Earlier this spring, Donna and I gave our testimonies and were rebaptised into the Carson City Seventh Day Adventist church. The following is the script from that testimony:
Phil’s Testimony
I opened with Mark 13:11 “…do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say; but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak but the Holy Spirit.”
Then I jokingly said that Pastor Torkelson had given me a parameter: “Testimonies should be no longer than 45 minutes,” but that Donna had told me that he had really said, "four to five minutes…" That received a laugh and gave the audience a bit of ease.
I was born into the Seventh-day Adventist church. My great-grandfather, grandfather and two uncles were all Seventh-day Adventist ministers, half of those missionaries to far off lands. So it was no surprise when at six or seven my aspirations included being a “missionary doctor with my own plane to fly to all the villages.” I was the fourth child, behind three sisters.
Presents for my sixth birthday included a poem from my very artistic grandfather, from whom I’m certain I inherited a certain degree of talent. It closed, “Jesus knelt as a boy to pray, At the dawn and the close of day, He was obedient kind and good, And always did just what he should, And so we pray, will Philip be, Just as good and kind as He.”
It was my grandpa Frank Wyman who baptized me. I was nine. During an evangelistic series by Stanley Harris in Seattle, I was very moved to give my heart to Jesus. But I wanted my grandpa to do the honors. I remember how upset my father was when mom called long distance to ask grandpa if he was able to drive the nearly one hundred miles each way to baptize his grandson. He asked me some questions about my beliefs and my faith, and said he would be there that night. So it was that on November 28, 1960, a young boy stood proudly – holding a new Bible -- among a group of much older people who had also been baptized in a small, galvanized tank in the front of the Moore Theater.
It wasn’t too many years later that I saw Joe Walsh and the James Gang, the loudest rock-n-roll band I ever heard, in that very same theater. I had chosen a somewhat different path than the one my grandfather would have wanted.
I mentioned my father’s anger because that was his typical stance on almost everything. He had a very bad childhood, with parents full of hate, and he passed that hate on to all of us. Possibly, because I was a boy, I received more than did my sisters. As I became a teen and developed my own opinions and attitudes, our relationship became acidic.
Today, those beatings might be considered abusive. Back then, it was a matter of sparing the rod and spoiling the child. But it wasn’t the physical abuse that affected me most; rather it was the mental abuse. I could do no right. No matter how hard I tried. And, following the verbal chastisement, there were the swinging fists, or the connecting with my body by whatever he might have had IN his angrily clenched fists.
But there were other things about my father and his mistreatment of my mother, while gaining favor with other women and much worse, which negatively impressed me. I observed behaviors that a son should never see. I knew things for which church elders and pastors anointed and prayed with my father, for which he cried and begged forgiveness, but committed again and again.
It was easy to see why I wanted little to do with the church.
Groucho Marx said many times that he would never belong to a club that would have him for a member.
I did not want to belong to a church that would have my father as a member.
While my father was abusing, my mother was compensating with love. But that was difficult for her too. They fought over his neglect and cruelty as well as her attention and affection. I had to find something else.
I discovered racing, and became infatuated with the sounds, the smells and the awesome power. I made acquaintances there and quickly discovered that I could write a story and point a camera in the right direction. An avocation was born which eventually turned into a vocation.
I had also discovered science and was enthralled with worldly explanations of evolution. Since I read everything I could get my hands on, it was easy to absorb other theories and be sidetracked from what I’d been taught all my life.
During my final year at Auburn Academy I met a young lady who changed my life, but due to circumstances and our youth, lost contact. I headed for many poor decisions and failures, a couple botched attempts at college, divorce, meaningless dead-end jobs.
I was fulfilling my father’s prophecy that I’d never amount to anything. It was a life filled with the experience of hard knocks.
Still, I pursued writing and photography in motorsports, and began to make a name for myself. I produced my own dragracing magazine for four years in the early ‘80s, and though highly acclaimed by its readers, was never a financial success. After it folded, I was sought by others who needed my abilities, bouncing me to virtually every corner and fold of the United States. I often wondered, as I stood on various racetracks on Saturdays, if I shouldn’t be somewhere else.
Once in awhile, when mom would visit me or I would visit her, I’d attend church. And when I lived close enough to Seattle, I attended the Green Lake SDA church every week, and sang in the choir. But my participation was more social than spiritual. However, there was always that strange something that drew me. Several of my choir friends walked after church, often around the lake, and we talked about a lot of things. Often, I shared my cynicism about the flood, creation or something else. One day, a lady named Jane had had about enough and asked me, “What if you’re wrong?” I looked at her for a minute, then she said, “If I’m wrong, so what, I’ve still lived a good life. But if you’re wrong, you’ve got a LOT to lose.”
According to a well-circulated quote, “Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.” I experienced that feeling, and like King Agrippa said to Paul, I was “…almost persuaded” (Acts 26:28) several times.
A few weeks ago, a man at work told me that in a few days, he was to visit his mother in Mexico City. He told me that he was so excited because it had been over twenty years. I asked him why it had taken him so long. He first looked at his shoes, than he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and said simply, “I got lost.”
Dear friends, I too got lost. I have been lost for a very long time. No, I was never an axe murderer or a drug addict. But I certainly broke the commandments, and spent way too much of my time watching questionable TV and movies. I teetered on the brink of oblivion for a very long time. My far off jobs and my work habits kept me lonely, depressed and full of anxiety. My doctors searched for answers, and sent me to therapists who fed me heavy doses of anti-depressants and listened to my sorrow. I often considered that the world would be far better off without me and contemplated just how I could leave. But I knew my suicide would hurt my beloved mother so much I could not bring myself to follow through with it.
Instead of “looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith,” the way I had been taught, why had I chosen to look away from Jesus, and his earthly examples such as my mother, my grandpa, my uncles?
One day, after literally a dozen jobs and moves, I walked into a man about whom I’d written stories decades before. He told me that his company had moved to Carson City, and he could use someone like me. I’d always liked him, so over the next few months, we spoke about how I might fulfill his needs. Little did he know just how in need I was at that moment.
My mother had taken a downward turn in health and I had been staying with a sister in Southern California, trying to help out in every way I could. I was also working part time, writing press releases about racecar parts. Eventually, I drove north to see what the job in Carson City might entail. My directions had me on 395 north through town and turning right on College Avenue. I had not been in Carson City ten minutes when I said to myself, “Well, there’s the Seventh Day Adventist church.”
I took the job, moved into a rather derelict extended stay motel and looked around. After I found more suitable housing, mom came to visit and we attended this church twice. We both found it cold and uninviting. Soon after, mom went downhill. For nearly a year, I drove the 450 miles each way every weekend to see my mother. Just two months shy of her 92nd birthday, she went to be with Jesus. My sisters and I all spoke at her memorial, and when I stood at the pulpit of the Seventh-day Adventist church in Santa Monica, I had an epiphany. Instead of what I’d originally written for a close, I said, “If there is a God and a heaven, and I am a skeptic, I’d like to be there because I want to see my mother again.”
I went through grief and depression at losing not only my mother but my best friend. I sought grievance counseling. Life was very difficult. I wasn’t sure that anything was worth living for. But I thrust myself into work and projects around the house I’d been able to purchase.
My niece Stacey introduced me to Facebook, just so that I could look at pictures of her three daughters. I joined the phenom under protest. Within a week or so, I found old friends from Auburn Academy and was actually shocked to realize it was just a month before my 40th reunion. I’d never been to one before, and I was pretty stubborn inside about not going. After all, nobody from my class had tried to reach me in forty years, and they probably didn’t care. But I went, and I got plenty of tugs on my heart. When the all-too-short time together ended, the president of our class handed me a copy of “Steps to Christ,” a forecast of just what was already churning inside me.
Through Facebook, I rediscovered my long lost love, we shared our life stories and our love was almost immediately rekindled. Though her life was fraught with tumultuous times, she had never lost her faith and it was quickly apparent that we were on a very happy collision course.
One Sabbath morning, I said to myself, “I want to sit with Donna in church today…” and even though she was hundreds of miles away in Oregon, I found myself walking the few blocks to this barn-shaped building and reading the inspirational words on the marquee.
At the door, Art Wilson grabbed my hand. Inside, smiling faces greeted and welcomed me. It wasn’t the cold place I’d been to the few years before. I sang the songs and listened to the sermon, and returned the following week. My first words to Ron Torkelsen were after that second sermon, and they went something like this: “Your End of Days Revelation Series is a little tough on someone struggling to return…” A week later, I had a long talk about our lives with Jeff Matheson and attended the fellowship luncheon. I’m afraid to say that I was hooked. I worked with Margie and Reuben on a yard sale, and probably bored everyone with constant tales about a wonderful woman that was coming soon.
After that, it just became normalcy. I looked forward to attending church and seeing all the people every week. I learned names and made friends. Donna came and everyone saw that my tales were not those of the fairy variety. It wasn’t long before she was here for good and we were both welcomed with open arms into this warm and wonderful church family.
A few months later, we stood on this very spot and were married after a forty-year interruption. Donna and I have shared children’s stories, I have preached sermons, we have had Bible studies and now we are being re-baptized. Praise the Lord.
I know that my mother never gave up on me, and whether I had forgotten God or not, he certainly hadn’t forgotten me.
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