Walking With Jesus: Living a Life Led by the Holy Spirit

By Amy Sugawa

Walking With Jesus by Amy Sugawa

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636301129

Book preview

Chapter 1

Early Years

Happy Days

The year 1947 was a great year to be born. World War II had ended. My parents were from that great generation that left a legacy of hard work, discipline, and self-sacrifice all for the sake of their children.

Families and neighbors were close and helped each other readily. People generally had respect for each other and their properties. We felt safe and secure in our neighborhoods. There was no need to lock the doors to our homes or cars.

My father had an appliance store, so we were one of the first families in our neighborhood to have a television. I grew up with the Beaver, Donna Reed, and Father Knows Best. Those television series helped paint a picture in my mind as to what a healthy, happy family life was supposed to be like. On these family programs, parents loved and were faithful to each other. They loved their children and disciplined them in love when they needed it. Children respected their parents. Although the fathers made some mistakes, they were the undisputed head of their families. Life was so sweet, simple, and uncomplicated, the real happy days of the fifties.

Turbulent ’60s

In the ’60s, the world seemed to be turning upside down. It was a turbulent, unsettling time. The assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, and the Vietnam conflict were shocking and troubling. But for this high school student in Hawaii, they seemed remote.

My husband Gary graduated from `Iolani, and I graduated from Roosevelt High School in Honolulu in 1965. We met that summer after graduation at a picnic at Ala Moana Beach Park with our high school social clubs. After summer, he went on to Michigan State University. I stayed at the University of Hawaii before transferring to the University of Wisconsin my junior year. We wrote letters and spoke together over the phone often during those four college years apart.

My eyes were opened to a whole new world when I transferred to UW in 1967 for my junior year in college. It was the time of the hippies, the flower children, LSD, and the peace sign. There were marches protesting the war at the nearby capital city of Madison. Boyfriends of classmates in the National Guard were being activated and sent to Vietnam. Four unarmed students at Kent State University in Ohio were shot and killed by the Ohio National Guard during a mass protest. It was a scary time. The draft threatened to send Gary to war when he graduated. I began asking myself questions about the meaning of life.

After graduating from college, Gary and I got married in March 1970. The long Vietnam Conflict continued. When Gary graduated and completed the ROTC program at MSU, he took the year delay given before being activated to fulfill his two-year commitment in the Army.

During the year delay from 1970 to 1971, we moved to work in Cincinnati and lived near his brother Roy, wife Joan, and son Robert. They were the only Christians in the family and would witness to us about Jesus. Joan would tell us that our little nephew would often pray for us.

Army Times

In June 1971, we were sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for six months for Gary’s training in the United States Army Field Artillery School and then on to Fort Riley, Kansas. I felt lonely when Gary was sent out to the field a lot, also to Texas and Germany for army games. It was an anxious time with Vietnam hanging over us. Thankfully, the Vietnam Conflict was winding down, and he was never sent overseas. We did have one most blessed event in those two years: the birth of our son.

During those two years, I felt I had very little control over my life. The US Army told us where to go, what to do when we got there, and when to go. I came to realize later in my walk with Christ that to be a good soldier in His army, I needed to do the same. I needed to listen and obey; go wherever He told me to go; do whatever He asked me to do; and all in His perfect timing.

In more recent years, I have come to appreciate His perfect timing. I used to think God was slow—slow to answer my prayers. I now know and appreciate the wisdom in His timing. I try not to get ahead of Him or behind Him but walk in step with Him.

Chapter 2

Lost and Deceived

Mind Expansion

After Gary fulfilled his military service, we moved back home to Honolulu. I began working for a private school for special education students. My coworkers had taken a mind expansion course called EST (Erhard Seminars Training). I was told I needed to go to the training because they would be using the EST philosophy in managing the students and they wanted the whole staff to be aligned and coming from the same point of reference. It was also suggested that my husband join me for marital growth, so Gary did.

In the course to expand our minds, we were taught there was no God other than the god within us. We, ourselves, had the power to create things. With no belief in Jesus or the Bible, there was no moral standard. Everything was relative, and whatever felt right was right. I was taught that the only important and real thing in life was me and what I wanted. Nothing else mattered. If anyone disagreed, they were wrong. They were interfering with my space.

There was no room for compromise in a marriage. If your spouse didn’t like what you were doing, he was interfering with your space. With that kind of me-first, me-centered kind of thinking, a lot of couples got divorced. Families were torn apart.

Me-First!

These were rough years for our marriage. Thankfully, Gary and I remained committed and faithful to each other during those selfish years. I remember a minister saying when he was asked, You mean to say you never thought of divorce? His response was, Divorce, never! Murder, yes!

When you are into me-first thinking, the value of life becomes relative only to what you want. Without any moral standard, a woman had a right to do whatever she wanted with her unborn child. Anyone who disagreed with her was wrong and interfering with her space. They were interfering with her freedom to choose. Me-first becomes more important than life itself.

When a woman has this me-first philosophy and no moral standard or relationship with Jesus, it is easy to see why she might abort a child especially since the law allows it.

I wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper that appeared on February 19, 1990. The letter was written in support of one of our legislators who had introduced a bill requiring that doctors notify a parent in writing at least forty-eight hours before performing an abortion on a pregnant minor, and another bill that would ban abortions in cases where they were sought solely on the bases of the sex of the unborn child. The edited version that appeared said:

Mahalo to Representative Cam Cavasso! Finally, our state has someone representing the people who are moving to stop abortion on demand in Hawaii. People have a right to choose? Whatever is right for them is their business? Where does it