March 29 - Paul DiMaggio

At a very young age I remember asking my parents what that plastic statue is beside my bed? They said it was God, and I said who is God? I can clearly remember my Dad saying that God made everything, and he will watch over you, and be good to you, if you don’t give your Mother a hard time. Well, my Dad was my world, and my Mom was the most loving person I’ve ever met, we had an abundant life well into my 9 years on earth.

Then one day I overheard my Mom talking to a Dr Lewis on the phone, trying to sell her a new experimental treatment for my Dad called Chemotherapy. So, in the next few years, I had lost my Dad, grandparents, and several aunts and uncles, all who had passed in excruciating pain. I remember then, in my bedroom looking at that statue saying, “God why would you do this? What was the purpose? I never received any answer, naturally nor supernaturally, so I was perplexed, but didn’t stop asking.

As a teen, I then met up with the worst group of people, quit school at a young age, and was officially on the streets of Brooklyn New York. After getting into serious trouble from one of our escapades, my widowed and worried Mom convinced me to move with her to Staten Island to start anew. Then at 16-17 years old I started working on tugboats out at sea as a merchant marine and was introduced to the bible by a beautiful man named John. I did well for a few years, and the bible taught me that God was certainly not a statue, but the old (old) KJ version was extremely difficult to understand.

A Christian church I then visited to seek fellowship, was heavy into speaking tongues, and I thought it was fake and something told me to exit asap. Just like the new testament says, it frightened this new believer far away, but knew that going back to my grandmother's Catholicism was going from the frying pan into the fire. So, from there, I went to a protestant church in NYC for 20 years and learned little more than being entertained by getting my ears tickled. Then searched various evangelists, who mostly did little but peddle the word of God. As a sinning childless bachelor and businessperson, all my life I saw right through their fakeness, while I was looking in the mirror seeing the same thing. But didn’t stop searching.

Up until 52 years old, It was then I picked up the bible that a Jehovah Witness gave me, one I could understand in plain English. It said that “God is Father to the Fatherless,” and the pain I suffered had nothing to do with the almighty and loving God that I loved all my life. It was humanity's sin that caused all the pain, and a rouge angel and his trickster buddies, who fell from God’s realm that was facilitating it.

Since then, I later found out that the JW guy misinformed me, saying it was the “only” English bible like it. So fast forward to now, at the age of 60, I have not put down the ESV nor the NKJ version that I hold very (very) close to my heart.

Now, in fresh understandable text, I know exactly what the enormity of Jesus Christ meant by saying to “spread the Good News.” So, after beating myself up into submission for years of wasted time, I realized one can never make up for lost time, but I can speak to people about the bible now, all the time.

I learned that the word of God is the only way to know God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and The Holy Spirit in real time, all the time. There is no other way. CCOB is a blessed place with equally blessed people, that teach the word of God extremely well, like no other. And trust me “I’ve been around.” This church is a beacon for Christ located on the Northeast coast USA. I pray for its leadership daily, and its growth in all different ways. I do not care if the church grows to 250,000 faithful, because it will never be too big for me, nor anyone within the congregation, because the Holy Spirit has made their heart smart. The fact that the church’s body is divided among small directional groups guided by the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, means that this body is on a good trajectory for “way more than a season.” Wow, What an awesome God we serve!!!

(Hopefully, To be continued! ?).