About Mike

Mike’s Story (in two parts)

The Physical:

I will tell my story in two parts, the physical and the spiritual. We see the physical; we perceive the spiritual. The two parts continually interacting with each other are the two components that make up a single life. Taken together, they are the teaching method used by the Bible.

I was born May 6, 1941 in Oak Park, Illinois. That had been more recently than the introduction of writing onto the human stage, but just barely. Our family had lived within a short walk from the Brookfield Zoo. I am told that, as a baby, my mother took me there weekly. Evidently, we would go there to watch the people watching the monkeys. I don’t remember it. Lately, I find that I remember very little. I must have been born that way since I have no recollection of the Zoo, at all.

In my teen years, I had taken a part time job in a secular music store, and returned to that job whenever I was in town. While I had no musical aptitude, music has been a major part of my life and eventually became a factor in my conversion. In my old age, rarely does a day go by that I fail to enjoy  music in some way.

I attended Beloit College, majoring in Anthropology and minoring in Geology. After over sixty years, I have not lost interest in those fields. That seems a bit strange since I was anything but a student during my college years. While I was not a party animal, I frittered away my college years and graduated at the very bottom of my class.

Sixty years later, my home has eight completely full bookcases. Why I rarely opened one in college is a mystery to me. After my conversion, I became a road salesman in the Christian booksellers industry (which was thriving at that time). I gradually moved from ignoring books in college to reading books at home, to accumulating them in bookcases, eventually to selling books on the road, and in my old age, to writing them. Today, I have written three books that have been published and a forth is soon to be released. “Finding the Invisible God” will probably become available in November of 2025.

The spiritual

I am presenting the Physical and the Spiritual as if they have been two separate parts my life. We live in two distinct worlds and need to develop an understanding of the way they are found interacting. Always, God has His part and man has his. The two are inseparable.

I normally tell those who are interested that I was “saved” and baptized on January 2, 1971 in a church service in Park Forest South, Illinois. Truth be known, that was the date that I became serious with the Lord.

God has been active in my life beginning before I was even conceived. My mother had thought she was unable to have children. In desperation, she made a promise to the Lord telling Him that if she was able to conceive, she would give the child to the Lord. I was the result.

I remember, as a small boy, my grandmother reading Bible stories to me while on a swing under a large Weeping Willow in her yard in Tama, Ohio. While she never lived to see me truly enter God’s kingdom, she had prayed for me until the day she left this earth. Next, when I was twelve, I was sent to a “confirmation” class in our church.  At the completion of that training, all in attendance said a prayer of commitment to the Lord that I  actually felt. Never-the-less, at that moment, I still wasn’t quite ready to give myself completely to God. However, He honored my prayer even though I wasn’t entirely there yet.

As a young adult, my late wife of fifty one years asked me to go to a gospel concert. I had always enjoyed music and was looking for a way to do something with her anyway and I went. During their set, bass singer London Parris of the Blackwood Brothers quartet broke into tears while giving a testimony. That made no sense to me. Why would someone with a voice so low be in tears right on stage (I always took particular note of the bass)? I have no idea what he said that day, but I came under conviction at that moment. I actually gave my heart to the Lord a month or two later in a church service.

God has been leading me through a never ending process of change. I was not the baby I might have been without my mothers desperate plea to the Lord. I was not the small boy I might have been without the prayer of my grandmother and I became a different youth during the confirmation classes in my church. However, I was changed, big time, when listening to the testimony of London Parris.

Even today, God continues to mould me into the person He has progressively been leading leading me to become. Even now, at eighty four, God continues to change me. The only difference is that today, I am more open to it. I have finally become willing to  ask the Lord what He has for me today. On an even better day, I might even respond to what He has for me.

God is moving in your life, as well

What God has for you is known only to Him. He has a plan for your life and you may have no idea where He is taking you. It’s okay. None of us ever seem to end up where our own expectations or plans would have  taken us. You don’t have to understand; you only need to be willing to allow God to bring you to the place He has for you and only you. You are special.