I remember (the black hole part one0

I remember when I was twenty, my parents had moved up to Sacramento and I was living with two of my younger brothers in a two bedroom apartment. I had been a follower of Jesus for about a year and a half.

My brothers friends were a ragged bunch of punk rockers. They had nick names like Fingers. They were probably not the best group of friends my brothers could have chosen. They lived in the basement of an abandoned house, sold and took drugs, and stole things to pay for it. At the time I didn't realize that Jesus didn't actually mean the things he said, and figured if they needed a place to stay, and I had a place to stay it was calling to offer them a place to stay.

So now it was my two brothers, four of their friends, and myself, in a two bedroom apartment. They knew I was a Christian, they knew that was why I let them come live with us, and they tried their best to keep most of their truly immoral and illegal activities out of my eye sight.

But let me tell you, the apartment... Well it didn't smell too good. It was constantly a mess. There was always loud music, and loud people over. And to tell you the truth I did love it. I was quite fond of these punks, I was one when I was younger, and Jesus hadn't completely taken the rebeliousness out of me yet. (still hasn't actually, I am glad to say)

Well this is a long story, and I hope you will stay with me through it all, but I thought I might start by describing the place to you. When you walked in the door there was a semi large room which held our couch, our tv and our stereo. At the back of it there was a bar that seperated the lounge room from the kitchen, and off to the side of the kitchen was a dining area where we had our table and chairs. On the stove in the kitchen was a giant pot of grease, that we would occasionally replace. There was a basket that went in the grease. And the walls all had a nice slippery coating of said grease. Our refridgerator was full of chips, frozen burritos, tater tots, fish sticks and anything else you could cook in a pot of grease. We also had the cabinets filled with two minute noodles, which at ten cents a piece was the official food of homeless punk rockers. To the right was my bedroom and bathroom toilet. This was the only place of refuge for me. To the left my brothers bedroom and toilet bathroom area.

There was not much decorative, there were no cute animals with aprons on, but it was home. And I lived with my new family, in this smelly, messy, greasy two bedroom apartment, which had now earned the name...

the black hole
(to be continued)

the rev