Love Above All

By Bernard Demaere

In your quiet times with the Lord, this book will inspire you to love God and others in a more meaningful way.Love will come and give you a purpose for life. Sometimes in a subtle way and, at other times, in a more obvious way, the love of God which is more affirmative, than any other love will motivate you through lifes various situations whether it be a job or home and family.

The answer to most of our problems in life seems to stem out of situations related to love or lack of it. Take a step in the right direction now and love in a more practical way. Make a mark in your world!

Some of us, do not know what love isWe hear a great deal about loving our self, but can we love our self or someone else if we dont know what love is. Love comes from God and he loves us in more ways than one.It can be through people or even through the presence of our pets.Love cannot be explained, it must be believed to help us in any way.

If you are curious about who God is, this book is also for you, because at times, it attempts to answer some of lifes difficult questions.God is not a Santa Claus and he is not a mad being ready to punish his creation.But who does the Bible tells us God is?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543478402

Book preview

THE SHORT STORY OF MY LIFE

I was born in Brussels, Belgium, and grew up in a Catholic family. It was the preferred national religion. At birth, I had epileptic seizures and almost died as—in those days (the 1950s)—doctors didn’t know how to face this illness yet. I had a dangerously high fever, and my skin turned a really dark deep red. The doctor advised my mother to dip me in icy water.

At about five years of age, I had difficulties learning in school, and I was labelled slow by the teacher. It was a word that I would learn to resent for the rest of my life. I also began going for EEG exams, which were more painful than they are today and took way too long from a five-year-old’s standpoint.

At that same time, I was introduced to the message of the gospel through a catechism class that was given in first grade at an all-boys school. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross strongly affected me. I had to redo first grade in a mixed school, and my mother gave me the choice between catechism and etiquette; I chose the latter. I thought catechism would be too boring.

My problem of slowness didn’t go away, but this school was more to my level of learning, and it had girls in it too. I felt loved by most of the students and the teachers. I did third grade over again, which was a good change, and I ended up with some good teachers. I barely passed sixth grade and couldn’t go into high school.

In Belgium, the choice is simple. If you don’t qualify for high school, you can learn a trade through apprenticeship. I just had to choose, at the age of fourteen, what trade I was going to do for the rest of my life. With the help of my parents, I ended up choosing to be a pastry chef. I was watching my mother make crepes one day, and that was when I decided. She tried to reason with me and showed me all the cons, as she had done before with the other trades I had considered, but this one choice remained. I started working at a local bakery for a year, but I left because I didn’t grow in the profession. I moved to another one and stayed there for three years till I finished my apprenticeship. It was there that I was introduced to pornographic movies by a colleague. This started a long-term addiction in my life.

I got a job at another bakery as a journeyman. During that time, my parents’ dreams of moving to Canada were becoming a reality; and in 1975, I went there with my parents and my youngest brother for the first time. It was not a good experience for a teenager and his parents to travel together, especially after already seeing that we could not get along. There was enmity between my parents and me, and I spoke it loud and clear. This took years to repair.

During that time, as I was walking by the beach, a group of people from Edmonton stopped me and wanted to pray over me. I thought that it was cool, and I let them do that. Innocently, I did also ask Jesus to help me. They gave me a gospel tract. I was the firstborn with three younger brothers. I became the black sheep of the family, I was confused and hurt, and I was, of course, hurting the rest of my family with my words. I was a very angry person and full of hatred, and I showed it constantly. I would fly off the handle for nothing.

I had left with my father in 1976 to test the ground as far as job was concerned, and everything seemed fine. During that time, I had peeked around a motel’s bedroom and found in a drawer a Gideon Bible, which I started reading from the beginning. I had questions, but my father couldn’t or wouldn’t answer them, so I left it. When I arrived in Canada for the third time in 1977, I was not prepared for the change; we returned to Canada as a family of immigrants. It was a thirty-hour trip as my father was trying to save money.

After a month of being unemployed and under family pressure to get a job, I moved away from my parents at a few hours of drive, the farthest I had ever been away from home. I went to work at a hotel as a pastry chef. It lasted a month. During that time, I got deeper into pornography through magazines in an effort to stuff that feeling of loneliness back inside. Instead, I became increasingly empty and unhappy. I lost that job. The chef told me to go to cooking school to learn better techniques, but I think the real reason was my lack of understanding of the English language. Nevertheless, this was a very helpful advice. I lost a few more jobs as a baker and finally opted to go to a one-year cooking course.

After three months into it, I met a man who talked to me about Jesus Christ, and I must have been ready because I had a lot of questions to be answered. The next day, on March 21, 1979, I accepted Jesus into my heart, and my life changed instantly. Peace came in, and I began to sing songs of praise to Him before I even knew what it was or before I had read my Bible. I read the New Testament in one weekend after that, and I have never been able to do it again since. I finished the course and got involved in Bible studies.

I moved into an apartment with another Christian. We prayed and asked the Lord for furniture, which He graciously provided. I prayed for a turn-of-the-century Bible and found one in a secondhand store. These answers to my prayers really strengthened my faith as I saw God’s faithfulness. I originally wanted to become a missionary and go to India. I was encouraged by some