember at my first marriage counseling appointment, I showed up a bit inebriated, ready to teach the preacher a thing or two about how things were. What a patient man he was. In fact, I found some old photos taken about 23 years ago at a friend’s house. We stayed up late to do a spoof on the southern Baptist youth summer camp in Oklahoma, called Rock Creek. Even now, I smiled at a few of those pictures. But, suffice to say, there’s plenty of evidence and witnesses to my hostility to Christianity. Some of you are friends on Facebook.

Stephanie, my wife, had been a believer for some time….a true believer, when we met. I say that because she was from the south and in the south, everybody says they are believers and go to church, whether they are or aren’t. As someone once said, down south, it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. She was an authentic believer because of how she put up with me. She never made it an issue, but never gave up when it came to finding a local church or blunting some of my more caustic remarks about Christianity. I saw it as a wife trying to smooth out the rough edges of a man used to being a bachelor. It was much more than that.
We had Jamie January 14, 1996. We had no idea how sick Stephanie was. But she was near death, as was Jamie, before having to perform a C section to get him out of the womb, because PICU became a safer place than her body, as the womb became every increasingly harmful due to the disease Stephanie had. He was born a little over 1 pound. I held him in my hand in PICU as the doctor told me he had a 7% chance of surviving the night. He survived the night and many more after that. Most of it was in PICU. However, we were able to take him home with us once he got to 5 pounds and room air. That still meant going home on oxygen, alarms and heavy meds, but going home nonetheless. We were scared but excited to have our son with us in the one bedroom efficiency my parents help furnish for us, after the wedding.

But he would take turns for the worse and we’d have to take him to the doctor or the emergency room, even though getting him out and about was probably more risky than whatever was wrong with him. However, we followed doctor’s orders and got him where he needed to be for help.

For anyone that knows about BPD, you know that without hope for the lungs, the heart follows. It turned out his heart was over-working, swelled and began to fail him. By September, we were back in PICU, for who know how many times. But now, the doctors were saying that there was no more hope. His heart was failing. We talked about a transplant. His chances, they said, were better as he was, than to undergo a surgery of that magnitude with his conditions. Despite the dire diagnosis, they let us take him back home with home health, after he stabilized.

It was late October, and early in the morning the night nurse watching Jamie came into our bedroom and woke us up. Jamie’s heart stopped. My wife immediately jumped out of bed, went into his room and began CPR. She got his heart beating. We had called the ambulance and we ended up in the emergency room at University Hospital. His primary physician was called and spoke to me on the phone, after she was briefed from Jamie’s admittance. She did more listening than talking. I was frantic and can’t remember what I told her, but the gist of it was, ‘please help him.’ Her silence told me there was nothing anyone could do. After ten months, I began to realize he was at the end of his struggle to live. He was an infant, but the toughest person I ever met.

That night, Jamie was moved to PICU and watched constantly. We had already been briefed by the doctor on call and we had signed a DNR. After exploring all the options, it seemed his options were slim and we were all waiting for the inevitable. It came early the next morning. I had fallen asleep in the consolation room of PICU. Someone, I can’t remember who, came in and woke me up. “It’s time Charlie.” My heart pounded as I walked up to his room. There, crawled up on his bed, holding him tight in her arms, was Stephanie. She was singing to him. I came to them and held him and her close. I felt his body turn cold and his color leave. At this point, the pain was so overwhelming that I wanted death. I wanted to trade places, if he could live. My head turned upward and I remember using every bit of life I had in me to scream “WHY? GOD, WHY?” Everything seemed to be a blur except what was right in front of me and what was going on inside of me.

At that moment, everything I had ever done in my life seemed like shit and a complete waste of time. And I think that is the word Paul would use, if he were me. All the grades I tried to maintain; all the relationships and perceptions I tried to promote or control; all the circumstances I tried to master; all of the stupid personas of myself I desperately tried everyone to believe was really me. All the arguments I held and defended. All the times I tried so hard to impress others and win their approval, from the mannerisms, to the mundane things, like hair and clothes. Every bit of energy I put into life was a vain attempt at greater humiliation than had I not put any energy in life at all. It was a giant pile of steamy shit and it mattered about as much. My son had suffered incredible pain, only to die in our arms. What a completely bizarre and meaningless thing to live. You are caste forth into existence only to do a few totally humiliating dances in front of others and nature, then get a stroke or cancer, shit your underwear and decompose. All that energy….that desperation, from as early as I could remember till then…total waste of time. As I held him in my arms, I wanted no part of it anymore. I was ashamed to have taken part in it before. I wanted someone to shoot me. It was too much. I took a breath, looked at my wife, who seemed to be in her own hell too. I saw my parents and her parents, all helpless, broken and in tears. We were in our own hell, alone in it and untouchable in it, even though we were physically together.

A voice bellowed from deep from the recesses of all these thoughts, like oil bubbling out of the ground, spontaneously. “I know this hurts. I understand this pain far more than you will ever know. Look at Jamie. He’s your only son and you have had to watch him suffer and die a horrible death. You would give anything for him to be healthy and safe. I had to watch My Son die too. In fact, I had to turn my back on Him. There’s a pain you will never have to know because I know it and went through it. I did it for you, because I love you. My Son lives for you. And I have Jamie now. He’s safe with me. But you aren’t until you run to Me. Stop fighting me Charles. I love you so desperately.” I am paraphrasing. In fact, I have tried writing this over and over and even now, it doesn’t do service to what I heard. I don’t care to take care of all the theological nuances to make sure it is in line with the ancients. I know what I heard. I heard the Father and He showed me His Son in a way I never comprehended. I wouldn’t comprehend it. All of the sudden, this sort of love was bottomless….too deep for me to fathom.

It was far bigger than anything I could relate to with other people, even my own wife and parents. It was love, rather than a big example.

We stopped to eat breakfast at Marie Calendars at day break. The nurses, before we left, asked me if we wanted to donate his body parts and I told them he’d been through enough and to leave him alone. I am not sure at what point I did tell everyone. I do know it was gradual and awkward. I began with my wife, who had gone the other way for a while. She had tried to do all the right things and then He allowed this to happen. It wasn’t until 2004 that He showed up and healed a lot of that pain. I’ve been chided by my own family along the way. My parents are thrilled. My parents probably thought I was always saved. They tend to think far too much of me, as their son, than I really was and am. But that’s ok. My brother was indignant for a while. I remember him yelling at me in my office about the audacity of me considering he didn’t know God. And I understand that. It does sound arrogant on the surface. Plus the fact I haven’t been that great at communicating sensitive things in the first place. If I could go back, I would tell him that I don’t know why I knew God…in fact, He should have nabbed him before me. My sister is sort of the same. Family is hard. I think Jesus even said something about family and hometown being hard. I can understand that. Sometimes I think they are afraid to say too much, because they think this is my way to cope with the death of a child. Not sure and am speculating. I just know they are not on the same page with me. I just hope and pray that we only are on different sides of the parts where I am completely wrong. I can live with that. Sometimes the whole point can get buried in the details and mini disagreements and personality clashes. In any case, it seems that whether it is the circumstances surrounding my salvation or even how that related to my family and job, there was no explanation for it other than it being true. And it is.

He was with us through the rest of the hell. He walked with me through the maze of little caskets we had to pick out for Jamie. He was with us through the funeral.....when we fell apart and disappeared for a while...when we came back and tried to get back into life. He has never left. I still remember my cousins singing Jacob's Ladder at the funeral. It was the song Stephanie sang to Jamie more than most others. It will always have a special place in my heart. He was there, through it all. I just couldn't see it at the time.

How do you tell someone about this? Most folks get saved out from under drug addiction, sexual addiction, prison…whatever…..was lost then found. They were miserable, then they found Him and had something to shout about. It wasn’t that way with me. I loved Him and would follow Him. But He took my son. He could have gotten my attention any way He wanted and He chose this. I was loved Him and was incredibly angry with Him, at the same time. I was saved when my son died. How can you consider that a good, old fashioned ‘testimony’? To this day, my story of finding Jesus has been a stammered series of ADD moments all cut and paste together into a vague and foggy recount. Its only because I don’t know how to tell it. I am not sure how it would be taken or how it could be used. You hear stories of God providing, just at the last minute, bringing in folks or their loved ones from certain death. I found Jesus IN the death of my son, not through his skirting it or being pulled back from it. I found Jesus in the blackness of it. It’s not a happy story, even though I now have life.

For the first time, I decided to follow Him, wherever that led me. For a while, I thought it was seminary and a full-time vocational career as a minister. I’m not saying it won’t, but I found out when you begin to place your confidence in Jesus, you start off all excited, awkward and really annoying to others. I was no exception. I loved apologetics and philosophy and, by now, think I have probably read as much as a PhD….but without the PhD. I know of His love, His Kingdom, and see it as ultimate reality. Right now, its communicated through what I am writing here and through any opportunities I have to share Him in my work. Whatever I do, I do for Him. He’s my boss. And I love Him. And I talk to Him in ways I would never talk to anyone else. I say some of the most horrendous things that if I said them to someone else, I would be slapped, punched or committed. I have found He can take it. And I have found out that if I can’t come to Him with all of the mess, I have fooled myself in this entire ordeal, since 1996. I am not a good Baptist or a good Christian. I like my beer, my slang, myself, warts and all….not for the sake of the beer and slang and so forth…but because that is who I am, right or wrong. I am definitely better than I was, but only to the extent of my honesty, rather than my ‘goodness’ whatever that means, and it depends on your circles. To some, it’s usually two lists…one of taboos and another of virtues….avoid the ones and follow the other and you will do well. That’s also a steamy pile of shit. If I cannot TRULY become like Jesus without faking it, I cannot ever become like Jesus. And I am not faking it, as uncomfortable as that is in many church settings. I can’t complain though. I have great friends in my local church family. It’s taken me a while to realize they love me for who I am. But I have gone through quite a bit of embarrassment in getting to that point with many of them. The closer I am to Him and the more I recharge among His own, I can see the difference in my heart and my mind. And it is real, rather than contrived. As soon as I say that, I begin playing Super Christian again and go through another weird cycle of sin, repentance and new appreciation. But this is going somewhere. I just need to get used to the humiliation along the way. It’s all good.

So, that is how I went from skeptic to an unashamed follower of Jesus Christ. Some of you can’t understand any of this. I can relate. But if it all made perfect sense, then its probably all just me. Despite the conditions of how I got turned around, I do wish you knew Who I knew. I am nothing special. In fact, for a lot of you who are probably still skeptics, I can’t understand why He hasn’t already gotten to you before me. A lot of you are much better a person than I was or even am now. A lot of you have probably even been mistreated by me and find it hard to read anything I have to say, out of anger. I ask for you to forgive me, a sinner…chief among them all. Please accept my apologies for purposefully snubbing you, leading you down primrose paths, just to cut you lose at the last minute….for the abuse of my position….for the total disregard of respect. Please forgive me. I was wrong and can’t undo any of it. I want you to know that He has forgiven me and we are fine. But He wants me to make things right, because He loves you too….very much. Maybe if I tell you my story, some of the anger will subside enough to get only that part of my message. If not, I want you to know I am stubborn and will continue with the ‘Jesus stuff’, and if it doesn’t come that way for me, I pray every day that the message comes to you from someone else that may not have a history with you like I may have with you. He invaded my life, turned it around and I still wonder where He’s taking me. But it is exciting, especially since I have confidence in the ending. It makes it more exciting to experience.

He lives. He is life and life eternal. When He took my place on the cross, He took all my sin, past, present and future on Himself. When His Father turned His back on Him, that was a separation I will never have to face. And when He got up and walked out of the tomb, He has provided me a power no one on earth, below or above can equal or challenge. I am not much, but He is Holy One of God and He is quite fond of me. He’s the only way to the Father and if it weren’t for that one way, I would be lost and still doing the humiliating dances, pretending I was something else, on my way to destruction. And I still dearly miss my boy. But as King David said when his boy died, "If he can't come to me, I will go to him." And I surely will. I love Him more and more, with reckless abandon. I want you to know Him, in case you don’t already. If there is anything I can think of about my story, its that He is faithful and trustworthy, even when it all gets taken away. And when it does, He will be there and if you place confidence in His Son, He will always be there, even when nobody else will. God bless and thanks for reading.

Charles