Prince George

A couple years later we moved to Prince George. Our lives were rich and full. Uncle Orville got dad a job at the sawmill where he was able to earn his fourth class engineering ticket. Now we could afford our own four-room house with a build out for a future bathroom.

There was a pump in the kitchen and a gas cooker that mom used to heat up the bath water. Saturday night was bath night, whether we needed it or not. Because I was the cutest and the youngest, I got to bathe first. Being first meant I got the clean water. By the time it was dad’s turn the water was so muddy that he some times went without. Saturday night, that was the night when all of the preparations for Sunday happened. As I just mentioned, we all got baths, then our shoes were shined and our clothes mended. Sunday was church day, the highlight of the week!

In the early summer dad would buy a large block of ice and we would dig a deep hole in the back yard and bury the ice with wood shavings from the sawmill and on hot summer days we would dig up large chunks and use it in our new ice cream maker. It was the best of times.

One-day dad took us all down to the Frazer River for a swim. Byron made me a tin can with holes in one end so when you filled it up, the water would come out of the bottom like a shower. The current in the river was running pretty fast and all of a sudden the can was swept away from me into the deeper water. When Byron saw me crying, he decided to go out after it and before he knew it he was in over his head fighting for his life against the current. Ruth saw him struggling and dove in after him. Now both of them were in over their heads and loosing their struggle against the current. Thankfully two older experienced swimmers saw what was happening from the shore line and went in after them and pulled them to safety.

But nobody rescued my tin can. It was overall a very sad summer day.

---

Chapter One - The Beginning

Mom and Dad

I was prophetically birthed into this new and amazing world. Mom and dad already had three beautiful children and one day in mid October, before my dad left home for his winter stint in the one room school house some where deep inside northern British Columbia, he and mom made a special appointment. It went well. He had to make it quick because winter was fast approaching.

I can’t imagine how lonely that must have been, winter that is in the interior of British Columbia, living in the basement of the one room schoolhouse paid for by Canadian tax dollars to provide a grade school education for the Indian tribes children in that region. His job was to keep the fires burning and to pass on the fundamentals of arithmetic and spelling and science, a full and rounded out education.

My dad was the smartest man I knew. He knew every constellation in the night sky, every bird’s song in the forest and could name every tree. “This is the mighty Douglas Fir tree Lloyd” He’d say. Yeah, that’s how it happened. Me. I am the direct result of a very romantic father who believed God had told him to have one more child and to dedicate him to the Lord for the “ministry”. And so one early fall night dad obeyed.

When he came home in the spring, freshly shaven and gaunt with hunger, I was sitting there waiting for him. What a day of rejoicing that was. And his name shall be Lloyd, hmmm, Lloyd as in Lloyd’s of London, or just maybe my uncle Lloyd. His middle name will be Douglas, after the mighty fir. And here I am Lloyd Douglas Clark, an amazing miracle in all of my Glory.

My birth mother was even more amazing. She had been the first in her family to get the Holy Ghost. It was the early nineteen hundreds and the Holy Ghost was being poured out all over America and He had even made His way up to Canada as well. I was told it started in Azusa St California – the Holy Ghost Revival. Mums family had been solid up standing members of the now post revivalist, respected, local Methodist Church. When the Holy Ghost was poured out, people would do some very strange and wonderful things and the Methodists would have none of it. In fact they were the first to throw the tomatoes and to call the Pentecostals fanatics, and Holy Rollers. Fanatics and Holy Rollers they were and they began to wear the title with pride and boldness. As I said Ruby was the first of her family, but before long, her whole family became holy rollers.

Three of her brothers ended up as preachers and she would not be intimidated by those who tried to convince her that God did not approve of women preachers. Thankfully there were already role models for her to emulate, Aimee Semple McPherson being among the most recognized. So Ruby and a friend hit the road and were soon traveling the country of Canada preaching wherever God would open doors which was primarily on Indian reservations. She would grab her guitar and sing and dance until the Holy Ghost would fall and people would come running to the alter wanting the anointing that she was carrying. Grandma tells that when she would return home her shoes would be warn flat with cardboard for in soles and her clothing had to be burned in the pot belly stove to get rid of the lice and fleas.

My dad was turning forty, still single, working on a farm when one day he was invited to a revival on an Indian reservation where two young women were headlining. That was how they met and some how they got married and began to have babies. Mom settled down to a local pastorate in Fort St. John BC. And dad taught school to support the new and quickly growing family. Four in total. Ruth was first, then Byron and Bob and finally little Lloydy boy me.

My Dog Molly

“Not Carloe again!”I was tired of the name Carloe…

Dad had come up with the name the first time around. The pup was so cute and we couldn’t come up with a name that stuck until dad called out “Carloe” after one of his child hood pets. I always wondered why he called his dog Carlo because they had few cars in those days.

About a week later Carloe was prophetically hit by a car in the front of our home. She died as we all stood around her. I’d never seen anything like that before and the shock about ripped my heart out. Carloe was gone.

A few days later another pup appeared and again we were stumped for a name. Dad called out “Carloe” and again it stuck. Carloe the 2nd. It wasn’t but a month or so and Carloe the 2^nd was also struck by a car and didn’t survive.

It was a few dead Carloes later when a friend of mine offered me a pup. “No dad, his name isn’t Carloe.” It was past time to change the name. Besides she didn’t look any thing like a Carloe. She was a black longhaired mutt with some cocker and who knows what else. I named her a good dog name. “Molly, that’s her name Dad, Molly.” I had my own dog and couldn’t be happier.

By the time Molly came along I was probably ten or so and had experienced my share of misfortune with pets. You see, it wasn’t just a bunch of dead carloe’s, I had watched dad ring the kittens’ necks, and chop off the hen’s heads. We watched our friend Bud shoot one of our cats. When the last Carloe got distemper, Byron, sticking with the car theme, tried to asphyxiate the dog in his Buick. He rigged the exhaust so it would blow back into the car and the dog eventually kicked the bucket. Byron thought it would be the most humane way to die.

And that’s when I decided that the most humane way to die would be of some thing no one has to watch. So the next time we had to practice pet euthanasia with some of the cats, we decided to put them in a bag of rocks and throw them in the river. That gave me bad dreams also.

By the time we had to put Molly to sleep, we were all out of ideas. She was foaming at the mouth now and dad said she had a temper or something and felt it was too dangerous to have her around the house any more. Dad said he’d take care of her and I went off to school.

It had snowed hard all night and the back yard had a fresh 12 inches. I looked forward to playing fox and goose and making angels in the snow when school was over, but when I got home the whole back yard was red with the blood of Molly. She had moved as our neighbor took aim and had been grazed with the bullet and then ran crazed around the back yard until she bled herself to death.

From then on I never wanted another dog. I couldn’t imagine how our neighbor’s dogs lived such long graceful lives and all of ours had such horrible endings. Only our mother calico mother cat named Kitty managed to live a long life. It must have been in the name.

The Cult, I mean club

Have you ever been a part of a club? It’s great, especially once you are in – an insider. There are special favors for the special ones and punishments for the ones who aren’t as precious. We had a club. We were also religious and in my experience religion and clubs can be a terrible mix. We had some very important rules like no smoking, unless it was grass or maple leaves rolled in brown paper and we were all in it together. No lying, no filthy stories or jokes and no swearing.

Now swearing was the worst offence. Swearing was like, well it was like matches to gasoline. We were Christians - from birth - and as such never heard a fowl word come out of our mothers or fathers mouths. They were saints of the most High God. I used to think they didn’t know any swear words until the day we came home from school and were coughing into our hands “Kuhn, Kuhn, snicker, snicker”. My mother, who wore her hair in a bun and had a very meek and mild temperament, understood what we were trying to say and immediately put a stop to it. Surprise! Surprise! Of course, we had no idea what we were trying to say. She had to let us in on it. We learned that day that we Christians, never swore!

Our friend from out in the country had a swearing problem and yet really wanted to be a part of our cult, I mean club. We did some pretty cool things like float rafts down the Thames river in flood stage, and put firecrackers in frogs mouths, and build forts, and go carts, and have camp fires with great story telling. His parents were alcoholics and swore like bloody what do you call its. The rule was that if you swore we would pull down your pants and brand your bum. Needless to say some where in the country is a guy about my age with a big red scar on his behind. He swore that day like a bloody …sailor and then was excommunicated . We weren’t having any of that in our club. We were a Christian club with rules

Now some times Playboy magazines appeared suspiciously in our club and that was always by some kind of miracle. They had the most beautiful pictures in them that could be imagined. Actually very little was left to the imagination. Little by little the tenants of faith were being watered down and corruption was setting in. We would find extreme pleasure in the little things of life like hiding in the bushes and waiting for the car brakes to squeal as hand full’s of stones would be thrown in the air and come pelting down across the hoods of the cars. I remember the pleasure we found in sitting high up in our perch in the dormer of our attic shooting kids in the bum with our bb guns as they walked past the front of our house. Or the BB gun fights we would have in the fields behind our house. We knew all of the bible stories, but some how the fact that we were Christians didn’t seem to impact many of our decisions. Or maybe we liked some of those bible stories too much and we were game for a reenactment.

One day on our way home from church Bob and I decided to climb up on the roof of the store fronts on Main St over looking the sidewalk below. It was great fun as we rolled up large snowballs and lobbed them onto the heads of unsuspecting window shoppers. We heard a noise and decided we needed to call it a day but on our way to the back alley below a man who lived up in the apartments above the stores caught me by the arm as I was making my exit. Bob had escaped and was now yelling at me “Lloyd, don’t look him in the eye”: Hide your face” I had no idea why that was important. He told me later it was so the man could not give a description of us to the police. Bob was my bigger brother and he was looking out for me. I was able to shake free and while we ran home, the man ran to the police department. We hid in the bushes all the way home as the police cars went up and down the streets shining their spotlights.

Bob and Shopping for a suite

My summer work had yielded the $120.00 it had promised and my biceps had grown at least an inch. The view in the mirror was tanned and taunt and getting handsomer and handsomer...plus my mind had been occupied every minute of every day. It had, over all, been a great summer.

The $120 was more money than I had ever earned. It should be enough for a suit. Yes, that’s what I really wanted, a suit. Bob offered to take me to London, the closest big city, to go suit shopping. Bobs car was a 1955 Ford and Bob thought it made for a good street racer. As a result, Bob’s car burned as much oil as it did gas. Black smoke would billow so thick out of the tailpipe, the kind that’s responsible for the Global warming we’ve been hearing about. It got so bad that he would ask for the used oil at the gas station. It was a lot easier on his wallet.

On our way to London, we got to pretending that our car was a get away car with a smoke screen hiding any would be trackers. There was certainly plenty of smoke. . Bob wasn’t speeding as usual. He had said he wanted to take it easy for a change and we were Sunday driving like as if we going to church . As we were driving through Brights Grove, I noticed a guy walking along the side of the road who seemed to find us quite amusing. As we passed by I pointed him out to Bob. “He thinks we have a get away car Bob”. Bob turned in his seat to get a good look just as we were rounding the curve. All I remember was seeing a shiny new 1965 Buick chrome grill and then darkness, complete darkness. Apparently I wandered around outside of the car but I couldn’t see - at the time I vaguely remember thinking some one had pulled the plug on the lights. Somebody laid me down on a blanket and I lay there wondered what was taking the ambulance so long.

The next day in the hospital Bob came by with a big grin and his front tooth missing and passed me a mirror so I could see my damages. This was better than Halloween. My forehead had been completely torn off and sewn hurriedly back together. My handsome face was bruised beyond recognition. It was covered with the longest criss-cross of stitches I had ever seen, The doctor had tried to pull the gaping cuts back together. No wonder it had gotten so dark. The skin from my forehead had fallen over my eyes after going through the windshield.

I found out later that my doctor had died after sewing me up. The new Doctor came by in the morning and when he first saw me he had such a look of astonishment on his face. He had never seen such a poor patch job. Bob had a great sense of humor and from then on nicknamed me scarface.

My brother Byron

Byron was my older brother… still is. He was the oldest of us boys and mom’s death messed with his head some. She was worried about Byron. She felt he would have special challenges ahead and both Ruby and Eva spent a lot of time on their knees for him. It is a good thing they did.

He was a loner but I don’t think it was by choice. Something was eating at him. He needed to think original thoughts and take roads no one ever traveled. This only made life lonelier.

One of my favorite Byron stories that best illustrates both the need for prayer and answered prayers happened shortly after he left home. He moved out west by himself a couple of years after high school and was traveling along one evening on a lonely winding road through the mountains. He noticed a young native lad with his thumb out and screeched to a stop. The lad hesitantly jumped into the car. “Come on in son, I’ll give you a ride.” The young man had no idea of the “ride” potential stored up in Byron. Not being a rules kind of guy, Byron hit the gas throwing the young lad back in his seat. “Nothing is more fun than a ride in a race car through the mountains,” Byron thought to himself. There were straps in the Buick LeSabre, that were seldom worn but the young man understanding the gravity of the situation quickly employed his. He was in for the ride of his life.

Byron looked over at him as he dug his fingers into the leather on the seats. It was a nice car, power windows, power everything and especially power under the hood. “How’s it going?” he asked the young lad. The boy seemed to have a stuttering problem and Byron knew the cure. Fear is a great motivator. - fear of hell, fear of dying. “Son, Do you know Jesus?” Still all he got was stuttering. “You know he died for you. When you stand before the pearly gates, do you know the password? Son, it’s Jesus. Do you want to meet him?” The young man seemed to be having trouble speaking and his eyes were practically bugging out of his head. He was also shaking uncontrollably.

There was no traffic to speak of and Byron hit the pedal screaming around the curves with little to no concern for oncoming traffic. It was dark now. The thought of wildlife on the road didn’t even cross his mind until he rounded another curve and there she was, standing in the middle of the road, looking down her long nose with a similar look to the one on the lads face. He hit the moose dead on at about seventy miles per hour. The last thing he remembered was seeing the young lad scrambling to get out of the car and running off into the darkness.

The LeSabre was totaled and the miracle of the story was the result of mothers’ prayer’s no doubt. The moose lost its hooves in the middle of the road, totaled the front end of the car, flew over the cab and landed on the back trunk. Thankfully Byron was speeding or he might never have lived to tell the story. There was no sight of the young lad to get his version of the story. We assume he met Jesus and that Byron was the instrument of grace in his heart that night. No telling though.

In the beginning

Where do I start?

I could go back to the story behind the Clark Story, way back to Adam and Eve or even further back to a place far away, long ago even before time, like where we were in the thoughts of God before the world was made. Now that would be an awesome place to start.

Can you believe that before the world was created God was thinking about me, my design, my looks of coarse, my story and my screw ups and all of the modifications He would have to make on the finished product, in fact everything about me, where I would be born and to whom and their story and before them how He would get us out of England and into Canada where we belonged and on and on… He was also dreaming about the relationship He would have with me and how much pleasure I would bring Him. He placed such value in me, even to the point of sonship.

And the biggest part was that he also planned for my screw-ups. He planned for me in the sending of His Son to earth. He thought about what it would take to bring me back to my original created value because He already knew what sin would do to me and how messed up I would be.

He wasn’t surprised by my sin. It didn’t catch Him off guard. His plan already incorporated my full redemption and what it would cost to restore me. You see He knew my sin would so impact my identity, destroying everything He’d dreamed about in His original plan for my life.

He knew what giving me freedom would do; to me and to the relationship He imagined having with me. He also knew what it would cost Him to bring me back to my original created value.

So He planned the cross….the place where my sin would be carried on His marred body on a tree some where outside of the walls of Jerusalem in a land far away. Two thousand years ago He became sin for me. He became my sin, the sin that so easily besets me and in His body, marred beyond recognition, There, representing the marring that sin had so caused to my identity, He destroyed it’s power over me once and for all, making me a brand new person, renewing all of the potential and promise of which He had originally dreamed.

Now this isn’t a religious story I am writing. This is just my story and it’s really cool.

Disclaimer

Since every reader is also in the middle of their own story and since all of us, every person on this planet is at varying degrees of living loved, I’ve decided it would be best to change some names, especially of those who at the time of my writing haven’t yet been able to come clean with their past as it relates to embarrassing parts where our stories intersect. I left other names intact for people who over the coarse of this story were impacted by heaven’s touch.

Every man alive is living at varying degrees of security in their truest God ordained identity. We all respond and react to life from our own context of malnutrition or nutrition…insecurity or security. And since all earthlings suffer in one area or another it becomes illegal to point fingers as though we are not also infected. Sin in us is what it is, evil and ugly. But now because of the cross every man woman and child on this planet is in the middle of his or her own personal discovery and revelation of this love. Some fail to believe they are even in the story, some never make it out of kindergarten…but also very few graduate with honors. It is not my place to point out the weaknesses in others but to share in a way that you can relate with and begin to see yourself as the one He loves. Then you too will leave Heaven’s mark…heaven’s color, flavor and fragrance on the generation to follow.