Surviving The Fire, 2

Life as a teenage Jesus freak was not a cake walk.  I had been demoted from my recently won status of cool to an absolute weirdo nutcase religious fanatic.  Which I was.  There was suddenly persecution everywhere, some of which I sat up and begged for, but for the most part driven by other people's fear and ignorance and, I am still inclined to believe, Satan's hate.  Some actually welcomed the change in me because I had suddenly changed into a person happy, open, honest and loving.  Such was the power of the Holy Spirit.  One kid relentlessly persecuted me and got in the habit of spitting at me whenever he saw me.  One day, early on a Sunday evening, I saw him hitch-hiking at the bus stop where I was waiting to go to a church service.  I was fifteen, I think he would have been sixteen or seventeen.  I asked him if he had money for the bus.  He said he didn't.  I offered to pay for his bus fare.  He accepted my offer and we rode together downtown, talking like old friends.  I can't remember what was said between us but there were no further problems afterward.  He was always civil and sometimes friendly when we saw each other.  Better than his saliva.  I think he had already had very little experience in his short life of knowing what it's like to be loved.

The Jesus People were not going to be for me a stable or reliable gig.  In the late summer they were swallowed up by a dangerous cult that nearly got me as well.  It was traumatic but I found another church, Spirit-filled but also more grounded and full of sane and very welcoming and lovely people.  This was a healing salve for me as I was recovering from my parent's bitter divorce followed by my mother's health concerns complicated by an abortion she never told me about.

I ended up at my horrible father's for four months and he kicked me out within five weeks of grade twelve.  I stayed with my mother and her new boyfriend in a small town where he turned out to be a violent alcoholic with a criminal record.  I just finished high school and had to move out on my own, back to Vancouver, while my mother also got ready to leave this monster before he could kill her.  She did escape and I was just finding my way in the universe.