Part 1 of 3: The House on Village Court

I found out recently that the home I grew up in is being demolished because it had become a crack house. Apparently the walls had been torn up and much of the sheet rock had been bashed in by people who either planned to, or actually did put in a meth lab. I heard this news recently and didn’t really think about it much. But somehow at the time it didn’t surprise me.

Remember the part in the movie Forrest Gump where he and Jenny walk by her childhood home, and she runs up and starts throwing rocks at it? The home is abandoned and dilapidated. But somehow she still has a connection with the property that Forrest doesn’t really understand. I remember taking my wife into my old neighborhood a few months ago. I think she was surprised at how poor we must have been as kids. Because my old neighborhood is now the barrio. I guess that is what they call Mexican ghettos these days. I left there to go to college in 1977 and every time I went back after that the condition of that street just seemed to get worse and worse. I used to chalk it up to the fact that nobody there really gave a crap about where they lived. But now I have a different hypothesis.


There are places mentioned in the Bible that were strongholds of evil. Take Nineveh for instance. Zephaniah and Nahum both prophesied the utter and complete destruction of Nineveh. But look at what happened when Jonah arrived on the scene. Here is what Jesus had to say about an Assyrian capital that was a serious center of evil:

“The people of Nineveh will stand up against this generation on judgment day and condemn it, for they repented of their sins at the preaching of Jonah. Now someone greater than Jonah is here—but you refuse to repent.” Matthew 12:41

Was there ever anything good spoken about Egypt in the Bible? I love studying that culture. But except for Akhenaten who came to believe that there was another God other than Ra, that place has always been considered yet another stronghold of evil. God pretty well pounded them at the Exodus. And what is even more interesting to understand is that Pharaoh was willing to let them go. But God changed his heart so that He could show the Jews how much He loved them by pillaging and then destroying much of Egypt.

And let’s not even talk about Babylon. After having been in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin last summer, I could write for days. Even with Daniel there, Nebuchadnezzar still ate grass like a horse. How about Aleister Crowley’s Thelema Abby? The Italian government still keeps its true location hidden so that occultists won’t come and receive dark power there. My wife and I prayed at Hitler’s bunker this year. But I digress. Let’s get back to Village Court Drive.

Due to my highly dysfunctional childhood, there were a lot of really bad things that opened spiritual doors and sowed satanic seeds in that house. That house saw drugs being taken and pot being grown, incest, porn, atheism, bestiality, pedophilia, anger, hate, rebellion, witchcraft, occult, and Satanism, teen pregnancy, Catholicism, alcoholism, spirit manifestations, and lots of secrecy. LOTS of secrecy. So after my dad died and the house was sold, the new residents had lots to deal with if they desired to turn that property into one that served and honored God.

“Like a fluttering sparrow or a darting swallow, an undeserved curse will not land on its intended victim.” Proverbs 26:2

Did the people who moved in there deserve all the curses that came with the property? Probably not. But then again, do children that are born into evil families deserve that fate? Did Job’s children deserve to be destroyed? Did all the firstborn of Egypt deserve to die? I guess the point of this rambling blog post is that maybe it really doesn’t matter the cards that we were dealt in this life, or the curses that were set against us undeservedly. Maybe the point of all of this is what we do with the houses we bought. My childhood house could have been a cute, happy, Godly, peaceful home. But when crack heads are your tenants, and meth is your god; then destruction surely comes. And when the whole neighborhood is of one mind, then so goes the street.

I hate what I did in that house. Many of those things still haunt me over 40 years later. But I wasn’t saved when I lived there. Now I am. Yet I still want to either drink or cry when I relive many of the things pertaining to that house. And since Jesus told us that what was done in secret will be shouted from the rooftops at the Judgment, it will probably be pretty ugly. There is nothing I can do about that now. And Paul nailed it best:

“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

I guess the plans for 5126 Village Court Drive is to demolish the house down to the foundation, and start again. And isn’t that ironic?

“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” 2 Corinthians 5:17 (New Living Translation)



Let the demolition begin!