Blogging Challenge- Day 5: Growing Up

This challenge keeps get more interesting and interesting.  I apologize for publishing this late. I’m trying to find a balance between a 12 hour schedule and a month long blog challenge. What was growing up like?

Loner

I had friends in school, but I didn’t have many friends outside of school. It’s not that I didn’t like people, I was just one of those people who valued his alone time more. On my own I had more time to think and reflect. At first I thought there was something wrong with me, but then I found out that members of my immediate family are just the same. Each of us to my knowledge has only a few close friends. I guess its in the blood. I associate with everyone, but if I talk to you often or hang out with you often, you should consider yourself special. 

Family

Growing up, my family and I did quite a bit of moving around due my father being in the military. I know many people can relate. During my lifetime, we moved from Clarksville, TN, to New York, then San Antonio, Texas; and finally back to Clarksville to settle down in the same house we resided before leaving. 

Mom was always there to assist me with my homework. Sometimes I took so long on a question that she ended up passing out on the coach. In my defense, mathematics wasn’t second nature to me. If I could, I would have let Mom do all the work for me to save us both the trouble of me struggling to solve all the countless word problems. You can sugar coat it with words to appeal  to my love of English, but math is still math in my book. 

I remember my brothers Mike and Chris looking after my sister and myself. It was mostly Chris, after my brother Mike left home for the Airforce. Chris and I used to play video games together. The game we played mostly was a wrestling game titled Smackdown 2: Know Your Role. Sometimes I had my wins, but it was mostly Christ destroying me, showing his brotherly dominion over meHe eventually ended up creating two wrestlers called Black Samurai and Death Machine. I would not rest until I vanquished them. I used every wrestler on the game- from Stone Cold Steve Austin to one of my sad creations. I got so frustrated by all the losses that I often tossed the game controller to the ground and got all watery in the eye. 

I believe there was a time when my sister and I got along more than we do now. When Christina and I were children we were roommates; Tina was in the bottom bunk and me on top. My fondest memory of us getting along was playing with building with lego blocks and letting our imaginations sail as we played make-believe.

Growing up, Dad wasn’t my favorite person. I guess I just didn’t like getting scolded by him. Of course what kid does? One day my window of opportunity came when my dad revealed to me that I was adopted, and that my real father was a man in our church named Danyon. I was giddy with delight learn that the men, bald guy I had lived with all those years wasn’t my daddy after all. The entire day at church, I was smiling at my supposed father, waving to him thinking, “Yep, that’s my daddy.” Somewhere, my dad and older brothers must have been cracking their sides in the church pew at how gullible I was. Later that day, Dad shut that window of opportunity but explaining to me that it was all a joke. Upset would be an understatement. How could you? I thought. How dare you get my hopes! To this day, Dad remembers this memory and brings it up whenever he can. He regards it as one of his finest jokes. That’s my dad.

Growing up with my family was quite interesting. I’m glad I’m grown now though. 

Church

Sometime as a baby, I was dedicated by my parents to God on one fine church day. Think of a dedication as an insurance that your child will grow to be upright and love the Lord. While I’m not without flaw(and I’ve got plenty), I can say that I do love the Lord, and I am happy to have been raised in His eyes. 

Growing up in the church wasn’t easy. When sunset came on Friday I couldn’t play video games, watch my weekly shows, or go to school dances. I would always count down the minutes I had left until sunset on Saturday. But as I got older, I opened up my Bible more; dived into the writings of Ellen G. White; got involved more in the church; and leaned on God more through prayer. If it weren’t for my relationship with Christ, I don’t think I would have gotten as far as I have in life. I can’t know that, but I don’t want to think about a life without Christ as my friend and armor against the world’s ammunition.

Stutter 

My earliest memory of stuttering was when I was six. Being a little kid, I didn’t really think of it too much, even though I was attending school speech class. I was too busy having funny and playing with my classmates and neighbor friends. At the time, none of my peers said anything about it, or laughed at me. Everything was innocent and worry free for me then. That’s why God encourages us to 

Then the years progressed, and then the speech became an obstacle for me. It sometimes held me back from talking in front of class, made me away from talking to girls I crushed on, and on rare occassions there were giggles/remarks by that one ignorant person whenever I was caught in a stutter. There is always one somewhere. 

But as I mentioned in a previous post, growing up with a stutter wasn’t all bad. As I worked through my speech, I adopted 3 P words to give me strength in my journey- Prayer, Patience, Perseverance. To this day I pray that God can give me confidence and strength in my words. I learned that I first had to be patient with myself, not feel rushed to say what’s on mind. Last, I told myself that I was not going to give up. I was determined to be bigger than my speech. Throughout grade school; I got along with peer; joined clubs; sang and danced in choirs; went to dances; and much to my shock, I was made king of my senior prom, by my peers. 

What was it like growing up for you? 

Have a good night, and God bless.

What was it like growing up for you? 

Have a good night, and God bless.