An Unlikely Choice:One Such As I

By Robert Barr

Though I didn't know God, He knew me and was calling me. This is the story of how He drew me to Himself and has watched over and cared for me. Though no one thought I had much to offer, God has used me beyond my wildest dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312217621

Robert Barr

Robert Barr (1849–1912) was a Scottish Canadian author of novels and short stories. Born in Glasgow, Barr moved with his family to Toronto, where he was educated at the Toronto Normal School. After working for the Detroit Free Press, he moved to London and cofounded the Idler with Jerome K. Jerome in 1892. Barr went on to become a popular and prolific author of crime fiction.

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An Unlikely Choice:One Such As I

An Unlikely Choice-One Such As I

An Unlikely Choice-One Such As I

Third Edition

Copyright 2012, revised 2013, 2014 by Robert R. Barr

All Rights Reserved

ISBN-978-1-312-21762-1

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Seeking Direction in Your Life and Ministry

In our confusing world, many church members are seeking direction, yet their churches have abandoned Bible-centered preaching and teaching in favor of the many modern popular philosophies prevalent today. I wrote the In The World, But Not Of It series to assist church members who are seeking Bible-centered direction in their life and Bible-centered guidance in ministering to those around them. The series looks at what God desires of us (Book #1 In The World, But Not Of It),

It also looks at the culture around us in light of Bible teaching and offers help in how to respond to it as God would have us to respond (Book #2 Truly In The World, But Not Of It-parts A & B),

It also provides insight into the needs of those around us and how we can respond in a Bible-centered way (Book #3-A Servant’s Heart parts A & B).

In addition, I have published a guide for pastors and church leaders in how to build up their church and rebuild the community around them in a Bible-centered way (Rebuilding The Kingdom)

(All previous books also in E-book)

Rev. Barr has spent over 45 years ministering to both church people and the un-reached people who surround the church but whom the church has never reached out to. An ordained pastor and licensed Social Worker, he has served the Lord through the church, as well as through government and faith-based organizations. He has written extensively and conducted seminars for both State-wide and international conferences.

Chapter-1-Days of Darkness

I-Introduction

Much of my childhood is hard to talk about, though I remember a great deal vividly. When I was younger, I never talked about it with anyone because of my conditioned mistrust. When I was dating Pat, before we were married, she became upset because I would not talk about my childhood. She was curious about it and felt I was holding back on her. Afraid that I would lose her, I finally told her what happened, though I had not shared it with anyone before.

In 1990, I was asked to speak at a men’s group and prepared a talk but as I got up to speak, I felt the Lord urging me to testify about the change He had made in my life. Others who had spoken before me had testified but I did not feel anyone would be interested in mine, and besides, I did not feel I could talk about it openly. Yet, I felt the Lord continually urging me to give my testimony and so I did. Afterwards, several stated that they were blessed by my testimony and urged me to write it down so it could be shared with others. As a result, I have written it down, though I write it reluctantly.

While many who see me tend to ignore me because they can not see beyond my disability, I have achieved far more than anyone would have ever imagined could be accomplished by one such as I was. Some said I would never live, some said I would never walk without crutches, others said I would never finish high school, yet I have walked without crutches, got a B.A. degree, and even a Masters degree. I have taught in college and taught pastors, college professors and professional Social Workers at international professional conferences. Though I do not trumpet what I have done to be seen of men, I feel that what I have been though will be helpful to many who face similar circumstances. I now know the Lord was with me long before I knew Him and has been with me since, though there have been dark times when I have not been able to feel His presence and I have had to walk solely by faith.

I once heard a woman state that she had led a sheltered childhood and was shocked when she grew up and learned what life was really like. I learned very early what life was like. I have worked with kids over the years, though sadly, I don’t have much opportunity these days, and often watched them as they played because you can tell a great deal about them by how they play. I see many that seem to have such a carefree childhood and I often wonder what it must be like. I see others, playing with quiet determination that betrays wisdom beyond their years. Though they rarely move about much, their eyes and ears are constantly alert. I know their pain and I understand their fear.

II-The Walls

In college, my Child Psychology professor asked us to review our childhood and find places where our life was changed by things we experienced. Though many of the students were hard put to find any, it did not take me long to locate several. Two days before my second birthday, my parents woke up to find me choking. They rushed me to the hospital. On my second birthday, when most of the kids were running and playing, I lay in the hospital after two days of uncertainty. It was finally apparent that I would live, though the doctor said I would never walk again. Polio in 1947 was still a deadly disease leaving thousands of children dead and thousands more paralyzed for life. The disease destroyed the nerves leaving limbs paralyzed and was thought irreversible. The only known treatment was to strap the useless limbs in braces so at least the child could use crutches to get around.

Though I did not know God at the time, He knew me. He had already raised up a nurse in the outback of the Australian wilderness and revealed to her the key to giving another chance to those who survived the initial attack of polio. She found that when the paralyzed limb is exercised by hand, the child will eventually regain use of the limb as the remaining nerves expand to take over for the nerves destroyed by the Polio attack. In the conventional treatment, the limb was encased in braces and without exercise, the muscles shrank and became useless but by exercising the muscles by hand, it kept the muscles active until the remaining nerves could expand and restore control over the limb. Doctors worldwide denounced her as a fake because they didn’t think a nurse could succeed where doctors worldwide were unable to succeed. However, she set out to establish clinics around the world to help children stricken by Polio and demonstrate the success of the new treatment. A clinic was started near us and I was taken there, in spite of my doctor’s protests that it would not help, so that my mother could be trained to do the exercises. As a result of the treatments, I was later able to walk again however it took many years and I had to wear braces until my legs were strong enough to support me. While other kids ran and played, I could not keep up and often ended up playing alone.

My dad had a decent paying job but wasn’t eligible for insurance yet, so we had no insurance coverage. Because of the expense of my treatments for Polio, my family was poor. We lived in a small trailer and because of the trouble I was in constantly, we moved frequently. Often the kids would torment me because I could not chase them. At first, the attacks were mainly for sport but later they became more vicious and mean.  One day when I was in the first grade, I saw that the kids were standing around the laundry building. In that trailer park, the trailers were set around a U shaped drive with a building in the center with community coin operated washing machines. I wandered over to see what they were doing, but as soon as I got there, a rock shattered the window of the laundry building and the kids scattered. Several adults heard the glass breaking and came to investigate. When they arrived, I was the only one still there. In spite of my protests, I was severely punished. Apparently none of the other kids ever admitted what happened. Whenever there was trouble, I was often blamed and often punished. I still have a deep seated mistrust of authority figures. With time, I became withdrawn. Even after I was able to walk without braces, I was still not able to run and play.

From my earliest recollection about age 3-4 when I really became aware of my surroundings, up to the present, my memories seem to follow a steady progression. I remember the various trailer parks we lived in and the schools I attended and many incidents at each. I remember the big trailer park we lived in and the school, that consisted of four mobile classrooms, that I attended when I was in kindergarten and I remember a much larger school where I attended the third grade. I also remember a smaller park by the river where we moved to in between where I always thought I attended first and second grade in a small four room school but do not remember any other school in between.

One day, while I was in college, I was home for the summer and went out for a drive with my parents. My mother pointed out a school and told me that was where I went to second grade and pointed out the house where we lived that year. My grandparents had owned the big old farmhouse and we had apparently lived there with them. I do remember some things I did on the farm but they seemed like visits. I do not remember actually living there or any other house after I started school until the sixth grade and I have no memory of ever attending that school. Had we not moved several times the first couple years, I probably would not have realized that there was a gap in my memory, but obviously there was. My recollections of the first two small schools and the larger school I attended in third grade are so numerous and so vivid, though painful to remember that I could not imagine why I had no recollection of a school in between. Later, when my mother wrote the family history, she mentioned living at the farm house but stated we only lived there a couple months during the summer between the larger trailer park and the smaller one and though I apparently started school while we lived at the farm house, I spent most of the year in the small school house so apparently I did not attend there long enough for it to make an impression.

In the small trailer park by the river, I remember four incidents vividly. A turtle crawled up from the river into the trailer park one day. I remember that it became turtle soup when one of the neighbors caught it. I also remember a big bomber that crash landed in a field near the trailer park. We waited in a long line as we filed past the plane which was roped off and guarded by armed men in military uniforms. Unfortunately, not all memories there were good ones. I vividly remember the group of kids standing around the wash room where the washing machines were where the window was broken. It was not the only time I was punished for things other kids did. The fourth incident has remained a curse to this day. Our class in the little school was taken to the high school to have fluoride put on our teeth. Back then, they had great big metal clamps with gauze that they held your mouth open with. After they put in the clamps, they stated that my forehead felt warm and they thought I might be sick. They then left and did not come back for a long time. All that time, I sat there with the big clamps in my mouth. To this day, I have a terrible fear of dentists, even though modern dentistry is no where near as bad as it used to be.

In the third grade, my parents moved our trailer to a Sportsmen’s Club where my father became caretaker. While we were getting the place ready for the trailer, a storm struck suddenly and we had to seek shelter under the protection of the nearby clubhouse. While we were waiting out the storm, we saw a huge funnel cloud in the sky heading east. Ten years later I saw the tornado that hit Flint, MI on June 5, 1953 listed in the World Almanac as the worst tornado in history. It hit a relatively rural area but the devastation was so complete that the loss of life was staggering.  The tornado touched down and followed a road for two miles, destroying everything on both sides of the road. It struck at night without warning, and leveled everything in its path, killing 116 people and left over 500 injured. Most homes had Michigan basements which are not really basements at all but are crawl spaces under the house. The house is build a few feet off the ground and the space between the house and the ground is used to store vegetables and other things. Thus, even if the people had been warned, there was no place to hide. The storm that spawned the tornado also spawned 45 other tornados over three days on a path that stretched from Iowa to Massachusetts, but the one that hit Flint was the only category 5 (the most powerful category). The record would stand for 58 years until it was broken on May 22, 2011 by another category 5 tornado that tore through Joplin, Mo. leaving 124 dead.

The treatments enabled me to walk again, though it took many years for the remaining nerves to expand enough to take over control of my legs and my legs became strong enough to support me. In the meantime I had to wear braces and use crutches. In spite of the treatments, I was not able to regain use of all the muscles in my left leg. As a result, I needed numerous surgeries to reposition the remaining muscles to where they could adequately control my left foot. Therefore, even after I was able to walk, I had to take time out every so often for surgery. After each surgery, I would have a cast on and be on crutches again for several months. Our schools didn’t have lunchrooms then and we ate our lunches in our classrooms at our desks. During the times I was on crutches, the kids would wait until I got my lunch set out on my desk and then they would grab it and run. Many lunch periods, I sat starring at an empty desk with no lunch.

III-Nature

While we lived at the Sportsmen’s Club, I got to where I could walk fairly well and was able to get rid of the steel braces. Yet, even without the braces, I was still not able to run and play with the other kids.  My brother and I were free to roam the woods and fields nearby when we were not busy with the many jobs we had to do around the club and we frequently did, though we avoided them during hunting season when the woods and surrounding fields were crawling with hunters. The woods and fields not only held abundant wild game they also held all kinds of nuts, fruits, and berries that we harvested when they were in season. They required no planting or cultivating of any kind and grew wild. There was even a big hollow tree that we later learned contained huge honey combs after it was struck by lightning and split open during a storm. I saw an order and beauty in nature which was not man-made. I believed that it was a separate world from the world of man but since everything followed in perfect order, I saw no guiding hand. Nature freely provided for its inhabitants in its seasons but the world of man seemed greedy and vicious to me. I knew the world of nature was not created by man, though I never reflected on how it came about or if it was being managed by someone or something, I just accepted it. Evolutionists talk about how we have evolved from animals but I see little to convince me. I see in man, selfishness and greed unknown in the world of nature and I have watched as the world has deteriorated over my lifetime. It seems to be getting worse and worse.

My parents enjoyed archery and often participated in tournaments and though we lived on the grounds of the Sportsmen’s Club, we never took up guns. We never got into hunting for game either. We enjoyed archery just for sport. One of the few times my dad did hunt was when he shot a squirrel but lost it. You use arrows with rubber points for squirrels so the arrow doesn’t stick in the tree and pin the squirrel to the tree, forcing you to climb the tree to retrieve the squirrel. My dad was hunting along the river and when the squirrel fell, it fell in the river. He never went after bigger game. I enjoyed wandering in the woods and loved to read about the Indians who lived in the woodlands and prairies by hunting and gathering. I still do and even wrote my paper on cultural studies in college on the Huron Indians who lived in Canada and the northern U.S. I often dreamed as a child of myself as an Indian brave and later purchased a canoe and my wife and I spend many happy hours exploring lakes, rivers, and marshes in it.

My brother and I often helped out at the Sportsman’s Club by running the skeet houses that shot the skeet which the men used for target practice and tournaments. The skeet were little round baked clay disks like miniature Frisbees. You sat in a little concrete building that protected you from stray shotgun pellets and put the skeet on the fly arm attached to a very powerful spring.  When the fly arm released, it sent the skeet sailing through the little window and the men shot at them while they were in the air. You had to be real fast because if you didn’t get the skeet set properly on the fly arm of the thrower before they released it, it would miss the little window and shatter against the wall, showering you with the clay fragments. It was like standing two feet from a brick wall and hurling a glass at the wall. Fragments flew everywhere. However, you also had to do it very quickly because if you didn’t get your hand out of the way in time, you could lose a hand. We liked to dig the bullet points out of the hills behind the targets on the rifle ranges while we were cleaning up the target areas and had a pretty good collection of points. Since the dirt was soft, we found many points that were not damaged.

We were isolated out at the Sportsmen’s Club since no one lived close to us and we had to walk a half mile up the dirt access road to catch the bus for school. Spring rains and winter snows made the road impassible at times and sometimes my brother and  I ended up walking several miles to school because the bus driver would not let us on the bus. The access road dipped down at one point where it crossed a small creek and in the Spring, the creek often ran over the road instead of under it and my brother and I had to wade across the creek to get to the bus stop. The bus driver would not let us get on the bus wet so we would have to walk to school. My childhood was filled with many things that shaped my life and the person I became, but church was not one of them. I later learned a number of our extended family attended church but it was never mentioned around my parents or us kids.

IV-A New Experience

We saw churches and I knew of them but they seemed to be closed clubs for members only and we did not attend.  My parents never took us to church except for a funeral for one of the ancient ones. My ancestors enjoyed a long life and remained healthy into their eighties and nineties. Many of the ancient ones had been born in the late 1800’s and came from large families but they were already in their eighties and nineties and were dying off. Most of the funerals were held in funeral homes but some were held in churches. Beyond the funerals, we had no contact with churches and my parents never talked about church or God or any kind of theology at home and I had no idea that they had had any kind of religious upbringing. We did attend a church one Sunday morning when I was about eight. At first, I went to a class with a number of kids my age. In the class, they molded ceramic objects and fired them in a kiln. I made a nice waterfall but it blew up in the kiln so I made a crude candy dish to take home. The one thing I learned is to made things as simple as possible so they don’t blow up on you. After the class, we went into the sanctuary where we had previously participated in funeral services. I now figure it must have been Easter because there was no casket and they talked about the fact that He (whoever He was) was risen. It didn’t make any sense to me and since we did not feel welcome, we never went back. While in college, I learned that my parents had been very active in church when they were younger but when I had Polio and bills kept piling up, the church continued to hound my parents for money so they had walked away and never went back. I am saddened by the many who I have met through the years that have been turned away from church by those who call themselves Christians but do not have the love of God in them.

V-Family

Family was very important throughout my childhood. The many funerals I attended were for elderly family members, though many were once or twice removed, and it was expected that the family would be there. It was a time when the family supported each other. As I got older, there were fewer funerals as most of the old ones had passed away by that time. My grandparents were the last ones close to me to die as I got married and started a family.

There were also happy times. About 50 of the family on my mother’s side gathered each summer for a reunion though many were distant relatives and I had trouble keeping track of how each was related. Thanksgiving was also a big occasion. My mother was the youngest in her family and had two older sisters who had also married and had kids. Every Thanksgiving, Grandpa and Grandma gathered the family including their three daughters, their husbands, and children for a big Thanksgiving feast. Though mom’s sisters lived at a distance, we would go visit them from time to time and stay at their house for the weekend. Both sisters had a boy and girl each who were about our age.

Aunt Arlene and Uncle Ralph lived across the state on the eastern shore