Down Right Joy: Joyful stories of raising a child with special needs. by Tony D'Orazio

Author:Tony D'Orazio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2021-03-24T18:24:17+00:00

Chapter 15

Two Honest Men

We simply do not as men, always live up to the standards of purity set forth by the Lord, even though our faith in Jesus is very important and central in our lives. Our parents taught us about Christ and we made our choice to follow him. Christ is there to help us follow him, forgive us when we fall short, sometimes allow us to live through the consequences of our behavior, and point us back in the right direction, towards him.

This story takes place when Jacob was about 17 years old. As mentioned, we attended Grace Church in Middleburg Heights, Ohio, for several years. We also talked about Pastor Jonathan. His dad, Donald Schaeffer, started Grace Church at a small site a few miles from the current site. Wonderful man, humble, godly, knew the Bible well.

I had the unique privilege of being in a small Bible study group with Pastor Donald. This was probably in the late 1990s. I’ll never forget that one of our study discussion topics was about the issues of sex, lust, and rock-and-roll. I think the pastor was about 70 at the time.

I asked the question, “Pastor, at what point in your life were you able not to have any lustful thoughts, not be tempted at all in that area, and be free of this burden that affects us men?”

I was waiting for something very profound or maybe even a rebuke, a Bible verse, or a mild scolding. Instead, what he said was simple, humble, honest, and from the heart. He said as he smiled, something very close to the following, “I’ll let you know when that happens for me.”

Several years later, Jacob attended a senior-high retreat with the Grace youth group, and for the retreat they went up to Camp Patmos on Kelly’s Island, one of the many Lake Erie islands in the Sandusky Bay area.

There were probably about 100 young people from the church at this retreat, teenagers away for a weekend, supervised and led by some really good and dedicated people. These included staff and some student volunteers.

Friday night was the opening, a time to get to know some of the kids and possibly set some tangible goals for the weekend. You know, like “Why are we all here and what do we want to do?”

Way back in high school at Elyria Catholic in about 1968, I went on a similar weekend youth retreat called the Search. We spent the weekend listening to talks by parents, priests, older students, and some students our age. The purpose was to help us live out our faith and develop fellowship with our peers in the area of faith. It was also to train us in the area of faith. We stayed up late, talked a lot, hung out with the guys—and girls.

I was a sincere believer and really enjoyed the weekend. I also enjoyed the possibility of meeting one of the Rigali girls. I think there were two of them, or maybe I wished there were two.

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