A Call From Jesus

February, 1999

It had been a horrible week. Money was tight, my ex-husband was threatening to leave the state and pay “what he wanted” for child support, and bills were not getting paid. To make matters worse, my phone was not working! Calls were coming in, but the ringer was not working, and I wasn’t able to make calls either.

I had been dealing with a broken phone since that Monday, and according to the phone company, my phone line could not be repaired until the following week. I had been checking my messages each morning at work. I don’t know exactly why I even bothered checking my messages because most of them were left from creditors inquiring when I would be submitting payment on my late bills. The calls only reminded me of my money troubles and by the end of the workday, it all left me feeling just more depressed and overwhelmed.

By Wednesday night, I was feeling completely defeated. It already was feeling like a long week, and I just needed to escape! A nice, long hot bath seemed like the perfect refuge. The kids had just finished dinner and were watching one of their favorite TV shows, so I headed to the bathroom for some much needed alone time.

Once in the tub, I found myself just sitting there, watching the running hot water fill up around me. I felt both exhausted and numb, hoping that a bath would make me feel better. My bathtub was always a place where I could unwind away from the kids; where I could think clearly and even cry if I needed to.

As I sat there, the worries of the day and all my money woes and stress from my recent divorce seemed to engulf me, and it wasn’t long until the tears came pouring down. The events from the past few months left me feeling completely hopeless, and I wondered how I let things get that bad. I wasn’t still in control of my life, and it bothered me. I remembered how hard it was to build the courage within myself to leave an abusive and unhealthy marriage and to start a new life for myself and my two children, but I still had not found the stability I had desperately needed.

I found myself praying to God in that tub. I prayed out loud to him. I needed some answers because I felt powerless. I needed help because I doubted myself. “Take it, take all of it!” I heard myself saying out loud. I was done! I found myself offering all my worries and doubts to God, and by the time I got out of that tub, I felt a usual feeling resolve that things would get better. I wasn’t sure if the good cry in that tub was enough for me to clear my mind, or whether it was the feeling that my prayers were being heard, I only know that by the time I left the bathroom, I felt accomplished.

The water was getting cold, and my son had been knocking on my door. I looked at the digital clock in my bedroom and it was only 6:50 pm. I decided to make it an early night and got into my pajamas. I spent the rest of my evening with the kids on the couch, laughing and watching T.V. until we all fell asleep. I woke up on the couch later with my son and daughter’s legs and arms strewn around and on top of me. I helped them both to bed and kissed them goodnight.

The morning came, and soon enough, I was back at my desk at work the next day. I turned to my phone and dialed my home number to check for my messages. I was a little surprised to find only one message on my voicemail. I listened to it, and then replayed it over and over again, not believing what I was hearing.

The caller did not say who he was. If it was a telemarketer or a bill collector, he didn’t say. At 6:45 pm, this stranger left this message on my phone:

“Good evening Julie. God bless you, and remember Jesus loves you.”

I did not recognize the man’s voice. He didn’t have an accent of any kind. I heard a muffled, background noise, but again no name or affiliation to any company. I only knew that I had never received a call like this from any telemarketer or bill collector before. I played the message over again in disbelief until I suddenly realized the time of the call. 6:45 pm would have been the same time I had finished my bath! As soon as I made that connection, I burst out laughing until I was in tears!

It wasn’t long until some of my co-workers circled around wondering what was going on with me. I was normally a very quiet person, who usually kept to herself. I explained to a few of them what had happened, and although they thought it was unbelievably strange, nice and even a little funny, most were a little skeptical of it being some sort of “divine intervention”. It didn’t matter to me if it was just some crazy coincidence, but to this day I refer the incident as my call from “Jesus”.

Of course, it could have been ANYONE who could have left that message on my phone. It could have been a guy named Joe trying to sell me a newspaper subscription or someone asking why my credit card bill was late. It really didn’t matter to me what he was selling or what his real name was. His call still meant the world to me. As I look back on that day, I still feel grateful. That message left on my phone was truly a message of hope that I desperately needed to hear during that time of my life.

The next day I got another call. My coworker, Glenda called me up and left another message. I heard, a pretend, deep sultry voice that said: “Hi Julie baby, this is Elvis, and I love you too.”

Jesus and Elvis in one week?! Wow, was I a lucky girl!

Not An Ordinary Day At the Mall.

True story, as told by a friend:

Sarah was headed for the mall in search of some peace of mind. Things were just getting too much, and she had to get out of the rut she felt she was in, and the loneliness was driving her insane. She grabbed her keys and threw them in her purse. The book she had promised herself that she was going to finish reading was sitting there on her nightstand and she impulsively threw it in her purse along with her keys. Taking a book to a shopping mall sounded a little crazy, but it didn’t matter to her at this point. Sarah had spent most of her week alone at home near the phone, and her apartment just was too empty! Sarah had the need to be around other people. She applied another coat of black cherry lipstick before heading out the door, slamming the door recklessly behind her.

It was a busy day at the mall for a Thursday, but Sarah surprisingly found a great parking spot in front of her favorite store. She exited her car and made a mad dash across the parking lot to the department store door, where a bearded man oddly seemed to be waiting for her, holding the door open. She thanked the kind man and went immediately towards the women’s shoes.

“Hello, Miss, can I help you find that shoe in your size?”

The young woman’s question startled Sarah so much that she almost dropped the beautiful leopard 3-inch pump she was holding. She had been eyeing the pair of open-toe sandals for a while now, but they were still not on sale. She still couldn’t justify paying $150 for a pair. Sarah turned to the salesgirl , and shook her head.

“Not today, but thank you.”

After a stroll through the sale rack of shoes, she didn’t find anything that held her interest, so she ventured off until she found herself in the women’s wear department going through the sale rack of dresses.

“Hello, can I help you anything today?” called out an older sales lady from her register.

“Just looking,” Sarah responded.

Sarah went on looking at each dress hanging there on the rack, searching for something appealing to the eye with little success, thinking to herself how odd it was to have already been asked by two completely different salespeople if she had needed help. Normally she would be in and out of the store, with little notice, almost feeling invisible, but today it seemed that all eyes were on her from the moment the man had stopped to hold the door for her into the store. She questioned herself and wondered what was different. Was it what she was wearing? Certainly, her blue jeans and red sweater didn’t scream out, a lady with incredible amounts of money to spend, but more like, single mom looking for a good sale.

Sarah moved from one rack of clothes to yet to another, leaving her just less impressed. Every piece of clothing seemed to look just as mediocre as the next, and the whole experience was proving to be fruitless. Perhaps going to the mall today wasn’t the best idea, she said to herself. Retail therapy seemed to always help her get out of a rut when she felt blue, but today she just wasn’t feeling it. She just wasn’t finding what she was looking for and doubted if she really knew what she trying to find in the first place. Her eyes soon were diverted to the exit of the store. The large glass windows that spilled into a busy food court seemed welcoming enough and the thought of a pretzel and a diet Coke sounded much more appealing than anything else around her.

Thank God I brought my book, Sarah said to herself as she juggled her pretzel and Coke from the pretzel shop. She spied a nice, empty couch near the center of the mall. At last, she could sit down somewhere, eat her pretzel and finally finish that book!

Despite the noise, she still managed to read a few chapters and finish her pretzel peacefully without interruption. Sarah looked up from her book to take a good look around her. She saw the children shouting from the play area, and the people at the tables in the food court, conversing and laughing amongst themselves. It was then that she noticed three individuals standing there near the burger place. Their backs were turned, and they were talking to each other, but seemed quite out of place. It was an older black gentleman in what looked like a very outdated dark suit, with two middle-aged looking white women standing near the burger place, empty-handed without a shopping bag or purse on their arms, looking seemingly lost or in search of someone.

Sarah then went back to her book, realizing minutes later that she had been reading the same paragraph at least three times. Her concentration was lost, and her eyes were beginning to feel tired. Feeling annoyed, Sarah put down her book to put it away in her purse, when she sensed someone standing near her. Looking up from her purse, she found the very same three odd-looking people she had noticed before standing now directly in front of her.

“Hello, good afternoon ma’m,” the older man said, looking down at Sarah, “Can I have a hug?”

The first thing Sarah noticed was the older man’s very old brown polyester suit, and the man’s toothy smile. The two women standing on either side of him were also smiling, both wearing flowered printed dresses. One woman had reading glasses sitting on the end of her nose, with her hair in a braid, and the other woman had curly hair, and with long bangs that fell white above her eyes.

Normally, Sarah would have felt compelled to immediately say no to man, or even get up and get away from these people altogether, but today Sarah felt strangely different. An unexplainable rush of warmth of compassion from these three people, and this man in particular, as she felt herself get up from the couch to give the stranger in the brown suit a hug.

“May I also have a hug?”

One of the other women, the one with curly hair standing next to the old man, extended her arms to Sarah. Sarah turned to the woman and embraced her as well.

Immediately afterward, the older man spoke to Sarah saying:

“I want you to know that everything is going to be alright.”

Sarah at that moment felt as though she had been in the middle of a dream. Of course, nothing about what had just happened seemed normal. She had never been asked for an embrace from strangers before in such a manner, nor had she ever experienced a feeling quite like this from anyone. Their embraces felt warm, deliberate, and sincere. For a moment this very odd meeting felt as though she had just been reunited with loved ones, rather than strangers.

Feeling somewhat embarrassed and confused, Sarah nodded at the old man, and quietly said thank you. She then quickly turned her back to the three as she nervously gathered her belongings to leave. She really didn’t know what to say more to the three, or what she should do, but remembered to turn back to at least say goodbye, but when she did they were no longer there standing in front of her. She proceeded to look all around to see where they had vanished. Had they sat down at a table at the food court or had they headed to another store? Sarah wondered to herself how they had walked away so quickly. They seemed to have left as quickly as they had appeared to her; almost as if they had disappeared in thin air.

Feeling still stunned from her strange encounter, Sarah quickly got herself away from the food court, making a mad dash to the nearest exit. She made her way through the department store that she had been in earlier, rushing past the racks of clothing, and shoes to the entrance door. There was no one holding the door for her this time, nor did anyone seem to notice Sarah. She was suddenly back being invisible, sprinting through the exit, rushing across the street, and into the parking lot. Sarah pulled out the keys and quickly got inside of her car where she spent the next 10 minutes behind the steering wheel sobbing.

Sarah finally found what she had been shopping for.

Too Ugly

A few years back I was asked to help out with my 20th-year high school reunion. Having never really moved away from my hometown, word must have got out that I would possibly be of some help in finding some of the “lost alumni” missing from the registry list.

I got a call from the former student body president and homecoming queen of our graduating class. Let’s call her, Jessica. I first met Jessica in the 6th grade. She had just moved into a new school district and basically did not know anyone. She was a pretty girl, with long dark curly hair, and blue eyes; the kind of girl you would assume one day belonging to a more popular crowd, but until then, she sat next to me on the bench waiting for her turn at four square and tetherball. In between games, we would talk to each other, and I would listen to her complain about how bored she was and how she missed her friends at her old school. She wanted to be liked and didn’t understand why she wasn’t yet accepted by the popular kids. Eventually, as predicted, the “popular kids” whisked her away from her spot next to me on the bench. After that, we really didn’t talk to each other until many years later.

“Julie, it’s been so long!” Jessica exclaimed over the phone, “I’m so glad you are willing to help me with this project!”

The phone call suddenly sparked a newly kindled relationship, and we found ourselves in constant contact for weeks with each other. Jessica’s husband had set up an impressive contact list that we both could access and work from. Right off the bat, I was able to locate a number of people from the lost alumni list. Some had never left town, and a few were sadly already deceased.

I did not mention or ask Jessica as to why I hadn’t been notified of any past reunions. My name was clearly not on the “lost alumni” list, yet I didn’t remember ever being invited to the 5th or even 10th-year reunion. Apparently, the former student body of a graduating class takes turns in the organizing of each reunion. Jessica was the only person of the student body that actually saw my name and remembered me, and it was the only reason why I said that I would help her.

I was not really much involved in many social extracurricular activities in high school, nor would I’ve considered myself as anyone remotely popular. I hung out with only a small circle of friends (mostly girls) with whom I had relatively kept in touch with only a few random notes on social media, or a yearly Christmas card. In high school, we were considered good students who belonged to the Girls Honor Society and jazz band. We went to the football games, talked about our crushes, and some of us went to dances and we did other normal teenage things, but for the most part, we sat on the sidelines waiting for our four years of high school be to be done and over with. Some of us yearned to start college, while I and others just wanted to get out of there.

The only social run-ins with others other than my friends, outside of high school consisted of only rare and random encounters in grocery stores, or lines at banks, church, or other public places, and most of these interactions involved nothing more than an obligatory nod of recognition if anything. I lived in a relatively small town and graduated high school with the same people who I started kindergarten with. There were a few people that I knew of that worked in the same large county building as I did, and there were others who would appear at my window to pay a traffic ticket. I would read about some of them in the local newspaper or hear about them on the news. If anyone died, I would eventually hear about it by word of mouth. I knew of them, and for the most part, who knows if they knew of me.

As the weeks past, Jessica and I were getting close to the date of the reunion with only a few people left on the list waiting to be found. We found other classmates to volunteer with other arrangements for the reunion, and everything seemed to be progressing well. One afternoon Jessica called me with what she called, “exciting news”.

“I just got off the phone with Derek Dubeck,” Jessica joyfully tells me, “Remember him, Julie? We had a really good conversation.”

Derek Dubeck; of course, I remembered him. How could anyone not remember that guy? He was one of the most popular kids in school, and I couldn’t stand him; I actually loathed his memory.

Of course, Jessica was taken back by my lack of enthusiasm in regards to her phone call with Derek. I guess she was confused as to why I wasn’t more excited. Of course, I doubted that she had anything bad to say about the guy. Why would she? Derek was the most popular boy in elementary and middle school, and in high school, he was an all-star athlete, handsome and intelligent, and part of the homecoming court. He may have been Jessica’s escort at homecoming, but to me, he was a part of a childhood memory that I couldn’t shake off. She had no idea how I considered Derek of being nothing but a bully.

I recounted to Jessica about an afternoon back in the 6th grade. I was part of a group of classmates working on some kind of project, and Derek was chosen as the “leader” of our group. I don’t remember what the project was about and what exactly I was doing, but I was working on something quietly on my own while listening to Derek and some others in the group who were talking.

Derek was having a discussion with a few other boys and the conversation had nothing to do with the project but rather about girls in our class. Derek apparently had very strong feelings of who were pretty and those who weren’t. When you hear the most popular boy in the 6th-grade rate your looks in front of others, and goes on to label you as “not pretty enough” you just don’t forget hearing that conversation.

“Well, we all know that Julie won’t get married,” Derek exclaimed, “She is too fat and ugly for anyone to want to marry her.”

I remember clearly, at that moment when my 12-year-old self just wanted to disappear. I was sitting there at a table only feet away from Derek when he announced this to everyone. His cruelty towards me didn’t seem to phase him a bit, and he said it out loud in front of me as if I was invisible. I was left sitting there alone the remainder of the time until the bell rang, red-faced, holding back tears, looking down at the paper I had been writing on, pretending to have not heard a word of what Derek said. I was embarrassed and afraid to say anything that would bring more attention to myself, so I sat there in silence. No one sitting near me said a word in my defense, nor did they bother to speak to me.

Why I chose to tell Jessica this story, I really don’t know. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel sorry for me. Maybe it was because I wanted to show her another side of her “long lost friend” or maybe I felt it was about time to give my 12-year-old self a voice after all these years.

After a moment of silence on the other end of the line, Jessica responded.

“Julie, that is just horrible,” Jessica carried on the phone, “I’m really sorry to hear that Derek was so mean to you. I had no idea he was that way! You should really talk to him and tell him how he made you feel!”

I laughed out loud at Jessica’s response and went on to tell her that I doubted if he even remembered me. I had seen him a number of times around the workplace because he was an attorney, and I knew people who had worked with him, and I had seen him at a number of Christmas parties in which there were no indications from him that he knew the slightest idea of who I was. I even went out of my way to throw him a dirty look or two, but only the women he had on his arm ever saw me do this, and I’m sure I left them wondering. Even after a few drinks, did I have have the nerve to walk up to him and tell him what he had said to me, and if he did remember who I was, I really didn’t want him to give him the satisfaction knowing that his words still apparently effected me after all those years.

“You know Julie,” Jessica responded, “the funny thing is, Derek never got married. He told me that he regrets never finding the right girl to spend his life with, and he really seemed sincere about that.”

Jessica and I then spoke a laughed about the irony of it all for a moment, until our conversation soon went back to the subject of the reunion and it’s ongoing preparations. I would be lying if I told you that I didn’t get a little satisfaction on knowing that Derek, the “foxiest” boy in the 6th grade had yet to find his “beautiful” wife. He seemed to have everything going for him. Even with the great career, intelligence and looks he was still “missing” something. Interestingly enough, he somehow still managed to build a boulder of self-esteem issues and insecurities which I chose to carry and endure for the most part of my young life. How can one opinion of a 12-year-old boy be so destructive? Why did I allow that to happen and why did it still upset me?

When I look back, I remember the other men that have walked in and out of my life with the same destructive pattern. I married my first real boyfriend at the age of 19. I was in love, but apparently didn’t know what I was doing, nor did I know the man that I married very well. My first love turned out to be an abusive man, both mentally, verbally and sometimes turned physical. Anything that went wrong in the relationship was always my fault. No matter, what I said, or did, in his eyes, it seemed I was never “good enough”. I found myself hiding and covering his behavior from friends and loved ones, always believing that I was at fault for every outburst of his Dr. Jekel/Dr. Hyde behavior.

In the words of my ex-husband, I would be “beautiful” if I could only “lose 20 pounds”. However, when I did lose the weight, it only caused more speculations as to why I was bettering myself, and I was immediately accused of cheating on him. Of course, I wasn’t the one cheating and after going to marriage counseling (which was the greatest decision of my life, even if it meant going alone), it was discovered that he had been meeting a multitude of other women via the internet.

Once the ex-husband became the ex-husband, I remained single for a year before I started dating again. I never really dated anyone before my first husband who I had been married to for 12 long years, so nothing really prepared me for what I was stepping into. Still, with that being said, living single proved to be a true gift to me. I learned my worth, and how to forgive myself for staying in an unhealthy marriage for so long. Along with the guilt of exposing my own two young children to all of the madness, there is a lot a self-forgiving that needed to be done. I also had to learn acceptance of who I was. I needed to truly love and accept the person I was before I could find anyone else. Fortunately, from the dark fathom sea of “available fish” out there, I got lucky and eventually met someone who loved me for who I was.

Perhaps all this 6th-grade drama should now be considered as only water under the bridge. It may be time to forgive that 12-year-old boy bully. Today, his picture came up on my “People I May Know” feed on Facebook. As I look through his social media feed on his Facebook page, I find mostly just photos of his dog. As a dog lover myself, how can I hold a grudge on anyone who loves his dog? Not only do I have a dog, but I also have a loving husband, great kids, and even a beautiful grandchild. I’m sure grown-up Derek has had his own successes and loves to be thankful for, and who am I to determine or question what he deserves in life? I’m no longer that 12-year-old girl who is looking for his approval, and there is no room in my life for resentment towards him or anyone else. But, yes-karma can be a bitch, and ugly, but life is beautiful.