Your Hidden Reflection

By Jeffrey C Orr

This book should open the eyes of the reader, so they might begin to identify the many hidden blessings they have received throughout their entire life and were never really aware of them. Using each of my personal reflections, to help by giving testimonial examples, will show the reader how to uncover their own hidden reflection treasures-blessings they had never identified before. We have so many blessing from God, but most of them never get uncovered or identified. When the reader begins to open their eyes, they too begin to see their personal hidden reflections, known as blessings. They will gain strength from the Holy Spirit, when they begin to realize God has been with them throughout their entire lives.Once the reader begins the process of uncovering their own personal hidden blessings, their trust and faith in God begins to grow even stronger. With this growing faith, the Holy Spirit gives the reader the peace of mind, the reduction of worry, less stress, and the confidence to know God is truly in control of their lives. When people can achieve the unconditional trust and faith knowing that God is in control of your life, how will that change the way they live?Toward the end of the book, the reader can reflect back on many of the hidden blessing in their past. They can begin to live each day going forward, knowing that no matter what happens (good or bad), everything will turn out OK. The reader will understand with clarity that someday they will be able to look back, after difficult times have passed, and realize it was again all a part of God's plan. When they do, they will again realize everything turned out to be another blessing in God's plan for their lives. Praise God!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098038274

Book preview

Reflection 1

Before I Had Accepted Jesus Christ as My Lord and Savior My First Prayer, Answered in Seconds!

Igrew up attending an Episcopal church in Greenwich, Connecticut. As a family, we would go to church on a weekly basis. After my family attended the traditional church service, this would be followed by going to Sunday school class. As a youth, I was not really into the basic messages of a traditional service or the classes that would follow. The main message I retained during this timeframe of the mid-1960s was that if you go to church on Sunday, it is followed up by going out for a great family breakfast at a nice restaurant. This, by the way, was quality family time long before cell phone interruptions. Also, this was a time in life when most businesses/stores were closed on Sundays, except for some of the local restaurants.

My childhood.,.I was raised in a middle-class family during the 1960s and 1970s. It was the typical Leave it to Beaver household: my parents were happily married, Dad took the train each weekday into New York City, and Mom stayed at home to run my older brother and I around to our various activities. This was a time when you would be playing outside, way up the street, when the cowbell would warn that you had ten minutes to get home for dinner. After Dad got home from work, we all sat down to eat together as a family—no TV, no cell phones—just quality time to catch up on that day’s events.

Like many of the teenagers during the 1960s, we did enough deviant behavior to get into trouble with Mom and Dad, but not enough to get locked up or killed. Most of the trouble we would get into as teens never did much harm to other people. At age fourteen, my faith in God was nothing more than my parents making me go to church on Sunday because it was the right thing to do. My brother was three years older than me. So when my brother made the decision and refused to go to church at age seventeen, I was soon to follow the same rejection and rebelled, also…but with a good strong foundation of fourteen years of attending church, the seeds of faith had been planted.

At this point in my life, I was fifteen years old, in ninth grade, and going to a public school, Central Junior High. In our area, growing up, this was the age where parties and drinking beer and booze were not uncommon. This was an age when we would push the trouble bar to see how close we could get before getting caught. One of the common buttons I would push on the trouble meter was taking my mom’s car on some joyrides. Once I obtained my own key to her car, it became a regular Friday or Saturday activity for me to take the car out for another joyride. Obviously, without permission, and before having a license or learners permit. Usually this would take place when my parents had plans to go out to dinner, or when they were going to a party with their adult friends. This was the perfect time for this teenager to push the edge of getting into a little bit of trouble.

In the area we lived in, the homes were on two acres, heavily wooded, and unlit. It was a very dark road. At this time, our household had four automobiles. My dad had his fun car, a 1968 MGB, parked in the garage. My mom drove a Dodge Colt, which she, too, was able to park in the garage. My brother was driving a Toyota Corolla, which was a four-speed shift that he parked outside on the driveway. At this time, my brother was eighteen, and would leave most weekends to spend time with his friends, going up to Vermont. He would be gone most weekends starting Friday after school, to return on Sunday by dinner time. Finally, my dad had his commuter car that he, too, would park under my basketball hoop in the corner of the driveway.

After school, the weekend plans got started when I found out on which night my parents had their plans to go out. This particular weekend, they had plans to go to a party on Saturday evening. I started to communicate with a few friends. I made arrangements to start picking them up around seven-thirty to eight, after my parents had left. My best friend, Bob, would be the first one that I would pick up. That gave him the front seat, known as shotgun. I would then continue on to pick up the others, Matt, Ronnie, and Malcom, as the night adventures began. One thing I clearly remember while my underaged friends would drink was that I would not drink until the car was returned home. Speed limits were also followed, as I was trying to remain under the police radar. Wasn’t that being responsible? Ha, right!

So, I knew I was good for a few hours. The parents would be out usually past eleven, sometimes later than midnight. We would make the typical rounds of hitting the parking lot hangout spots, or would hit any party scheduled for the night. Typically, after an hour or two, I would swing by the house around 9:00 to 9:30 before dropping my friends off at their requested dropoff locations. This night, as I round the s curve of Cat Rock Road, looking straight ahead at my house, I saw my dad’s car parked back in his parking space under the basketball hoop. It was not even 10:00, yet!

As I passed the driveway, my head turned in disbelief that they were home so early. The car was already in the driveway. My buds witnessed me in a stage of freaking out. I’m caught, I’m busted, I’m screwed, I’m grounded, I’m dead! Shit! OK, first thing was to drop everyone off right away at the party and get this car home ASAP.

No, I did not speed. But I did drop everyone off immediately, except for Bob, who stayed with me during my time of panic. As I was returning home to return the car, I drove past our driveway. About a quarter of a mile up the street, I took a left turn and parked at the yard of a neighbor friend I grew up with. Leaving Bob in the front seat as I got out, he watched as I walked around the car toward a stone wall that I proceeded to climb over. I reached the huge tree on the other side of the wall. It was pitch black. I was at a location where I once spent a lot of time just hanging out with Chris, a childhood friend growing up. This is the tree we spent a lot of time climbing, pushing the boundaries of new heights.

Without hesitation, standing up under the tree in the dark, with my hands held together for prayer, I began to pray. The prayer may have lasted two to three minutes. This was the first time I clearly and intentionally reached out to God, in prayer, for His help.

The prayer went something like this:

God, please help me get out of this situation. You know me! You know I don’t do things to hurt others. You know I mean no harm. You know I grew up going to church, but stopped. You know that I believe in You. You know that I will probably even do this again. You know what my intentions are. Please help me get through this. In Your name, I pray for your help. Amen.

After finishing this short prayer, I climbed back over the stone wall. As I walked behind the car in the darkness of the road without lights, looking to my left, I saw my brother’s car about to go by me. At the top of my lungs, I began to yell his name as loud as I could. Dave! Dave! Dave! Then I saw the red brake lights come on. My brother began to back up! Wow, how lucky am I that my brother came home early from his Vermont trip to save me.

Bob and I went on to tell my brother what we did. My brother agreed to take the car home and let the parents know he’d had a car issue and had to borrow their car. Yes, my brother came through and covered my butt. He did not turn me in. Later the next day, I did ask him for the key back, which he obviously returned back to our mom. Did I learn my lesson? Of course not! During the year, I regained the key and was able to grab my brother’s keys and take his four-speed Toyota for joyrides. But the best one, the key to my brother’s cassette lock in his car, actually was able to start my dad’s MGB sportscar so I could also take it on a joyride.

In closing on this first reflection, to my knowledge, this is my first encounter praying to God and reaching out for His help. Above, when I said, Wow, how lucky I am, this is always my sarcastic way of referencing that luck is really God’s blessing in my life, not luck. But, as a stubborn and arrogant fifteen-year-old teenager, I never really reflected on this, while in my youth. God saved me from getting into trouble with a short prayer which He answered in seconds. After that night, it took me years, many years later, to understand the power of God’s plan for me.

Now, more than forty-five-plus years later, I clearly reflect on this first prayer that He answered in seconds. There was no reason for my brother to be in town, going down our road at the exact time I needed him there. Now, the reason: it was part of God’s Plan to answer my very first prayer in seconds!

And we are sure of this, that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will. 15 And if we really know he is listening when we talk to him and make our requests, then we can be sure that he will answer us. [Wow, that was right on!] (1 John 5:14–15)

If I can? Jesus asked. Anything is possible if you have faith. (Mark 9:23)

Reflection 2

The Naive Teenager, Indestructible!

Hitchhiking in the 1970s was a common way for teenagers to get around. This kept the parents from knowing where you were or where you were planning to go. This reflection occurred while I was at age fifteen. In 1972, it was very common for my friends and I to hitchhike all over the town of Greenwich. During the days, we would hitchhike rides to the beach, to the stores, or to a friend’s house just to hang out. At night, we would hitchhike a ride to a party, to a recreation center, to a dance, or to meet up with our friends to go pool hopping. All we had to do is get on the road and stick our right thumb up in the air. During that period of growing up, who was not going to pick up an innocent-looking teen just hitching a ride?

It was a summer Friday night when a group of us met up. The plans were to go pool hopping that evening. The group consisted of ten to twelve individuals from both genders. We had all just graduated from ninth grade. And no one had a driver’s license, at that age. It was