In the midst of this developing horror movie, I was going through puberty and increasingly needing to deal with hormones I was not equipped to handle. I remember realizing that I had reached the age where I could sire offspring. I was like Superman with a German Tiger tank and nothing to shoot at. A demonic principality was at the wheel and there was no one to take it out.
Towards the end of the year, group sessions were phased out, but I still met with Uncle Joe every week. And I was all kinds of messed up. At some point, I discovered that animals have vaginas. Thankfully, my accountability with Uncle Joe was such that my struggles were not hidden. I kept a daily journal and learned to spill out exactly what I was feeling and dealing with every day. Once a week I took the journal for Joe to read. But it was a hopeless case. There was no power available. I was living a life of failure. Addicted beyond help. Entrapped. Enslaved. Filthy. Slimy. A grisly mess.
The one bright spot was my honeybees. I immersed myself in bees and though Dad wouldn’t get close to them I had an uncle who kept bees and helped me out when needed. I probably owe my life to the bees. People tried to help. People meant well. But there was no help available. I spiraled into hopeless despair. Then talk was circulated that I may need to go to a home for troubled men. That would be humiliating. So I tried harder. “Maybe if you really wanted victory you could rise above temptation.”
In January, Mark, Dad, and I hired a driver for the nine-hour drive to Whispering Hope. We had an interview. “You should be able to come in a few months.” I was sixteen at the time.
I went back home and worked on the farm. I cried a lot. Mostly in silence. I spent hours behind the team plowing fields that someone else would plant. My bees would have no keeper for the summer. The days inched by. Then we got word, you can plan to come in a week. Mark arranged travel. Mom packed my suitcases. Then the day dawned. We got up early. The whole family gathered around. We tried to eat breakfast. It refused to go down. We attempted morning devotions and thought it might be good to sing the song Till We Meet Again. No one could sing. We creaked and choked and dabbed at our eyes.
At Whispering Hope I made lifelong friends. I also realized how I desired to know the Father, truly know Him in my heart. My prayer became Lord let me know you as you know me. And I longed to be baptized and join the church.
At the same time, I longed to resume life at home. I missed my family, our farm, and the community. Finally, after several months my counselor and his wife loaded the van and took me the long way back to Aylmer Ontario.
Back at home, I started a job off the farm working at a furniture shop. Things had improved a good bit and I settled back into life. I managed to get baptized the next summer.
But living above the line was a by-the-skin-of-your-teeth deal. I managed for a while, but eventually, I lost out. I felt myself sliding off into the abyss. Now being a church member… this meant public exposure and excommunication. The bishop dismissed all nonmembers and Uncle Mark got up to tell the congregation of my sins. After that, I am asked to leave. Which I do, acutely aware of the women and girls on the other side of the room. Ashamed. Devastated. Excommunicated. Shunned. I strike off across the fields towards home.
Over the next several weeks my family and I navigate life with myself being shunned. I couldn’t really work with them. Certainly not eat with them. I shouldn’t go swimming, “what if you’d drown in this state?” I hear rumors that some say they should never have baptized him. That stings a little because my heart of heart’s desire is to be right with God. Why oh why is it so hard? I’ve also recently learned that some suggested castration as a solution.
Eventually, I am received back into the church, but it was clear that I need help. So a second term at Whispering Hope is arranged. This is hard, there’s the stigma of needing to go through the “insane asylum” twice. I’m about nineteen now and have become extensively involved in raising and marketing pastured hogs which I really enjoyed.
But I go, I meet people, and I do cool stuff like making my own wooden chess game. I get to meet a young lady whose quiet presence touches my heart in a way none other has. This is not lust, I know the difference now. I cherish the encounter.
It’s time to get back home. I want to get a job off the farm at the produce dock. But am advised against it because of it being too exhausting. I try to fit back in at home on the farm. It’s a disaster. Within weeks I’m again facing excommunication. Mark and another minister come to discuss and let me know that next Sunday I need to be banned again.
A day later I see the bearded men walk across the field again. Hmm, what do they want?
“ We just wanted to see if there was anything else you wanted to bring yet before Sunday. It’s a little unusual for us to check back like this, but we felt we should.”
“Ok, no, I have nothing to say.”
“Alright, bye.”
A day later I look up and here come the bearded men again, a third time. “What do you need?”
“Well, we gave you the opportunity to confess on your own yesterday. But today we are here to tell you we have evidence that your little brother was molested and we have reason to believe you did it.”
“I didn’t touch him”.
“It would be better to confess it than to deny it.”
“No, I didn’t touch him.”
They left.
I get home from the barn and Dad pleads with me that I should confess. Otherwise, they will need to take my brother to the doctor and she would report this to the authorities and it would be really bad for you.
“I didn’t touch him.”
They go to the doctor, doc takes a look. Yeah, he’s got an infection, not uncommon for boys to get that. “Should be fine in a bit.”
Still, I do have a pending excommunication, and it’s clear that living at home isn’t going to work. So it’s arranged for me to move in with a childless couple several miles away. On Monday morning I pack up, we load stuff, and I get in the back of Dad and Mom’s big buggy, and off we go.
It’s rather awkward, but my hosts do a great job to get me settled in. I’m under orders to not leave their property without permission and to not approach home without prior communication and consent from Dad. "In six weeks we should be able to lift the ban".
And so I settle in with life on Eden Line. The weeks drag on. I split a huge stack of wood. I cut a bunch more. I’m an outcast, a loser, a leper. I get the sense I’m a Joseph sent to Egypt. It’s a good bit longer than six weeks, but eventually, I get taken back into the church. Now I can start finding a job. I take on a project working with several cousins on a building project. I’m not yet twenty-one so my income is channeled home to Dad.
The weeks turn to months. I continue working on building projects. I turn twenty-one and start earning a paycheck. Winter turns to summer and I begin working at the dock. It’s winter again, more building projects. I have not forgotten the encounter with that lady. I finally asked Dad about it. “Could I seek a friendship?” His response is, “As long as things are as we are afraid they are you have no business pursuing a friendship.” I realize I’m still being held hostage about the alleged molestation of my brother. It was a blow, but I’m pretty much immune to those at this point.
Eventually, I proceed with writing a letter to seek a friendship, it feels like the right thing to do. I anxiously await her response. It arrives the day before I’m scheduled to travel with the produce truck to another community to help them pack squash. I commit my life to God’s hand and open the letter. It’s a no.
The produce truck arrives and I head off to spend the night on a couch in a warehouse. The couch doesn’t exist. It’s cold and I can’t locate the thermostat. I try to sleep. Even that comfort evades me. I fashion a bed out of cardboard bins. A piece of plastic to trap the weak bit of heat coming off an electric heater in the room. I doze fitfully. The physical conditions exactly match my internal state.
Months drag on. I bury myself in work. I’ve got anger issues. But I’m gaining some clout within the community. I’ve done well at my work at the dock. I’ve been living a life free of the worst of past vices. I send a second letter, maybe things had changed. They had not. I begin to realize that I have long overstayed my welcome at my gracious hosts. Where could I stay? I decide to stay at the abandoned trailer house by the dock. I move in and take up homesteading on my own. Life is pretty lonely.
Summer turns to fall. School season begins, and a certain teacher begins to drive by twice a day on her way to school. I wave a couple of times. I’m so alone. One night as I battle the darkness all by myself in my forlorn and ugly abode I know with a surety that that teacher is to be my wife.
The weather turns colder. One rainy day I’m particularly discouraged and alone. There’s nothing happening at the dock. Here comes Dad with some firewood in the back of the buggy and some other supplies to help make life more friendly. Dear Dad, he really has a heart of gold. However, staying on in this forsaken place is not an option. I made a call and yep at the end of November, Whispering Hope was in need of a big brother/shop foreman.
That was an awesome God send. I enjoy my time there a lot. The two months are quickly drawing to a close and I don't have a home to go back to. I’m running out of time and options… Lord, what should I do? I wrestle through the night and come up with a plan. The very next day Dad calls. I am welcome to come home. Wow! What a feeling. I’m forever grateful for the next year and a half back at home with my family.
And I’m forever grateful to that teacher who knew in her heart that the answer was yes when she got my letter asking for her friendship.
And grateful to her parents who raised such an amazing woman to be my wife. I know they struggle with where life has led the two of us. But a huge thank you to both sets of parents. I owe so much to all four of you.
I am blessed beyond measure. Thank you Father God for the path you have chosen for us. Even now as I set my writing instrument away and roll over in bed the amazing presence of my dear is with me. There is a chubby little 9-month-old in bed with us. Over by the wall, our dear little two-year-old is snuggled under the covers. In the other rooms, an occasional cough or stir confirms the presence of our 5 and 8-year-olds.
The best is yet to come.
P.S. You may wish to read the next post Courtship.