Id like to tell you a story. Its a bit of a long one. But I think its a good one, you might think so too. Its about connecting the dots, about how hindsight is 20/20, and how things that seem insignificant at the time can be very meaningful later. Its about how a simple thing at the right moment can profoundly impact a life, no matter how good or bad the situation is. Maybe youd call this the butterfly effect. In my young 20s I had a friend named Pete. Pete wasnt much of a friend at all most of the time. I mean, he was a better enemy. In fact, he was a terrible influence, exposed me to awful things, put me in dangerous situations and somehow gained a strange influence over me. Of course this was all with my permission, even if permission was simply by not taking a stand. Pete was not a good guy almost always, had almost no regard for others, and rarely showed any regret. But then he had these shining moments that would erase all the otherwise treacherous things. One day in a stressed out, crazy lady rage that Pete had brought on by borrowing money that hed never return, I got all violent on my belongings and hurt myself in the process. He screamed at me and told me I needed to read the bible, in that lean over you with an index finger at your nose kind of way, he screamed that I shouldnt get so angry. Interesting words coming from the devil himself. I assured him I did not, and that I didnt have a bible anyway. He screamed on and paced, and insisted that I ought to read it. I forget how that night ended or how he left. The next day (this is way before texting and facebook) Pete arrived with a bible hed stolen for me (yes you read that right, stolen from the good news bookstore that is long out of business now). I declined the stolen bible. He got all angry again insisting I read it, that even if I decided God wasnt for me that it was a collection of the best stories ever written and I could find something to help me on every page of the book. BULLSHXT. Again, extremely opposite of the person he was. Pete was an addict and it wasnt uncommon at all for him to go off on rants / raves about something / anything just for the scream of it. I refused to read it. He opened the book and flipped through the pages and told me to close my eyes and just see where my finger landed - that it would be a message for me. I was sick of the yelling, so I obliged. King James Version. Makes no sense. But this did. Hebrews 6:19 (Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast). That may explain to most of you my obsession with anchors, if you’d ever wondered, I’ve loved them since before they were trendy haha. Anyway, that is the one quote from the bible besides God gave us all seed bearing plants to use that Id ever memorized. Pete died of his own devices shortly after. This was the old days, so I found out when he stopped showing up at my house and the bar that I worked at, through the grapevine. Years passed. More years past. I got less angry and more hopeful. I tried a number of churches and tried reading the bible a number of times, to find myself, to find a religion, I don’t know what I was looking for. It never worked, it never stuck. And I never ever ever heard anyone ever make any reference to my anchor quote. I was always disappointed. I so badly wanted HOPE. Anyway, if you’ve followed my year on facebook (haha) you know that I recently found a church I do love, and security in my faith, and I was even baptized last month. I’ve been putting so much thought lately into hope, into my anchor quote. You might have noticed some of the past weeks of laurielovesjohnny art is all centered around hope, and the anchor quote. This Sunday, the worship began with the singer reading a quote from the bible and talking about this wonderful hope. It was Hebrews 6:19. It was MY quote. And suddenly it was like Pete was sitting right there next to me. It’s funny how in that moment, all that bad, awful, wicked stuff about Pete was just gone. All of it. And all I could think of was how he, in his worst state ever was a catalyst in a change that I would make a decade later. Butterfly effect. Suddenly all the dots were connected. I wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time after all, not then, not now. Even Pete had been used to make a difference. And so, I’d like to tell you that whether you believe me or not, whether you believe in God or not – everything you do does indeed matter, and even at your very worst something beautiful can come of it. You just think about that for a minute, how something you say today, could quite literally change their world today, tomorrow, a decade from now. YOU MATTER. YOU ARE the beginning of hope for someone. Thanks Pete. More than I could ever say.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 01:07:47 +0000
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