In The Great I Am

Chapter 1

My Childhood Testimony
(God’s Miracles in My Life)

From as early on as I can remember, I realized that I was going to have to learn to survive and persevere in my life. I felt as if I was continually being hurt and neglected by the people that I trusted and loved the most in my life. I know this a heavy way to start this book, but I wanted you all to know the truth about where I was when I was younger, compared to where I am today. This book is a testimony of my truth in Jesus Christ.

When I was a four year old little boy I remember being in constant fear of making my father unhappy or angry for some reason or another. I would do everything in my power, from morning to night, to avoid my father’s discipline. This included staying in my room even when I had to go to the bathroom as that could’ve disturbed him and not been good for me. I learned about fear at a very early age in life, and it tormented me for a long time. My family was always on the move, from one place to another, and I was never able to make and keep friends for very long. As a young boy I was so hurt and scared all the time. My feelings were so beyond my understanding that I was basically living in survival mode, and by instinct, for as long as I can remember. The truth about my challenges and the subsequent consequences would not truly be manifested or fully understood until later on in my life.

There is one particular memory, that I’d like to share with all of you, that really represents what my young life looked like for me. I was in a new school and I remember being so lost and isolated from everyone that I just wanted to run away. One day I found myself walking out of this new school I was attending, at barely 6 years of age and in first grade, and getting on a city bus in Los Angeles, California. I sat down and got driven around the city in this bus for most of the morning, until I finally got off where I had gotten on the bus originally. The truly sad part of this story is that not one person had even noticed on the bus that I was all by myself. Can you imagine a little 6 year old boy riding a city bus all by himself for hours, and not even one person, including the bus driver, noticing this little boy? I certainly can’t, and to this day it hurts my heart and makes me emotional because of the truth of this story and because of how many other little kids might be feeling like this. An even greater tragedy in this story is that not even one person, including my teacher, had realized that I was not still in class or school that morning. Not one person on the city bus or in my elementary school had even asked me if I needed help, not one! It was as if I was invisible. In my eyes I was truly invisible to everyone around me.

Not until many years later, when I spoke of the incident to my mother had anyone known about this incident, because I had kept it a secret. This was the truly sad world that I was living in when I was a young boy. I now believe that God knew where I was, and protected me every second during that morning’s adventure on the bus. I could’ve been kidnapped, or hurt, or gotten lost and maybe never came back. This is the first miracle of God saving me that I can remember, but it is one of those memories that has stuck with me till this day.

This is an important aspect of what my life was and what it has become. The truth is that God was always a part of my life, from the very first moment that He decided to create me. When we are 6 years old, we may or may not have an understanding of this truth. But as I look back on this story, it is very apparent to me that God was, and is still, working in every moment of my life. God is sovereign in my life even when I make bad choices. God is always good and provides me with a path back to His purpose even when I get off course, and I am so thankful for His love in my life.

There were times in my young life when I was unsure if my parents would stay together, and in fact I started to not really care. My dad always seemed to be gone at one time or another so there wasn’t a lot of stability in our house. When my dad was around there was a constant overshadowing fear in our house, shared by my sister and myself, that would affect us for the rest of our lives in so many ways, and that now is a source of strength for me. If it wasn’t for my sister’s love and protection, my life would’ve been completely empty and full of fear. I was in an unfamiliar world and my sister was the kind of protective and nurturing sister brothers could only dream about. There would be the normal bantering between brothers and sisters, but my sister had a higher purpose in this world and her first assignment was to watch over me, including taking punishments for me from time to time. My sister was put in this world by God to protect young children, and it started with me, her younger brother of one year. She would become a protector for young children, a truth she would manifest later on in her life when she became a defender of young abused children, and by raising three incredible and talented children of her own. She was not only an angel on Earth to me, but she is a living angel to so many young children in this world.

Once our parents divorced for the first time, my sister and I were watched over by many different babysitters. My mom, like so many other single mothers, had to work swing or late shifts while being challenged to get to and from work as a single mom. My sister and I knew and understood that Mom had to go to work, but we still felt alone on a daily basis, being shuttled from one babysitter to the next, and not seeing our precious mom till late hours of the night. These were hard lonely times for my sister and me, but thank God we had each other at all times, which to me was an incredible saving grace. We always had the hope of being together soon with our mom. I learned at an early age how incredibly powerful hope can be and would become in my life.

My mom was the most incredible, loving mother. She never left my sister and me, unless she had to work to support us, while we were young children. She was and still is the type of person that never missed a day of work, but more importantly, she never missed a day of being a great mom in every way, and I thank God for every moment of her love. She has been an inspiration in my life and I’m so thankful that God blessed me with her love and her kindness throughout my life to this day. This is one of the greatest miracles and gifts that God gave me, a loving mother like I was blessed to have. Thank you so much mom.

There were times when my sister and I would be at a babysitter’s house, locked in the basement together. We would hold onto each other in the dark, cold, damp basement that seemed to be an out of sort place to be in, even with our harsh upbringing. As we would lie on a mattress on the floor, hoping for mom to pick us up as quickly as possible, we could still smell the strong stench of urine from some of the other children that were being watched there at different times. We were told to sleep on those mattresses, and in that cold locked basement which reminded me of a dungeon in a big castle. It was frightening, but God loved and protected us during those long and lonely nights. God was again watching over me and never left me with His never ending love.

I can still remember when the time would come for my mom to come and pick us up. It was pure joy and excitement when mom would walk through the doors and save us from the loneliness and neglect, and from what I understand now to be a form of abuse. Even though I was barely awake, I could hardly wait to be held by my mom one more time. These were the victories of my everyday life as a child, and little did I realize that my sister and I were being held in Jesus Christ’s arms the entire time, and were always being protected by our Father in heaven. This is what I know and believe.

As my sister and I got a little older, we soon realized that our young lives would be a lot of macaroni and cheese dinners, and an occasional Friday night happy meal, but would mostly involve spending time with our mom, who was always there for us, no matter what, unless she was at work. To me this was just fine as long as we were all together. We would settle into a little house in a small town in southern California and we just learned how to survive as kids, and as a family.

I was always challenged at school as a young boy, and I wasn’t attentive enough to be able to succeed in the public school system. My main challenge in elementary school was reading. I guess, at that point, I had no motivation to do any better, as I was just trying to survive in my life. I would often find myself in the principal’s office for one thing or another, and was also always being tutored as a second and third grader because I couldn’t read very well. The truth is that I was always being helped in one way or another, and I didn’t realize how blessed I was at the time, but I was. I felt, for the most part, very isolated as I didn’t have any friends. My mom, and sister, and our fun sheep dog named Rufus made up our small family unit, but I felt very isolated and was mostly in a constant state of fear and anxiety about what would happen next.

I love remembering the happier times of my childhood, like when my sister and I would come home from school and see the front window broken by ‘you know who’- that’s right, our dog Rufus would find a...