by Jacob Siever

(This is a very personal, incredibly vulnerable piece written by my eldest son, Jacob.  It’s a clip from his journal last October, 2009. I have often felt that his rejection of Jesus was at least partly because of our own difficult relationship.  The moment he describes here may have been a turning point, an epiphany…maybe even an encounter with God.  I don’t know, really.  All I know is that he felt compelled to send this to me, which says a lot about where our relationship is today.  Later he gave me permission to share it here, and said that perhaps he was compelled to write it because it was something that needed to be shared.  I  wanted to post it because it speaks about the power of noticing others.  And because it touched me and encouraged me as a dad who loves his son more than he can express.

BTW:  This is the same son I mentioned in my comments on a post earlier last year, where I recounted a very similar experience in my own life:  I Met Jesus at the Quick Mart).

Death.  Birth.  October 16, 2009. The face of truth seems to exist in the most unexpected locations, and perhaps bears a thousand omni-directional mirrors with no escape.  Some say extraordinary things occur when astrological elements coordinate in particular order.

Department of Motor Vehicles.  Clothing.  Food.  Money.  Energy efficient flat screen televisions.  All elements contributing to our own demise if you ask me.  On second thought, I guess food does sort of keep us alive…but too much of it is what I’m getting at.  Never the less, all things we worry over.  Ironically, today all these things came together to cause something much greater to occur.

The look of sadness, loneliness and abandon in the face of a stranger with none of these things has caused a revelation within me.  I see these people on street corners every day in every shopping center I pass by.  For some reason, the man I saw this October evening reached into the depths of my selfish heart, and held my eyes open.  Suddenly overtaken by emotion, all I could think of was giving this poor soul a shake of the hand, and some money so that he might eat.  He smiled, and said “God bless you, sir.”  Tears came rushing to my eyes as I reviewed my own concerns of late;  how I had spent too much on food that wasn’t up to my standards.  How I had to deal with an hour wait at the DMV to renew my driver’s license, and attend to registration on my Cadillac, Toyota pickup, and Honda motorcycle, and how much it all cost.  How I had been so stressed about finding a new location for my business, and if I am going to make enough money to satisfy my own needs.  The quality of the food I ate, three f’ing vehicles, and my own business I have been stressed about.  And here this man is, standing at a stop sign in a grocery store parking lot with his head hung in shame, hoping someone will care enough to help him eat maybe once today.  There is something terribly wrong with this picture.

I have been in possession of a film I rented for about a week and a half, called “Knowing”.  The whole time I’ve had it something always seemed to stop my girlfriend and I from being able to watch it.  We finally had planned watch it this evening, which ended up being directly after encountering the homeless man on the corner.  The main character in the film is an astrology professor who has his doubts about the origin of our world as we know it.  He also happens to be the son of a preacher.  At this point I’m already thinking this is a little bit of a strange coincidence.  Long story short, he finds a prophetic writing in a time capsule indicating all the major fatal tragedies that had occurred since 1959, and also the end of the world.  Which happens to be October 19, 2009.  Now this all seems really weird.  His son is followed by a few frightening characters, which turn out to basically be angels, in that they take his son and another girl to safety in a plethora of light and atmospheric shift.  He must let his son go.  The man then understands what had been happening the entire time that he had been trying to decode and stop what was being foretold in the writing. He reunites with is father at the end of the film, moments before the flare sweeps across the planet and incinerates everything.  His father says to him, “this is not the end son”, with a smile as he hugs him.  He replies, “I know, dad.”  He and his three family members embrace as the disaster consumes everything.  Now all I could think of was embracing my own father, and thanking him for always being there for me no matter what I had done or said.

I can’t help but think that all this occurred in the way it did for a very profound reason.  I also can’t seem to evade the possibility that a homeless man may have inadvertently saved my life.  Or was he an angel sent by God?  Thank you, my unknown friend.  I will remember you for the rest of my life.  I hope you are safe, and have food to eat.  And God bless you, too.