Previous Challenge Entry (Level 1 – Beginner)
Topic: Obedience (01/31/05)
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TITLE: Disobedience Begets Obedience | Previous Challenge Entry
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02/03/05 -
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I learned early in life two basic natural laws: For every action there is equal reaction and for every situation there is an equal opposite. This first came home to me when I enlisted in the Marine Corps on December 11th 1941. I defied the expressed orders of my mother about going into the service at the tender age of seventeen. All of my arguments of loyalty to country – all the other guys are going – I old for my age, fell on deaf ears, but I finagled a permission slip from my aunt, who was a notary public, and never looked at what I had given her to notarize. The rest is moot since I enlisted and told my mother after-the-fact. After a few tears and angry words she gave her blessing.
As the bus delivered us at the gate at Parris Island, South Carolina, the biggest and meanest drill instructor in the Corps gave us the most frightening welcome you can imagine. “Scum, when you came through that gate you left democracy behind you; you don’t elect those who will lead you; you don’t air you displeasures about anything. Your only mission in life is to obey and you do that on the double.”
On this December day I experienced the opposite of my disobedience to a life of total obedience. This is by no means the first time I sowed disobedience, and reaped obedience. I learned from my first day in parochial school that I owed total obedience to God and if I should slide from this obedience God would snatch me back by the hair of the head, of course He always used his handmaidens, the nuns, my mother or my grandmother to perform this task. Another lesson in obedience was when I had to enumerate and describe my weekly sins, in the confessional. It was dark and the curtain was drawn, but I knew that the priest could see me; if I came back too often or my list too long he would add on another ten “Hail Marys” or maybe even a complete rosary. The results of these weekly meetings enforced that obedience to God and His laws was the only road to travel.
The church, though not the one with nuns and priest, has always been a large part of my life. And obedience to laws and rules established by the bible and the local canons have directed my spiritual and religious life, but it hasn’t always directed my work or social life and there I occasionally fell into disobedient ways, only to end up ashamed and repentant. Years have passed since those lessons, but more than occasionally I have to relearn the lesson that disobedience begets obedience, only now when I forget that God is my savior and teacher it is with great joy that I can return to be that obedient son of God and the awe filled brother of Jesus Christ.
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suffered". Thanks for sharing your testimony.
God bless,