Beginnings

Sanctuary... 

I don’t remember the first time I "sought out" God, or knew He was "seeking me." My earliest memory of anything resembling spirituality would be going to Sunday school classes after my mom and dad divorced.  My mom’s friends, Judy Church and Penny Balmer invited her to church to find some comfort and seek after whatever she was looking for after all of the changes.  I can remember doing some crafts and things they have the little kids to do, but for a young child, there isn’t much else I recall.  My brother and I attended with mom pretty frequently.  Mom remarried when my brother Eric and I were two and four.  Dad had to work two and sometimes three jobs to make ends meet, and mom still took us out to a small brick and white church, in the middle of three corn fields, on Haslett Road. I always remember the cornfields. There was nothing but corn behind the church, to the east had cows, and to the west; corn, sometimes beans. On the north side, across Haslett Road, the ranch-style parsonage. That was it. It wasn't a big church, it would grow, but to me at first, it was an otherworldly family.

Around ages five through seven, the memories of more crafts, holiday dinners, potlucks, an Easter play by the children’s ministries and summer vacation Bible school are more cemented in me. My first official act of service was a role of Doubting Thomas - my goal was to memorize the words of Jesus to Thomas, commanding him to touch his wounds, and believe He was really Jesus, and alive again. My first reality of Jesus was memorizing and believing that His wounds were real, and He had risen from the dead. And while I struggled with my lines, my biggest concern through the recitation was whether the safety pin holding the sheet of my disciple-like hood would last the scene.
Mom was doing daycare out of the home we lived in, and many of my early friends started their weekdays at my breakfast table, and we saw each other in Sunday school.  Williamston, Michigan was a small, rural farming town and West Locke Wesleyan was just one of the churches that served in the area.  I think Steve and Ruth Strand were the pastor and wife that served my mom, and it was a loving church. It was where my mom fit in; so in retrospect, I didn’t get much of a choice of denomination in the early years!  West Locke would become my home church, and it is where my spiritual journey begins.  My name is Daniel Botsford and this is my beginnings with God. 

I don’t remember actually going to church in the sanctuary, it seemed that the early years of the 70’s and the 80’s deemed the sanctuary worship as the “big people’s church,” while we were relegated to the Sunday school classrooms for the remainder of the hour.  West Locke was home until Seminary, and I know the smells of the pew cushions, the feel of the carpet, and the air just felt different in that building. The setting sun of Sunday evenings came through the side windows of that church, as the final day's sermon was preached and the shades were drawn.

Jesus was a living Savior whom loved the little children, all the children of the world, no matter their color.  Felt board stories, church games, and the fun was my early spirituality.  I believed in God, a God “up there in Heaven,” whom watched over all of us and I could talk to Him by praying.  Sometimes I prayed at the side of my bed.  Sometimes I prayed while I rocked myself to sleep in my bed. And when I prayed I wondered, would I hear a real voice?

I guess my first real encounters with the presence of God would be the times I would sneak into the sanctuary after services or when no one else was in there.  The quietness of the sanctuary and the large wooden cross with a dim light behind it just made me hush and my heart pound.  This place where the Red and Blue teams turned in their pennies for VBS, and cheers, tickets, laughter, and kids’ songs had become a place of wonder.  If I sat in here and spoke aloud would God answer aloud?  When kids weren’t in here, did God or Jesus appear up front on Sunday with all the parents in here?  I would often sit in the pews, sometimes laying there, just feeling quite small and yet safe.  The rough fabric of the seats, worn smooth in some places from years of sitting, praying, or kids climbing. The platform and the altar, were places of fear, I dared not approach or even think of touching anything up there. The Holy of Holies, where God Himself manifested during adult services, while the pastor read His words; I would be struck dead as my hand or foot crossed the threshold!
That was my earliest memories of God.  That was my first touch of God’s grace, fear His awesomeness, wonder of His love, and feeling His presence and knowing as much as a six or seven-year old could, the reality of an invisible God.