Oh Father, Where Art Thou? Part one
Angel WillSon
I believe that this is the time for the family of God to come to
maturity. A family is made up of fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters,
grandparents, aunts, and uncles. I struggled with my basic identity
from my early childhood as basically a ‘family member’. I questioned
throughout my life what it means to be a ‘family member.’
I was adopted out at birth to a family in Spokane in 1964. I’m
now 49. My mother would read me a book at nights to help me with the
concept of adoption starting at age 4. It was called, ‘The Chosen
Baby.’ The pupose of this little book was to help an adopted child
with the concept of adoption. I was to see myself as ‘chosen’ instead
of rejected. It’s all about perspective. My mom tried to give me
that perspective. It really helped….for awhile.
I was under the impression that I was not only Chosen by my
adoptive mother, but also my adoptive father. She didn’t tell me that
the real reason I was adopted was so that her first daughter which was
born 4 years ahead of me would have a brother to love. I was to find
out later that her first daughter didn’t like the brother that they
got for her. Any of the attention that I received that was nurturing
was mostly from my mom. My dad was away a lot travelling in sales and
later became the owner of 3 local Spokane taverns. He was very much
into football, baseball and basketball through TV. I had to discover
what a real dad was by watching my peers at school play around and
have relationships with their dads. My dad didn’t seem to be
interested in me. My Dad really wanted me to be involved in sports.
He came to a lot of my games with mom. What I didn’t understand when
I saw that many of the guys that loved sports seemed to have close
relationships with their fathers. I heard them talk a lot about
playing with their Dads, going to games together and enjoying life
together. I wondered why that wasn’t happening with me and my Dad.
It was a bit confusing. My parents had another daughter, which made
me the middle child The adopted one, and the only boy..no brothers.
I began to actually feel adopted. I began to see myself as the outer
circle. No friendship with my Dad or my older sister. My younger
sister and I had a closeness, but that grew sour as I began to lose my
sense of self. I started feeling lost. I was different than this
family in my personality and felt different than my peers at school.
Our family took on the patterns of a ‘dysfunctional family’ as modern
psychology puts it. My dad became an alcoholic, which created
codependency and we took on survival type spirit that we children had
to experience. I became in the ‘dysfunctional family’ model, the
scapegoat. I was targeted and bullied at home. It caused me to feel
like something was wrong with me. I was called names by all most
every day of my life till I left and even later. Each of us had our
‘dysfunctional family roles.’ Because of mine, I started feeling
‘bad’ about myself, not knowing why. My grandmother used to say to
the family many times, “He has a good heart.’ I felt that she was the
only one who understood me. That statement from her was picked up as
a statement of mockery towards me. “He has a good heart! He has a
good heart, they would say with a mocking spirit. The word says that
our tongues have the power to give life or to destroy. The rhyme
sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me was
a joke. I’d rather have a bloody nose than a bloody heart. My heart
was broken from the thousands of insults and mockeries spoken over me
throughout the years. Hope differed, makes the heart sick. I became
sick in my heart when I came to realize I would never be loved as a
good person, created by God for a special purpose.
I took courage when Jesus said that King David had a good
heart,… a heart after God, even though he had some moral failures,
mistakes and weakness.
I began to experience a different type of validation and
bonding I could receive would be from physical/sexual encounters and
experiences with guys my age starting early in school. That was the
only way I knew to have any kind of male validation, or acceptance. I
had no Dad or brothers to receive pleasure in their relationship with
me. I was a ‘bleeding fish’ at home and school, subject to sharks, as
a metaphor, meaning ‘bullies’. My entire life growing up, survived
‘sharks’ that were like predators smelling the blood of the weak and
bleeding waiting and planning for the kill.
Where is Love…Oliver Twist
My life song was that from the famous musical, ‘Oliver Twist.’
It was called, ‘Where is Love.” It went like this:
Where is love? Does it fall from skies above? Is it underneath the
willow tree, that I’ve been dreaming of? Do you know where she may
hide? Must I travel far and wide? Till I am beside the someone who I
can mean something too? Where? Where is love?”
A New Song… There is Love
I have a New Song in my heart now called, ‘There is Love.’ It
goes like this: ‘There is Love. And it came from skies above. It
was underneath the Calvary tree, that I’ve been dreaming of. I have
found where He did hide. And I’ve travelled far and wide. Now I am
beside the Someone Who, I do mean something to. There, There is
love!” His name is Jesus.
At the age of 19 I ended up in Hollywood California. I was in
pursuit of opportunities to go into acting, singing and possibly
media. I hitchhiked from Spokane to Seattle to Sanfrancisco to
Hollywood. I was a teenage mess. I was lost, hurt, confused and
abandoned. I was Oliver and my life was a twist. The only way I felt
acceptance was doing what I loved to do..sing and be with others that
were like me in the performing arts. I had no job experience and
resorted to the sex industry on the streets. I was picked up once and
found myself being introduced into the porn world one time, but God
had other plans. Within one month in Hollywood I had an encounter
with Him on the late night of the Hollywood Gay Pride Parade.
Gay Pride Parade Salvation
For several hours, during the gay parade, I began to have a
sense of fear. This fear developed more and more as I walked up and
down the street of Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, one of the gay
districts of L.A. My mind couldn’t get away from thinking about
Jesus and my life. I was becoming aware that my life was coming to a
point of decision. I had dreams of being one of those little children
that I would see pictures of in the arms of the Good Shephard in
kindergarten, churches or childrens books in dental clinics. I had a
hard time believing that he could love me, because I didn’t have that
kind of love role modeled to be by family or society that I was
grafted into.
At around 2am I began to tremble. I had an inner knowing that
my life was not with God. I felt this strong sense that I had to give
God my life. It got so heavy and convicting that I cried out to God
to save me. If I was to put these thoughts and feelings into a voice,
It would have sounded like this: You’re life is not right with me.
You’re living in sin. You have to choose now. I’m drawing a line
and I want you to step over it and give your life to me. I said back,
“I can’t be holy. I tried to give you my life before in a church
service. I can’t do it, but I want to give you my life. Why do it?
I can’t.” He said, “Im not asking you to change. I want you to
confess your sin and surrender. Trust me and follow Me.”
So I did. I put my hands up in the air to heaven and began to
pray vocally out loud the Lord’s Prayer. I thought of each word and
owned it in my heart. Tears were streaming down my face as I shook
from my weakness to start this very difficult journey. Two vows came
out of my heart to God. “If you will save my life and give me another
chance, I will give you my life all the way to my death, even if you
want me to be a Monk in a Monastery.” The other Vow I spoke said,
“And no matter how hard it will be, I will never give up.” He heard me.
I know He heard me because suddenly a tranquil serenity filled
me and the atmosphere all around me. The fear was gone and all I felt
was a quietness, as though I was heard and a transaction was made.
Our Father, Who Art in Heaven
This prayer starts with the title, Father. I gave my life to a
Heavenly Father that I had to believe would love me, and cause me to
feel special and believed in. I discovered that it wasn’t just about
me believing in Him as my Father, but also, about me discovering that
He believed in me as His son in whom He would be well pleased.
How could I believe this? I had no evidence that this could be true.
The spiritual experience I had was so real that I gave Him my life
and decided by blind faith to start the journey into the thicket of
His path to Love.
I left Hollywood a few days later. I went back home to Spokane
and searched out someone I knew who used to share the Good News of
Jesus Christ with me. Someone who treated me with dignity before I
was saved. His name was Chris. He was so happy for me and prayed
with me to receive what was called in the book of Acts, John and
Genesis, ‘The Promise of the Father…the gift of the Holy Spirit
promised to all of Abrahams descendants that would come from His Seed,
meaning Christ. The scriptures declare…. Receive the Lord Jesus
Christ and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit..(Acts)
Throughout the book of Acts, Mark 16:15 and 1st Corinthians the bible
talks about the gift and fellowship with the Holy Spirit and the
manifestations of this gift. I received the Promise of the Father.
This was my second gift from my Heavenly Father. The first was Jesus,
the second was the Holy Spirit. And then through this relationship
with the indwelling Holy Spirit, I have received blessings upon
blessings, revelations and personal attention from my Father and my
brother Jesus.
My first Heavenly Family , and the Office of the Father.
Later I found some men preaching the gospel at Riverfront
park. I just prayed with a friend of mine who had the same past as me
under a tree to receive Jesus. I heard the sound of preaching and I
took my friend to meet them and I asked them if they could help me
learn about God. They said yes and invited me to their church. They
had a very tight Christian community and told me if I would get a job
that I could live in a ‘brother’s house.’ We met every morning at
5:30 for meditative prayer. This was my first Christian family. I
was so happy, being filled with the joyous Holy Spirit and beginning
to have spiritual encounters with His Presence within me, that this
was going to be the family of my dreams. God, my heavenly Father was
with me in the Holy Spirit, but I again, went through the same thing I
did before. Not by all though. I saw some love in people that I
hadn’t seen before. I was treated differently with some kindness, but
there was something again about measuring up to conformity to other’s
personalitys and ways. This church was ultra conservative and had no
experience with people like me. I felt like an experiment. After 6
months in Christ in that church I was publicly and verbally on Sunday
morning service cast out to the power of Satan by the church fathers
for the destruction of my flesh because of my struggles. Remember, I
was a baby Christian conditioned with addictive thinking and
behaviours. I was completely honest about them and my heart was good,
as my grandmother used to say. I had no desire to justify anything, I
was just addicted and needed help. So, with a broken heart from my
new family of God, I fell away from Christ thinking that I was doomed.
I ended up again in Sanfrancisco doing the same things as before
wondering if I was eternally lost. It felt worse this time, because I
had the truth of Jesus and experience with His Presence. After a year
and a half, my heavenly Father helped get me back up and I flew back
to Spokane to my Christian family. I made a new determined effort to
be free of my issues and live for God. They didn’t receive me with
open arms. The fathers kept me isolated for a month from the church
to repent more fully and when I came back, they told me to confess my
sexual sins with details and then laid me down on the ground and had a
father and mother in the church beat me like spanking a child, with a
board. This was extremely humiliating , but I was willing to go
through that than going to hell. I lived with this surrogate father
and mother for a while. The Father told me that he was in the office
of a Father. That irritated me, so I asked him if it was possible if
he could just, instead of being in the ‘office of a Father,’ just ‘be
a father.’ This infuriated him and expelled me from his home, which
was supposed to be a new family of God for me.
I found a new Christian family after that that understood my
situation and graciously allowed me in. This church family met in an
apartment and the pastor was like a father, but he didn’t tell me he
was my father. I did feel some love from him though and he encouraged
my faith a lot. His name was Phil. He talked about the baptism of
fire and that we would go through the fire of affliction for the
purpose of proving the quality of our faith in God and purify us in
transformation. That was scary, but I made the commitment to my
Heavenly Father in Hollywood. The cross before me the world behind
me, no turning back. No turning back.
Part one….. Angel WillSon can be reached at angel222send@yahoo.com
Angel has walked with his heavenly Father now for 30 years. He has a
lot of insights of the journey of the fatherless, the orphan spirit.
It has been a wonderful, arduous and lonely journey at times, but
Angel is filled with the spirit, joy and full of faith and love. He
is an overcomer and has hope for the broken and for the broken fathers
who don’t know how to love. He is a speaker, psalmist and has
travelled nation and worldwide as a innovative missionary. His
testimony isn’t about the ease of freedom, but perserverance of a
righteous man who falls 7 times and rises again. Angel understands
the revelation of Romans 5:17 that says, ‘Through the Abundance of
Grace and the Gift of Righteousness we reign as Kings in life.
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