I recently wrote a letter out to everyone on my email contacts list, as a sign of apology. I decided to post it on here.
------------------------------------------------
To everyone who will read this,

It was eight years ago that I moved to the all but forgotten town of Bicknell, Indiana. We had lost our home, lost almost everything that we used to have, and lost our very will to go on another day.
I spent the first nine years of my life unsure what my life amounted to. Imagine that. A nine-year-old contemplating what his life meant, what it was worth. Can you really picture what that was like? I was unsure if what I had was worth living for.
I never knew my father. I never really questioned the fact, simply ignoring the pain it brought. I looked at everyone's else's father, and wanted that. I wanted a dad to call my own, to love, to be loved by.
And then, we moved here. My Grandpa, a man I am proud to call my family, was a bitter, old man who hardly knew the Lord. Yet, it was his actions that led me to find Jesus, and for that, I will remember that man with the highest respect a man can give to someone else.
I was free! I had hope! For the first time in nine years there was a reason to live! I no longer wanted to kill myself. I had a Father who loved me! Praise God, he loved me, the lonely nine-year-old who wanted a friend so desperately!
I love Him so much. He is my life, my reason to live, my reason to go on every single day. But I never really knew Him.
I spent quite a few years stumbling by, never seeking him out. I thought I had done all that I needed to do. I believed that was all I was required to do.
I met many people. So many lives intertwined with my own, and I let them go by without so much as a whisper of Christ. They came, and they went, no better than when they arrived.
I have claimed to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus. I have silently shouted those words out to those I felt comfortable enough to tell, until I had my own little group, and I let myself be satisfied with that.
I'm sorry. To anyone who will read this, forgive me! I have never been the example our Lord has wanted me to be, and I'm so sorry. He wants the best for everyone, for absoultely every person on the face of this planet. He loves all of them, not just a few, as I have done.
I'm sorry for never telling any of you how glorious God is. He has changed my life! He has blessed me with so much! I could spend days crying to you how magnificent He is, and how much He has done, and still never be done!
I was diagnosed with Tourettes Sydnrome, an "illness" that has no cure but drugs. It causes the person to have unctronollable movements and noises. It makes them yell obscenities and other offensive things to those who have the severe version of Tourettes. I was told I would have them forever.
I was diagnosed with asthma. I would never be able to run and play like the other kids. It was only treatable by an inhaler. That was it. No God or amount of medicine would fully treat it.
The meager pills I was given to take the edge off of it ended up making my body take on and keep weight, until my weight become the very thing countless students at a school tormented me for, until I again wanted to kill myself.
I wasn't even supposed to be born. My cord got twisted into a knot, and I should have starved to death.
I shouldn't be alive.
I shouldn't be the way I am today.
Yet God saved me! He has redeemed me! He has given me hope, light, and a wondrous near body! The Tourettes are gone! My asthma has disappeared! I am losing weight! I am alive and healthy!
He has fixed me! HE HAS GIVEN ME A NEW LIFE!!
No doctor, no pill, no religion, no law, nothing could make me a normal being. There was no cure for the problems I had.
And God defied man, and proved even I could be made whole. My Lord, my Christ, has filled me with limitless joys.
He can be yours, too! He's right there, waiting, eager for you to just look up and see him at last! All you have to do is look to him, and He will make everything all better again! Just cry out to Him, and He will come to you with arms wide open!
I swear to you that he can fix any problem you have, anything! No more sickness! No more sorrow! No more anything but love and life and joy!
He can make you whole.
I love you, all of you, for being my friends, my family. Now I tell all of you this so that you, too, can know that He loves you, and is waiting.
God Bless You All,
Jake
----------------------------------------------
Now, I must tell you that I worded it a bit obscurely, because the way I wrote it confused my father. Here is what he said.
---------------------------------------------
one thing i thought i woukd point out is a TINY flaw in your story, where you say you never knew your father before you went to bicknell; jenita and i had you down to our house several times in that period. you always acted uncomfortable, wanting to call your mom and go home, were always quiet and your uncomfort made everybody else uncomfortable. we {jenita and i)made an effort to make you a part of the family; that effort was not returned, and as the saying goes, it takes two, a two way road. to me this is your way of justifying your decision to leave school behind and go traveling, with the reasoning behind it that youre "spreading the word." i believe ive heard enough of your so called sad "feel sorry for me" story. when you are jobless , or can only get a job at burger king at the age of fourty, im not gonna feel sorry for you, you are old enough to start thinking a little more practical and reasonably at this point. so sorry that everybody ELSE in the world is responsible for all your "misery"! lol then again, maybe if you spend a little time in a third world country and see how bad some of those folks have it, it might give you some perspective. good luck!
----------------------------------------
After I received this, I wrote back to everyone again with my apologies for making it sound different than what I intended it to be. This is what I said:
-----------------------------------------
To my father: Well, I appreciate your opinion. I admit that I could have worded that a bit better, but I wasn't trying to tell everyone that my father abandoned me or shunned me. I was simply stating that I had issues growing up when it came to the "father" thing. I apologize for making it sound like I hated you. I don't. I love you with all my heart, because you are my father, the man who brought me into this world. You took me in, and did your best with a kid when you never really took care of kids before that. What you did was nothing short of miraculous. For that, you have my utmost respect.
To everyone else: Again, sorry for making it seem like I hated my father and never knew him. To all who read this, I made a mistake. I did not deliberately try to make a point out of not having a father, but was simply expressing that I didn't know mine too well. Afterall, is a nine-year-old expected to fall head over heels the moment he meets the man who helped gave birth to him? I was too young to understand everything that went on. My earlier memories of my biological father is going to his mother's house and seeing everyone, greeted by more love and affection than I knew how to deal with.
I am not writing this to "justify" or "vindicate" my actions and decisions, but to explain my mistake in not clarifying a few details. I knew of my dad before going to Bicknell, but at the time, I was too young to fully comprehend the situations. My story was to point out what led me to Christ, not to garner pity from all who read this.
My father and stepmother are two of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. They have three kids, with another on the way, and the three range from three to almost ten. The patience necessary for raising children this young is astronomical, and my dad and stepmother have astounded me by having such patience.
So, for the third and final time, I ask forgiveness when it comes to the part regarding my father. I am truly sorry, and ask that you forgive me for making it seem like something it wasn't.
I love my father, but my Heavenly Father is who I love the most, and that is why I wrote what I wrote. Admittedly, I should have straightened it all out afterwards, but I am human, and to err is human. Expecting anything more of me is unhumane.
God Bless You All,
Jake
---------------------------------------------------------

I hope you all like this. I sincerely seek your forgiveness for not standing up for what I believe and proclaiming it to the world. No one can claim that they believe in something if they are not willing to stand up for it, and to die for it.
The only reason I tell you this is because I'm leaving DeviantArt. I'm tired of the flood of inappropriate images and stories. I am sick of all the gratutious sexual references and pictures I see just when I sign on. I removed all of my Deviations, for I feel the Lors is leading me to becoming a writer, and I don't want stories I intend to expand to be on here.
Good luck to you all. Thanks for talking to me.