Excerpt: Sins of My Youth

CHAPTER 1
THE INVITATION

Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways;
according to your love remember me, for you are good, O Lord. (Psalm 25:7)

The man’s fist felt like a cold steel ball smashing into his mouth. Once, then twice. He felt his lip split and blood squirt as the impact sent a sharp pain through his head. He staggered back as the fists rammed into his stomach. Once, twice. The kid doubled over, the breath completely knocked out of him. Then came another fist to his cheek, then another to his eye.
The man said something profane, then shoved the kid back, causing him to stumble and fall to the floor. Then an agonizing pain ripped through him as the toe of the man’s boot smashed into his side, and he heard rather than felt his ribs crack with the impact. The kid doubled over and cried.
“You throw up on that floor and you’ll be mopping it up with your tongue!” shouted the man. He cursed and shouted as he slammed the metal door closed, then turned and walked away.
The kid lay curled up on the cold concrete floor, gasping for breath, and pain seared through him with each meager attempt to inhale. But he could not take a breath. He felt himself begin to black out.
Oh, God, no, he thought. I don’t want to die like this. Not like this.
And then there was no pain. Nothing but darkness.
* * *
I woke up in a cold sweat, and I tried to catch my breath. My heart was pounding. I sat up, placed my hand to my chest and tried to take slow, deep breaths and relax. I had taken several breaths before my wife stirred and placed her hand on my thigh.
“Mark, are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “I’ll be all right.”
She turned toward me, raised up on her elbow. “What? Another bad dream?”
“Yes.” I tried to breathe normally.
“Do you want a glass of water or anything?”
“No. I’ll be fine. But thanks.”
My wife laid back down. “Try and go back to sleep. It was just a dream.”
I stared ahead in the darkness. “Yes,” I agreed. “It was just a dream.”
But I knew better. I had thought I had put all that behind me; I had set it aside and moved on with my life. But the nightmares had suddenly started again, and now they were more frequent. And what my wife didn’t know, but I did, was that these weren’t just dreams. They were not somehow symbolic, and they were not some kind of premonitions. I knew exactly what they were. And they terrified me.
* * *
I receive invitations to speak from all over the country, but none has quite challenged me as the request from the student counsel president and valedictorian of my home town high school to give the graduation commencement address. I immediately wrote a polite “thank you, but no thank you” note, but for some reason it troubled me. The idea nagged at me as I tried to dismiss the invitation.
What are you afraid of, Mark, I asked myself. Why the great reluctance to go home?
Home? It had been over twenty years since I left Jackson, Arkansas, and since then I had seldom set foot in my hometown. Perhaps this was the opportunity I knew would eventually come, a time to face up to the past, come to terms with it, stop running from it. I thought I had forgiven myself for all my past mistakes; yet if that was so, then why the hesitation to return? Wasn’t twenty years enough time to heal the wounds? I had instinctively made the decision not to return to Jackson, to decline the offer, a knee-jerk response of sorts. Yet I also instinctively knew that the voice inside me said it was the wrong decision. I prayed about the invitation, yet no peace came as it usually did when I made the “right” decision. I was incredibly troubled, and I had no answer as to why.
Finally, two days after receiving the invitation letter, I called Caleb Dumas.
“Hello, Caleb. This is Mark Fields.”
“Yes, Reverend Fields?”
“I was calling to let you know that I received your letter inviting me to speak at your commencement ceremony in May, and I’m very flattered by your request.”
“Yes, sir,” he replied. The voice was quiet, reserved.
“Would you mind telling me what prompted you to invite me, rather than some other individual?”
“Well,” said Caleb, “I had input into who we should invite, I discussed it with the student counsel, the principal and superintendent, school board, and members of the faculty, and they were all pretty much in agreement that you would be a great choice – if you would come, that is. But some of them didn’t think we could afford you.”
“But why would you want me?” I asked again.
“Well, because you changed my life. I read your book, Damascus Road, and it changed my life.”
I had heard this before from others. “Tell me how.”
Caleb began to explain how he had picked up the book in the public library one Saturday afternoon, began to read, and eventually read the entire book through the night. The next day, Sunday morning, he went to church for the first time in his life and at the invitation walked down the aisle and turned his life over to Jesus Christ. From that point, at the age of 15, his life took on a new meaning, and he became a new person, from a mediocre, bored, ambivalent, dissatisfied student, to an active member of a church, his school, and community. He gave up drugs and alcohol, and banished thoughts of suicide. He had a reason to live, an excitement and enthusiasm for life, and he credited me for that. As far as Caleb was concerned, I had saved his life.
“I appreciate you sharing this with me,” I said. I felt a burning within me. My hands shook as I struggled to tell him I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. But the words stuck in my chest. Suddenly, I heard me saying, “I’ll send you a letter within a few days accepting your invitation.”
“Really? You’ll come? What about money? What’s your fee for this sort of thing?”
“Money’s not an issue,” I replied. “Consider it a personal favor. I’ll waive my fee. After all, Jackson is my home town.”
Caleb seemed to choke back tears as he thanked me for accepting the invitation. I choked up too, but not for the same reasons. I sat the phone receiver down with a sigh, but also with the sense of peace that I had been looking for. I was certain it was the right thing to do, yet somehow I also knew that going back to Jackson was not a good idea. That nagging trepidation continued, and I knew why. God had provided an opportunity for me to face up to the mistakes of my youth, to come to terms with my past. I knew it would not be easy, that somehow my faith would be tested.
It was time for me to finally stand up and be a man.
* * *