On the Cusp: a Jewish Girl’s Very, Very, Very Long Journey to Jesus

Shai Blumberg

Description

On the Cusp is a combination of the author’s testimony and memoirs, leading the reader through her innocence in the sixties and seventies, the tumultuous eighties and nineties, and the turning towards Jesus Christ (Yeshua) as Lord and Savior in the new century of the two thousands. There is an undercurrent of love and acceptance portraying an undeniable part of the Lord’s patience and grace throughout the work, combined with His just nature.
Growing up Jewish in the sixties and seventies in the shadow of J.F. State Park off Bond Boulevard in Southern California, there is a horsey element to the book as well, including Shai’s’s behind the scenes life as a polo girl, her aspirations to show jump, and the privilege of having a beautiful off the track Thoroughbred in her suburban backyard. Also reflected here are the struggles of growing up Jewish in a decidedly non-Jewish world.
When Grandma Lizzie tells Shai about Jesus as a six year old, the seed is planted despite Shai’s mother covering Shai’s’s ears and begging Grandma Lizzie to stop. Later, as an unhappy thirteen year old, Shai tries to connect with God on Christmas day, galloping her horse to Heaven's Point with Grandma Lizzy’s New Testament tucked in her new saddlebags. But nothing special happens and Shai is left to navigate murky waters of adolescence and a chaotic adult life without any tangible connection with God for decades to come.
On the Cusp portrays God’s mercy, patience and great love for even the most foolish of us. So enjoy the nostalgia, fallenness and ample human error of it all, and bask in God’s Amazing Grace, never forgetting that being on the cusp of Greatness, His Greatness, is an opportunity the Lord offers to everyone. Even the seemingly most hopeless of us.

Sujets

• Personal Memoirs
• Jewish
• Religión
• Jews
• Biography
• Religion
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse
• Date de parution: 20 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798823006927
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ON THE CUSP
A JEWISH GIRL’S VERY, VERY, VERY LONG JOURNEY TO JESUS
SHAI BLUMBERG


AuthorHouse™
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403
www.authorhouse.com
Phone: [phone]
 
 
 
 
 
 
© 2023 Shai Blumberg. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 05/25/2023
 
ISBN: 979-8-8230-0691-0 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-8230-0690-3 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-8230-0692-7 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023907533
 
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
Part 1: A Gentler Time
Part 2: Tumult
Part 3: The Journey
Part 4: Coming Home
Part 5: Not Enough Goats
Part 6: Growing Up

Thank You, Jesus, for bothering with the likes of me and countless others…

To my parents, who were a wealth of love and good intentions. Thank you, Mommy and Daddy.
To my grandma, to my best friend, and to Pastor. Thank you all for showing me The Way.
To my sisters, thank you for still loving me even though I’ve taken a rather circuitous route that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense much of the time.
PART ONE
(1959-1974)
A Gentler Time
Still a child unsmothered by weeds
Still a child untainted by greed
You will never again be so free
I
It seemed like I was on the cusp of something great for as long as I could remember, only for the longest time, nothing great ever happened. It was most frustrating, because even as a young child, I was quite bored with just about everything, and I could hardly wait for my life to begin. My mother and father both worked hard and made sure there was plenty of food, tennis and cello lessons, opportunities to attend such things as Bluebirds, Sunday school at the temple on Wilshire Boulevard, and visits to various friends’ homes and visa versa. It was all mostly very tame and predictable, with only occasional mishaps, such as when the Clemmings boys talked me into pretending I was Lassie and had me lie down in a trunk in their attic, curled up in my Lassie-bed, only to slam the lid down and lock me in. My frantic screams quickly summoned my very frightened mother and a mortified Mrs. Clemmings, and that was the end of that. Of course, I have claustrophobia issues to this day, but that is another topic altogether.
One of my other earliest memories is at a gas station with my mother. We were in the old white Buick. A gas station attendant came out to fill her tank and wipe her windows. He was crying. “Ma’am,” he said, “the President has been killed.” My mother started to cry. I asked her what was wrong. She said a great man had been shot. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen my mother cry and I felt a little scared.
I was not an angel. Another of my earliest memories was throwing a temper tantrum when we lived on Pond Avenue, and my mother promptly putting me in my room and closing the door. I remember throwing some of my toys and games all about and then standing on my bed and screaming, and for some strange reason, hot dogs and hamburgers were floating around me. I was grabbing at them. Perhaps I had fallen asleep in furious exhaustion at that point and was dreaming? A year or two later, after moving to Oak Street, I learned the agony of jealousy and the unfortunate habit of gossiping and putting others down behind their backs so I would feel better about my jealousy. My best little girlfriend Christina had come over to play Barbie dolls with me. Christina’s parents were often not home so we could do more things over there (when my mother let me go there). Christina had a swimming pool, her father was a movie star (not a big one, but he was one, nonetheless), she had long blonde hair, was taller than me, had a nice big brother named Brendin, and the list went on ad infinitum. The evil seed of discontent had been planted. My family was just sitting down to our Saturday night barbeque ritual of hot dogs and hamburgers, round-cut fried potatoes, baked beans, and Neapolitan ice cream for dessert. The last I’d seen of Christina she was packing up her Barbies. I sat down to dinner and proceeded to do what I did best when I was feeling inferior to Christina. I started to put her down. “Oh that Christina,” I began. “She is so this…and so that.” (I can’t even remember what she did or said that got me started.) My bigger sister Lina had a half-smirk, half-horrified look on her face as if she couldn’t decide whether to pity me or laugh at me.
“Well, you might as well just tell her to her face. She’s right over there.” I turned around and to my horror, there Christina sat, right where I had left her, in the living room which was attached to our dining room. She was finishing up putting away her dolls. I only remember turning bright red in the face and having the first of many of what I later learned to refer to as shame attacks. I can’t recall apologizing or anyone suggesting I do so. I think I just continued eating and trying unsuccessfully to rid myself of the awful embarrassment I was feeling, and not knowing how to do it. Not knowing how to fix my uncomfortable feelings was to become another ongoing issue for me.
I had a wonderful Grandma Lizzy, who lived somewhere in a brick bungalow in Brooklyn, New York. Grandma Lizzy came to visit us in California every so often, with her red hair and bluish-green eyes. She loved flowers and Jesus, the latter in our family being found somewhat distressing because we were Jewish, and for some reason, it was considered in poor taste to ever mention the J word (Jesus). It just wasn’t done. But Grandma Lizzy had become a believer in Jesus later in her life, sometime in her forties, when my father was a young teenager, and she had dragged all six of her kids to church and had them baptized, which was probably quite confusing for a bunch of Jewish kids growing up in Brooklyn, but that was what she did. And now, visiting us all in California, it seemed that Jesus was all she could talk about. Christina and I sat entranced as she went on about how much He loved us and wanted to save us. Of course, we didn’t know what she was talking about. When Grandma Lizzy tried to explain to us about hell, I remember Christina and me putting our ears to the floor to see if we could hear anything down there. I also remember my mother putting her hands over my ears, her eyes pleading with Grandma to stop. “Liz,” she’d say and discreetly shake her head. Everyone loved Grandma Lizzy, including my mother. But the Jesus thing was definitely taking it all too far. Looking back on it, Grandma Lizzy was like a prophetess, compelled to shout out the Good News to whoever would listen. Nothing daunted her. She didn’t care if you didn’t want to hear it either. But there was something about her guileless desire to reach everyone that made you just love her. Her blue eyes would change to green as she talked, until my dad would say, “Ma, that’s enough.”
Then there was school. That. I vaguely remember kindergarten, and my mother having to stay with me my first morning because evidently, I pitched a fit whenever she tried to leave. But after that day she no longer attended school with me. I remember old Mrs. Swift, with her short, reddish-gray hair in a wavy upsweep like schoolteachers often wore back then, dealing with twenty or more rambunctious little balls of energy, all with our own unique problems. My problem, I remember, was that I had to blow my nose quite often. It was always full and needed to be cleared. Rather than give me a box of tissues after asking one time too many for one tissue, Mrs. Swift flatly said, “No, sit down.” I was horrified. What was I going to do? My nose was about to burst. So I did the only thing I could do. I blew into my hand and closed my little fingers around it, waiting tensely for an opportune time to do something about the predicament I was in. Unfortunately, none seemed to come. I sat forlornly on the rubber play mat out on our little playground, holding my hand closed, and it wasn’t until well after morning snack time, which to a five-year-old is an eternity, that I was able to finally go to the washroom and wash away my shame of the day.
I wasn’t always on Mrs. Swift’s bad side, however. There was a time Mrs. Swift had to step out of the room for a few minutes and told us all to behave. It was nap-time. Well, Donnie Meyer, or maybe it was Butch or Roger, they started playing around, and then some of the girls started to join in, and before long there were twenty-five little kindergartners poking, prodding, pushing, laughing, rolling, and gesticulating wildly all over the floor on their mats. All but me. I had by great luck happened to see Mrs. Swift coming back across the playground in large, deliberate strides, so I demurely put my hands in my lap, staring straight ahead at the ABC chart, mayhem, total, swirling around me. I must have looked like a perfect little lady, sitting there primly amongst it all. Never mind I could have alerted the whole class, but no, I distinctly remember I wanted the singular glory of Mrs. Swift’s praise. And I got it. She stormed into the room, clapping her hands rapidly to get everyone’s attention. I blinked at her with s