There are things that occur while we are children that so profoundly affect our lives that what we might have been will never be known. This is one of those stories.

In the later part of 1972, I moved from a metropolis on the East Coast to a tiny swampy hamlet in Southwest Michigan. Shortly after my arrival I became acquainted with a boy named Tim.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t want to be friends with Tim. It was the natural order of geriatric Protestant thinking that automatically determined since my grandparents and Tim’s parents attended the same church, he must be a good child. From that point on we were forced to spend time together because it was only logical (to them) that God wanted us to be friends. I’ve always believed that it had more to do...

Please subscribe to keep reading.