A Father's Love

By Dante Keith

A Father's Love is a true story of the author's long and treacherous journey, which by all accounts, should have simply ended in his unheralded death, imprisonment, insanity, or all of the above. But there is a different ending because this story is also a testimony of God's love""the Father's love""and just some of the miracles he did on behalf of a young man who had no clue as to the true nature and character of God. The story begins with the author's struggles in an abusive home environment mixed in with the strict, legalistic teachings of his church. He enters his teen years with a twisted, unrealistic perspective of God, viewing him as a cruel, merciless ogre intent on damning him to hell. The author recounts his bout with mental illness, and the final incident of parental abuse, which pushed him over the edge where he gave up all hope. Resigning himself to hell, the author vows never to end up there for pettiness and wastes no time in pursuing a life of worldly pleasure, taking to the streets and highways. But he is soon blindsided, falling in love with a girl who changed his mind, his heart, and his world forever. He shares his failure at intimate relationship and the radical effect his loss has on his life. Estranged from his family, he faces life alone and lonely, sure that God is indifferent to his pain, which finally drives him back to the highway, where he lives as a gypsy and a criminal. Desperate to outrun his pain and regain the love he lost, he runs thousands of miles rolling the dice with his life again and again. Just when it seems he has finally succeeded in destroying himself, the unthinkable happens""God begins to reveal himself and then another journey begins, that of experiencing the Father's love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781642586411

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A Father's Love

Dante Keith

ISBN 978-1-64258-640-4 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64258-641-1 (Digital)

Copyright © 2018 by Dante Keith

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 1

Hellfire and Damnation

Fear

The evangelists who came to our church would get really wound up. And it was like they were all clones—you saw one, you saw them all. The right hand was a tight fist that clutched a hanky and periodically pounded the pulpit while taking intermittent, long swipes at the profusion of sweat on the forehead. In the left hand, they brandished a Bible that was held high and was thrust forward menacingly from time to time; they jabbed with it like a boxer. The face was beet-red with dark, glaring eyes; they were wild orbs that ricocheted around the sanctuary like flying lead, leaving no one exempt. Spittle flew from the mouth as they bellowed and barked about the plight of the unrepentant sinner; how the powerful, almighty God would damn him to hell with the devil, and there he would burn in screaming agony in the torturous, unrelenting fire and brimstone of hell forever and ever!

You talk about literally putting the fear of God in somebody, brother, it was in me. I would only hope that preacher would not start on the unpardonable sin, because about the time I thought I had all the fear I could bear, the mere mention of the unpardonable sin would push me right to the precipice of pure panic. Preachers would reach new heights of seriousness going on about some kind of special sin against the Holy Spirit that God could not or would not forgive. If you had committed that sin—and I would begin to fear I surely had—you were done for; hopeless and hell-bound for sure. Instilled within me was a horrifying, unrealistic, acute fear of the Holy Ghost.

You’d think I’d have gotten used to it all, become at least a little desensitized; I’d heard them so many times. Sunday evenings, revivals, and camp meetings—the manna of those services were hellfire and damnation, God-is-going-to-get-you sermons. Yet they were always so terribly intense and horrifying, they never lost their edge with me. I couldn’t wait for the preacher to finish so I could get down to that altar and try to get saved (if I hadn’t committed the unpardonable sin). I was soaked in fear. Not that fear was anything new; it just escalated in those services.

The fear of God was in me and around me all the time; I lived with it morning, noon, and night. It was not a healthy, reverent fear of God; I would never learn that kind of fear for years to come. Rather, it was an unhealthy, irrational, debilitating fear that began as soon as I hit my teens. At times, it lay almost dormant and I hardly thought about it. Other times, it reared up and became like a living thing; a monster hard to understand and control. Whatever other fears I dealt with as a young teenager paled to that of being singled out by an irate God to be judged and damned to the fires of hell to burn forever and ever.

It was bad enough when the local pastor preached hellfire and damnation on Sunday evening, but when we had revival and an evangelist came to preach for a week, or we went to camp meeting in the summer, the fear suddenly got a whole lot worse because it was night after night. And anyone who experienced those old-time revival and camp meetings surely knows how those preachers could kick it up into a gear somewhere clear off the charts and scare you, literally, right out of your seat. I remember nights when the preacher never got to finish his sermon; some poor, terrified soul who could not wait for the altar call would abruptly leave his seat and fly down the aisle to the altar. More than once that someone was me.

Camp meetings were the worse. I dreaded that one week in August. The fear liked to get an early start, about a week or two in advance. It would wrap itself around me like a big snake and slowly begin its squeeze, priming me for the big event. My, how those camp meeting preachers could go on! I once heard a true story about a woman evangelist who was going full tilt one night when her upper false teeth flew out. But she snatched them in midair, popped them back in and never missed a beat! Didn’t seem to matter none. I guess if everyone was even half as terrified in those meetings as I was, they would take no notice or even care if they did.

It was usually in the camp meetings where some elderly woman would get blessed during the singing. Out of nowhere, this noise would arise that sounded something like a duet between a fire alarm and a baying hound. It’d bring goose bumps to your skin and cold chills to your heart. It didn’t take long to spot her coming down the aisle faster than an old lady should, waving a hanky over her head and wailing like a banshee from another world as she raced for the front of the sanctuary. Usually, one person getting blessed would set off another, and pretty soon, people were flocking to the altar. That was pretty scary and nerve jangling, but usually on those nights, the evangelist would never get to preach, so that was a good thing at least.

Fear seemed to be the major motivator of those evangelists, and I’m telling you they knew how to wield it. They had some awful stories to tell to get you down to that altar. Like the one about the man who turned down a chance to get saved one night during a revival meeting and on his way home was killed in a terrible car wreck. He had rejected God, the evangelist said, and suddenly been hurled out into eternity to face him and be damned and spend forever and ever burning in hellfire. Those preachers could embellish those stories and scare you really bad, making you think of the myriad ways God had to get you if you didn’t get saved. Not that I didn’t want to get saved; I did, but it was just so hard.

Try and fail

I don’t think anyone ever tried harder than me to get saved. I wish I had a dollar for every trip I made to the altar. And though I lived in an ocean of fear, it was not my only motivator. I wanted to do right. I wanted to be good. I wanted to go to heaven. (I mean, who wants to go to hell?) But how could it ever be done? The preachers said I only had to believe, have faith, ask Jesus into my heart. But somehow, it just wasn’t that easy for me, so cut and dried. So many other dynamics were involved like praying through, making restitution, and staying saved if you ever got saved.

I’d go to the altar and try to get saved. Older men would gather around me. They would pray with me, cite scripture, and encourage me to just believe in faith. Pretty soon one would ask me if I was saved. I would say I didn’t think so. Another guy would encourage me to pray through, so I’d pray harder. I liked most of those guys and I knew they meant well. I didn’t want to seem stupid or obstinate or waste their time, but it was just so hard for me to get it. Then when I thought I had it—okay, just believe, just believe—Omar would begin to drill me regarding making restitution.

Omar was a friend of my Dad’s. He was a big, intimidating man with jet-black hair even on the backs of his fingers and a no-nonsense type of guy who had been on the police force. He’d ask me if I’d done things in the past that I needed to make right. I would always think of the stories I’d made up in school.

My family had moved to L.A. when I was in second grade. We only stayed there about three months, but it was quite an adventure for a kid that age, especially back in those days. The following year, my third-grade teacher asked me to share some of my experiences. Not having anything very dramatic to relate, I conjured up a story or two.

And there I was years later, fourteen or fifteen years old, still living in guilt, shame, and fear because of some made-up stories I’d told back in the third grade. I believed I had to confess my fabricated tales to my teacher and classmates and ask their forgiveness. Problem was, I was in junior high by then in another school. How could I possibly find everybody? And even if I did, I would be some kind of super weirdo geek. It all just seemed so hopeless. I’d feel so overwhelmed and then the fear of what would happen if I never made restitution would come on me, and round and round I’d go, feeling like a piece of scum swirling in the vortex of a sewer. So I lived my life in a never-ending circle of fear and hopelessness.

A few times I made it home from church, thinking maybe I really had prayed through, and maybe I could get by without making restitution, or if I had to, maybe I could actually do it. Then Dad would come into my room and hand me a stack of devotional books which he said would be good to read along with the Bible every morning. I would look at that stack of books and wonder how I could do it all. Dad was more of a hindrance than a help in many ways.

Usually, my salvation was gone before I fell asleep, though occasionally, I felt like I still had it the next morning. I’d wake up, look at the stack of books, maybe read a page or two, then off to school I’d go to face the onslaught of temptations a young boy encountered. There were so many land mines of sin to try and dodge out there, and I would always blow it by stepping on one. I don’t know that I ever made it through day one. Staying saved was even more difficult than getting saved.

I remember getting off the bus one Monday morning. I thought I may have gotten saved the night before, so I sure wanted to try hard to keep it. A kid who was pretty funny approached me and told me an off-color joke. I laughed a little so bam!—salvation over. I never even made it to my first class.

But even if I had made it to class, I probably would have sinned there anyhow. Girls were just starting to wear mini-skirts in junior high back then, and brother, that was all a young man needed to push his already volatile hormones and imagination over the edge. One wrong look, one lustful thought, and bam—the club of condemnation and guilt came crashing down and salvation was pulverized to pieces.

Then that snake of fear would coil around me again, squeezing tighter and tighter. My only hope was that Jesus would not return until after next Sunday when maybe, just maybe, I’d have another chance of getting saved. If a revival was going on that week, I could go back to the altar that night.

This pattern of go to the altar, try to get saved, fall and fail, fail and fall repeated itself over and over again, week after week, month after month, year after year. My whole perception of God was totally twisted, but I had no idea.

God the monster

God was an ogre to me, a monster, who held out the proverbial carrot of salvation, but always kept it dangling just beyond reach. He showed you that you needed to get saved, but made that very difficult. And what was the use because it was impossible to stay saved. I didn’t know about God’s love. I mean nothing. I never remember hearing a sermon about the love of God. I didn’t know about his saving, keeping power. I knew nothing of the power of the blood of Jesus, how thorough it was, and it’s keeping power. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about God back then as a boy—a whole lot of things. And it would be a very long, lonely, and treacherous road before I would ever learn.

I do remember one particular night at the altar. I was praying hard as usual and seeming to get nowhere. I finally prayed, God, if I am saved, will you please give me some kind of sign? I felt this odd kind of thrill like a rush run up through my heart. I opened my eyes. Omar was there, and he exclaimed how he could see it in my eyes that I’d gotten saved. Maybe I really had. I went home remembering what I’d prayed, what I felt, hoping, hoping . . . The hope died just like all the times before and the old pattern began to repeat itself. I continued to live under the harsh scrutiny and debilitating fear of an angry ogre of a God. And if the hell and damnation theology of the church were not enough, I also endured angry parents at home; together, it all made for some bad ingredients for a sensitive young boy who only wanted to please and do right. These bad ingredients were like a nasty storm building off in the distance, spelling impending doom and pushing me closer and closer to the edge of darkness.

Chapter 2

Bad Ingredients

Legalism

Iremember the teachings of the church I