My Purpose is...

I spoke of my first time hearing voices or inner voices in my introduction (me, myself and why). I will tell some stories that are as true as one’s memory of childhood can be to further introduce myself to this new world of steem. It is my hope that you will gain the lessons that I have learned from such memories and also come up with some unique understandings of your own.

I was living with my family in Germany, my father was in the U.S. Army, and we traveled a lot. At this time I was around the age of 9 or a little younger. I was your average kid with my average thoughts and emotions, but living in a world of dreams and awe because it was my first time living in another country.

One night my mother sent us off to bed saying, “Y’all go on and say your prayers and go to bed.” After a few protest from my siblings and myself were shot down, off we went. This was my first rememberance of having a whole room to myself, cool but at the same time way too quiet at night.

I knelt down at the side of my bed, another first for it was an actual single bed instead of a bunk bed, I began to say my prayers. It’s a well known child’s prayer that has changed only a little since I was a kid.

“Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake.
I pray the lord my soul to take.
Amen”....

I remember crawling under the blankets, after a quick peek to see that my closet door was closed and no pile of clothes was on the chair or laying in the corner of my room. Many times the crack in the closet door or that pile of clothes had me feeling that I was not alone and sometimes had me scrambling for my parents’ room. Nope, going to my siblings room for comfort never entered my mind, they couldn’t handle my mischeavious ways, how could they protect me.

As I lay in bed I began to think of the prayer that I had just recited. My nightly checklist leaving me wondering at a part of the prayer. “If I should die before I wake”. Surprisingly I was calm as I thought about this verse and wondered to my self. “If I should die before I wake. Now that means that I can die some how and God will come and take me away.” I understood that and was ok with it. I don’t remember where I learned it but I knew that we would not live forever.

“So ok I’m gonna die one day. If I am gonna die why am I here?” Honestly this was the question that I posed, mind opened pondering, not fear just wanting to understand. A voice that seemed to come from without as well as within said, “To be a good man.” I was more startled by the answer than by the voice, by now I had heard the voice enough that it was a familiar comfort. I thought about what it just had told me, the whole vast weight of it coming into clarity to a child who was not yet a man.

I began to cry, and cry hard.... I don’t remember any words coming form me, just a deep mournful sobbing that I could not control. My mother rushed into the room asking me, “What is the matter?” I remember not being able to bring myself to tell her exactly what had happened and gave here only a sobbing, “I don’t know...” My mother not finding any injuries or such told me, “Boy go back to sleep you were just dreaming.” Now remember she had just sent me into my room to say my prayers and go to bed.

I have related this story to many people throughout my life and always wait for the inevitable question, “What made you cry, if you had no fear of the voice?” That question has come in many different flavors. The simple answer, coming from the memory simple child, now man. I was such a bad kid at the time, wow I stayed in trouble, in one way or another. As I heard those words “To be a good man”, I could not at that time see myself as being good and I feared as a child that I would let God down by not fulfilling my purpose in life.

I remember asking God not to let me die before I became a good man. These days I smile jokingly and say that I may have cursed myself, because If I live until I am a good man, I may just live forever. The catch 22 is that if I am the good man that my friends and family see me as, maybe I will die tomorrow...

Never the less I regularly remind myself saying,

“My Purpose is...”