Going back to the Past – 14th Part

Going Back to the Past – Part 14

Going back to the past makes me value every moment of my life.

And so, my parents traveled to California and decided to stay, and after some time, we were transferred there as well.

It was a beautiful and happy State.

We went back to living with my parents. To go to the church headquarters, we had to travel for about an hour and a half. The headquarters was in the old cinema called Million Dollar. The locality was very old, and the cinema was inaugurated in 1918, in Downtown, Los Angeles in Broadway: not as the Universal Church, but as a cinema.

And in this State, there were many pastors and churches, obviously, and we stayed for a bit in the church headquarters.

There were Radio and Television programs during that time, and Júlio was always there, not doing any of the programs, but he loved to go and grab his opportunity to serve.

Many pastors lived on top of the church, and there existed many apartments right above it. Normally, the pastors that lived on top were the pastors that remained in the headquarters. When it was lunch time, the pastors would go upstairs to eat something, and we (Júlio and I) would eat from our lunchbox that we had brought from home. Sometimes Júlio was invited to eat upstairs with a pastor to eat fresh food in their home.

Because there wasn’t a lot of space and there wasn’t much activity in church, so I would occupy my time with other things.

Not only did I live far from the church, but I also lived far from very important places for the daily house life of a human being. For example, to go to the closest supermarket, it was 25 minutes and to the mall it was up to 45 minutes to an hour by car. Everything was very distant, and consequently, I lived a life very isolated from all of that.

There was no way I could stay in the church all the time, because there was no physical function instructed for me, as well not having any function of working during the service, so I invested my “spare” time with other things that were important to a house wife.

I would organize my things at homeI would deep clean my suite once a week, and many times, when my mom was not able to go, I would pick my brother up at school. Normally, I would go grocery shopping for my home with my mom.

I lived a tranquil life, but always looking for some way to useful in something.

My father would record radio programs for Brasil and I would be as anxious as if I was receiving a gift to listen to his messages. I wanted so much to learn to be better for God, to present something worthy to God, that my choices were always based on this objective.

If my father called a bishop or a pastor to speak with him, I was there, with my “antennas” ready to learn and to pass the spirit to Júlio.

I was a true little “sponge”.

When my father received his recordings in cassette, he normally would give it me or someone else to listen to it. And when they reached my hands, I would listen to that cassette and keep it in a safe place with all the care in the world. Listening to the cassette, I would label the topic, and I would watch over it like something that was very precious to me. I did not want to share it with the fear of not getting it back: that was how important it was to me to listen and have the Word of God and the Spirit of God that was passed on to my father.

I wanted to always take advantage of these opportunities. I couldn’t wait for my father to speak and teach Júlio. But this would never happen. In the end, Júlio was just a pastor and he wasn’t responsible for anything. And my father would work with those who were responsible.

During this time, because everything was distant from home, we would be a bit isolated of everything and everyone. But it was an excellent opportunity of being in sync with God. Because Júlio wold come really late (dawn), and I would wait for him to come home, I would take advantage of my time to read, meditate on the Bible, and pray.

These were things that I would do when I was single. Nights were my time with God, my investment in my relationship with God. There I would always vent, search, pray, etc. And when I got married, everything wasn’t as organized as it was before; I couldn’t invest time in my spiritual life at night, like before. Me being married demanded that I give attention to my husband. And this, little by little, made my intimacy with God a little difficult.

That supposed loneliness, instead of making me sad, made me commit to what I knew when I was single. I turned lemons into lemonade.

These times were precious to me. In truth, it was preparing me for what would come ahead. I started building something that I didn’t have before. Day after day I would have conversations with God.

I started “policing” myself as a person. I started planning when I would leave the house. I had a talent to do this, I wasn’t preoccupied or distracted. So, every time I had to leave home (I am not really a “going out” person, more of a homebody or going to church), instead of listening to secular music on the radio, I would take my father’s tape to listen. And it was during those trips in car, alone, going to the market, mall, pharmacy, church, etc., I learned how to speak with God. In other words, I learned how the have my thoughts in Home. After all, I had no one to talk to!

I had no idea that everything was fitting together, and it would prepare me for what would come ahead.

I was on a “honeymoon” with God. I was fortifying myself each time with Him, and my actions “spoke” in this respect.