C
CSUjr
Guest
From age 7, I was taught to Love God.
I learned this by being read and instructed to read references in the Bible that tell us to Love God.
However, as a young boy, I became confused by many other references in the Bible that tell us to Fear God.
Because of this, I was taught that the Scripture that tells us to Fear God means that I should Fear the consequences of offending God by committing Sin and that the best way to avoid that is to Love God with all of my Heart and all of my Soul.
I consider myself very fortunate to have teachers that encouraged me to focus on Loving God rather than Fearing God, because I witnessed others suffer from not understanding this as I was taught to do.
My first experience in witnessing someone suffer from focusing on Fearing God rather than Loving God occurred upon a visit from my Grandfather.
Each year, as a choir boy, I received a gift from the Church.
One year it was a Bible cover, another year it was a Bible bookmark and this particular year that my Grandfather visited, I received a florescent Cross.
This was the first time that I had ever seen anything florescent and I was fascinated by how it glowed in the dark.
My Grandfather, my Mother’s Father, migrated from Italy in the late 1800’s.
He was brought up to be a strict Christian.
He spoke very little English, adhered firmly to the ways of his upbringing and strongly avoided American ways.
At the time of his visit, I was into building wooden model airplanes.
It took me days, sometimes over a week, to cut out all of the little pieces of balsa wood, glue them all together and sheath them with tissue paper.
I was very proud of my airplanes.
I hung them from my ceiling with strands of thread.
My Grandfather was encouraged by my Mother to spend the weekend with us and instructed me to graciously offer him to use my room.
The light in my room was turned on by a chain that hung from the ceiling.
The first night that he stayed, he had trouble finding the chain in the dark and tore some of my airplanes down from the ceiling.
The following day, in an effort to protect the surviving airplanes, I attached my florescent Cross to the chain so that he would be able to find the light easier.
Although this was very well intended to help, it proved to be a huge mistake on my part.
That night, while preparing for bed, we were all shocked by a horrific scream coming from my bedroom.
We rushed upstairs and found my Grandfather on his knees speaking frantically in Italian.
My Mother became very upset and ended up driving him home.
With none of us able to understand Italian, we had no idea of what was wrong until she returned.
When she did, I was reprimanded severely and held to blame for so horribly scaring my Grandfather.
When my Father intervened and asked her to explain, she said that when my Grandfather opened my bedroom door and saw the glowing Cross, he believed that God was visiting him because of all of his Sins.
Although I believed that his Fear came from his misunderstanding between Fearing God and Loving God, I went to Church the next day and confessed my Sin.
That was the day that I learned one of the strongest lessons of one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Through my confession, I was taught that the Sin that I committed that led to this incident was the Sin of Pride.
Although I was taught that it was the Pride that I had for my airplanes that caused me to hang that Cross from the light chain, I was also directed to pray for my Grandfather, that he would come to Love God more that he Feared him.
If he were alive today, I would like very much to share the following with him;
Trust
I learned this by being read and instructed to read references in the Bible that tell us to Love God.
However, as a young boy, I became confused by many other references in the Bible that tell us to Fear God.
Because of this, I was taught that the Scripture that tells us to Fear God means that I should Fear the consequences of offending God by committing Sin and that the best way to avoid that is to Love God with all of my Heart and all of my Soul.
I consider myself very fortunate to have teachers that encouraged me to focus on Loving God rather than Fearing God, because I witnessed others suffer from not understanding this as I was taught to do.
My first experience in witnessing someone suffer from focusing on Fearing God rather than Loving God occurred upon a visit from my Grandfather.
Each year, as a choir boy, I received a gift from the Church.
One year it was a Bible cover, another year it was a Bible bookmark and this particular year that my Grandfather visited, I received a florescent Cross.
This was the first time that I had ever seen anything florescent and I was fascinated by how it glowed in the dark.
My Grandfather, my Mother’s Father, migrated from Italy in the late 1800’s.
He was brought up to be a strict Christian.
He spoke very little English, adhered firmly to the ways of his upbringing and strongly avoided American ways.
At the time of his visit, I was into building wooden model airplanes.
It took me days, sometimes over a week, to cut out all of the little pieces of balsa wood, glue them all together and sheath them with tissue paper.
I was very proud of my airplanes.
I hung them from my ceiling with strands of thread.
My Grandfather was encouraged by my Mother to spend the weekend with us and instructed me to graciously offer him to use my room.
The light in my room was turned on by a chain that hung from the ceiling.
The first night that he stayed, he had trouble finding the chain in the dark and tore some of my airplanes down from the ceiling.
The following day, in an effort to protect the surviving airplanes, I attached my florescent Cross to the chain so that he would be able to find the light easier.
Although this was very well intended to help, it proved to be a huge mistake on my part.
That night, while preparing for bed, we were all shocked by a horrific scream coming from my bedroom.
We rushed upstairs and found my Grandfather on his knees speaking frantically in Italian.
My Mother became very upset and ended up driving him home.
With none of us able to understand Italian, we had no idea of what was wrong until she returned.
When she did, I was reprimanded severely and held to blame for so horribly scaring my Grandfather.
When my Father intervened and asked her to explain, she said that when my Grandfather opened my bedroom door and saw the glowing Cross, he believed that God was visiting him because of all of his Sins.
Although I believed that his Fear came from his misunderstanding between Fearing God and Loving God, I went to Church the next day and confessed my Sin.
That was the day that I learned one of the strongest lessons of one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
Through my confession, I was taught that the Sin that I committed that led to this incident was the Sin of Pride.
Although I was taught that it was the Pride that I had for my airplanes that caused me to hang that Cross from the light chain, I was also directed to pray for my Grandfather, that he would come to Love God more that he Feared him.
If he were alive today, I would like very much to share the following with him;
Trust