How do you know Jesus?
When you think back to when you first went to church or heard about God, who was that person that pointed you to Jesus?
Growing up going to mass and Catholic school, I saw God as a shopkeeper who is constantly telling you not to do this or that. The strict rules, and silence in the confines of the church were what I guessed heaven and a life with Jesus was all about.
I didn’t grow up with altar calls, or people praying over me and speaking in tongues. My parents and grandparents raised me in the catholic faith. A rules based tradition that I am so grateful gave me a firm foundation of God, His Son Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
In my house, you wouldn’t find the words non-denominational, or pages depicting the difference between religion and relationship with Jesus. There was only church on Christmas and Easter and pretty much any time my grandparents were in town. NOW, (I’m speaking to my Mom who might be the only one reading this) That just meant that we weren’t Sunday church goers. Looking back, I can see how greatly the Holy Spirit was active in my house. With two loving parents who always focused on giving their best, that character rose above popularity or prestige.
It took about 25 years to start to learn that a life with Jesus was less about how many times I cracked open my bible or the consecutive Sundays without church being missed and more about relationship with God AND the root of where my identity is being watered. And it all came from how God used a eight and a half year old boy from Doylestown.
It was May of 2016. After being drafted to the Philadelphia Union, which was it’s own miraculous God act, I had moved from my college of George Mason in Virginia to the City of Brotherly Love. 5 months into the MLS season, I hadn’t played a single minute.
I hadn’t even made a bench.
An internal identity crisis had risen like a plague. Going from playing every single game of my college career to not making the game day roster was a shock to my pride.
Looking back, it’s easy too see how my identity was not rooted in Jesus, but in my performance in the sport that God had blessed me with. When I find my identity being rooted in anything other than Jesus, I find emptiness. I find striving for a feeling that will never sustain nor fill me up. But lucky for us, how great the love of God is. That when we know Jesus, and know His love for us and are rooted in Him, proclaim Him as Lord of our lives, we are called beloved by a Father that knows our hearts more intricately then we could ever fathom.
Alas, 5 months and zero minutes, I think my Mom was tired of the constant phone calls of complaints. She suggested that I get over and outside of myself. She told me that I should go visit a children’s hospital. I reached out to the Union, and they responded that a young boy was finishing his radiation treatment.
I told them that I would be there! And on that day I rode the elevator up to the floor labled radiation. An older man had gotten on with me. The man had kind eyes, and I don’t know what prompted me, but I asked who he was visiting, and funny enough his grandson was the name on the email I received from the Union, Dominic.
We got off the elevator and chatted some more until the elevator door opened and a boy in a wheelchair came out. I got up out of my chair to be greeted by a young boy smiling from ear to ear moving at a solid Mach 2 out of the elevator. I assumed this had to be Dominic. I heard a voice behind him say, “Ciarlo, wait up for Dominic.” My brain couldn’t be more confused.
Then I saw Dominic Eugene Liples walking out of the elevator, a little slower than Ciarlo who I was waiting to pop a wheelie. His head may have been shaved, and braces may have been on his legs, but he illuminated the room with joy, courage and an out of this world smile.
Dominic and I’s time flew by. From choosing Hannah Montana as the music for his last radiation and learning all about his love for fart noises and sharks. I was astounded. Not just of Dominic, but his family. In the face of so much adversity, in the face of so much uncertainty, my brain couldn’t understand how someone going through so much, could be so joyous. It was a proclamation of faith.
Everywhere Dominic went he emitted that joy. I got to know Dominic and his family more and more as time went on. Kira and Kenny, his parents, asked me to attend their church one rare Sunday that I had off.
Only having gone to catholic church my whole life… when the projector came on and people all over the room were singing with their hands raised… Kira looked at me and chuckled.
Just a little different from a catholic mass.
After the worship finished I asked her what song we concluded on, with such innocence I felt like I had just discovered a new Pokemon to Professor Oak, she smiled and said Oceans.
I then watched as Dominic walked up the stairs on the altar. The pastor announced that it was a special Sunday. That Dominic had chosen to follow Jesus and was getting baptized. Now if I was astounded at how the Liples’ family lived out their faith in joy and exurberance, I was even more awestruck at what I was witnessing. And witnessing was what was occurring. I was watching an eight year old give his life to Jesus with a joy that made every person in the room swell up with admiration. The joy of the Lord.
It was the joy of the Lord that makes no sense until you realize more about Jesus. The joy that Paul had, when he wrote Philippians. This book of joy, was written by a man in the confines of a prison cell. Writing the scripture that you find on mugs, tattooed on skin, found in instagram bios, Phillipians 4:13.
Empowering and true, that no matter the trial, God’s presence and love makes us rise and content in all circumstances, I find the significance of Phillipians 4:13 is found in the lines leading up to that famous scripture.
“Rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Not that I am speaking of being of in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and how to abound. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Paul knew that no matter what the circumstance is, God is bigger than what we are going through. That the same God who rose from the dead lives inside of you. Loving you. Saving you. Taking all our mistakes and sins upon His cross. Placing favor upon you and that His presence resides with you in all circumstances.
We are reassured. We are loved.
That no matter the circumstance, the presence of God never leaves us. EVEN IF WE THINK IT DOES. It walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. God’s presence waits patiently with you awaiting the results of a test, His presence is with you walking into a room or place that overwhelms you. His presence pushes us towards the goals we don’t tell anyone about. His presence of supernatural grace, courage and wisdom guides us not out of anything we did, but out of the most unconditional grace. He sits with you when the feelings won’t go away making you want to call or text someone you shouldn’t.
God is with you and for you.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Dominic had stage IV brain cancer. That in the face of so much uncertinity, He had the joy of the Lord. I didn’t know that as the months went on and the amount of trips to the hospital were more frequent, that I would get a phone call on the morning of December 6th telling me that I should come to the hospital to say one last goodbye to Dominic.
As I sat in room with countless people, each sharing beautiful testimonies of Dominic, his love for sharks, the color red and especially red balloons, and anything that he could eat in gummy form, I awaited my name to be called in to his room.
Writing about the moment I saw Dominic last just makes tears rush down my face. To watch an 8 and a half year old boy struggle to hold his head up, hear, “Taylor is here” and un able to open his eyes, pop his head up and say your name… there are no words.
The most telling story of Dominic’s faith and what makes me want to live life with Jesus in joy and exuberance, is when the doctors came in, and gave Dominic, Kira and Kenny the status that day. They all wept. Whenever updates’ had come in, in the past, Dominic would say, “We’re going to fight this right?” The answer was always a yes. When a yes wasn’t heard back, Dominic’s faith spoke above anything I could even fathom.
He said, “Can I go walk with Jesus?”
Now wether your faith in Christ is small or big, strong right now or weak, to think about how an eight and half year old boy had the courage and faith to say, well if my time here is done, I can’t wait to go walk with Jesus… It leaves me dumbfounded.
This moment points me to Jesus.
Over the entire course of his life, Dominic was a living testimony to how someone can live their life with Jesus in an overwhelming joy. I sat speechless in my car in the hospital parking lot after having spent the afternoon with Dominic watching the Thundermans or just making poop and fart noises. I wouldn’t be able to drive because of how in awe I was. How much of God exuded from this eight and a half year old boy that I began to call my little brother. That Dominic understood that life and walking with Jesus, is number 1.
Dominic Liples taught me more about faith in the midst of trials than any theological book ever will. He lived out his faith in Jesus every day with joy, peace and a love that has God’s favor and handprint all over it. I didn’t think he was real.
God places people in our lives who point us to Him. He uses our lives as beacons of light to illuminate His way and love. To live a life rooted and lived with Jesus.
Dominic Liples was and will always remain one of the greatest people to point me to Jesus.
Who is yours?
and Who are you pointing to Jesus?
