"Samuel, find a good Christian woman and make her your own."
Those were my father's last words as his already chilled hands were cupping my own. His eyes had locked onto mine and his seriousness echoed through his stare as he spoke them. I couldn't look away. The only action I was capable of was the tightening of my grip upon his hand. Just as quickly, he made an unnatural guttural noise as he slumped back into the hospital bed, taking his final breath.
My mother began crying. She collapsed forward, one hand clutching at his chest and the other wrapped around his body as she draped herself to his lying form. I just stared at the man I knew I would never see again.
I was six.
Being from a religious family, I was determined to follow in my father's footsteps. He had lived three lives, and all were fulfilling. First, a computer programmer by trade, he was Green Earth's best. As the name suggests, Green Earth was a company out to better the world through finding ways to stabilize the environments biggest problems. My father created analytic codes to decipher all the environments problems and then used that code to benefit the world.
Secondly, he was a family man. His family, my mother and I, always came first. He was strict, firm, and fair in his raising of me. He was also one for compassion and sympathy. There wasn't ever a man I have ever met that could hold a candle to him. My father was who I wanted to emulate most in life.
In his third life, the one that gave me the most solace with his passing, my father was a devout religious man. He was a deacon with our church, and always seemed to offer a helping hand or the soundest of wisdom to fellow parishioners. Upon his death, I knew he was taken care of when concerning the afterlife. Heaven awaited him. This also meant I knew my father will always be watching me from up on high, judging my actions, firm and fair, as he always had done. I wanted - no needed to make him proud.
And I was resolute.
His final words resonated within me... "Find a good Christian woman and make her your own."
At first, my efforts to accomplish his mission for me were primitive. Being such a young age, I started with Legos. It took me nearly a year. I used yellow blocks to form the face, hands, and feet. Black ones were used to form facial features and for a long skirt. Finally, red blocks for a long sleeved blouse.
I stared at my creation, my two and a half foot tall good Christian woman, and realized she was bald. I looked around and sighed at the options I had left for hair color. Another three months later, and she had a head of flowing green hair.
My mother had found humor in what I was doing. I had shared openly with her what my father told me and what I was trying to accomplish. She, in turn, shared openly to everyone. Some thought it was cute; others used me as a punch line. It was then I had decided my mother didn't have the same morals as my father. Her loose tongue afforded her only son to be ridiculed. She did not need to know all my actions.
Every day I stared at my good Christian woman, and felt something wasn't right. It took me quite some time to figure out that my original plan of building her with Legos was fundamentally flawed. I made a good Christian woman as my father instructed, but the woman I made couldn't do anything. She just stood in the corner with that awkward smile I had given her.
And I was resolute.
Research was the key. My father had started teaching me his livelihood at a young age and I had been fascinated with computers ever since. "We all need to be proficient in our careers, son, so we can build a happy life for not only yourself, but your family. We need to make God proud of us in all we do," he would say. So, I had begun writing code from as early as I remember. Trivial stuff really, like designing a car and having it drive off the screen or trying to help my father in making a code to determine the best ways to fight against the catastrophic effects of erosion. His worked, mine didn't. All of his mentoring set me on my way to follow in his footsteps.
Writing computer code was great but that didn't help with my current problem. I wasn't sure what I was looking for but knew if I searched long enough; the internet would give me my answer. Several years passed before I found my solution: erector sets. With erector sets, I could make my good Christian woman and with the robotics involved, it would actually be able to have motor functions.
I took my time so my mother wouldn't get suspicious. I collected sets as birthday and Christmas gifts and spent every dollar I had, well, every dollar I hadn't donated to the church anyway, and the ending result was enough erector sets to fill my closet. Careful planning was the next step. I was meticulous and detailed every step of the way. I thought about how the human body moved. Legs, arms, fingers, even how the head rotated was calculated in my construction. I also extended the height. Two and a half feet was great when I was six, but I had grown since then and therefore so must my good Christian woman. The final result was a four foot tall mechanical being with a dirty blonde wig. It also took five remote controls to govern her.
I was proud of myself, though I told no one. My mother, my friends in my youth group at church, my priest; all were kept in the dark. Everyone just assumed I was building a robot to clean my room. It had taken six years since my father's death but I had finally accomplished his goal for me. I had made my good Christian woman.
It took only a year, however, before I was forced to acknowledge that there was a multitude of errors in my thinking. Despite having functions, an erector set woman was not the answer. There were too many limitations in its abilities.
And I was resolute.
Puberty hit me with a vengeance. It seemed as if it was a test from God just to go to the bathroom in the morning. Worse was the fact that I was first amongst my friends to incur this rite of passage. I had mentioned to my group that I thought a girl in my class, Jessica Akers, was kind of cute and it brought the house down with all the laughter that ensued. They even threatened to tell our assistant youth group advisor, Megan Reed, who was only five years older than us, about my outburst. I played it off like I was joking but it was just another reason why I held all my plans close to the vest.
But staring at Jessica got my mind thinking about my good Christian woman. According to Genesis 1:28 - And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
How in the heck am I supposed to multiply and replenish the earth with a machine? I was confused. And when I was confused, I dwelled upon my father. His last words came flooding back to me, "Samuel, find a good Christian woman and make her your own."
It hit me like lightening. I sat on my bed shaking my head, "I'm an idiot." I was completely focused on the "making her my own" and didn't even consider the word "find" in that sentence. I began cackling like a mad man at my epiphany. I was going about this all wrong. I wasn't supposed to make a girl, or build one as I took it; no, I was supposed to find a girl, a Christian one, and then make her mine.
But how do you make a woman yours? Judges 14:3 - Then his father and his mother said unto him, Is there never a woman among the daughters of thy brethren, or among all my people, that thou goest to take a wife of the uncircumcised Philistines? And Samson said unto his father, Get her for me; for she pleaseth me well.
Samson asked his father to get him a woman... So to make a woman your own, you ask your father? My eyes furrowed in thought. My head steadily rose as I cast my sight upward looking for guidance. I swear I could see my father smiling at me. I shook my head, still confused before I took in the sight of my computer and I knew. Besides, God help me if I disappointed my father.
I was sitting in front of my computer attempting to decipher my problem. It wasn't easy. There just weren't a lot of reputable websites that held the answers I required. Hypnotism was a possibility but everything I read implied the subject would not do something they wouldn't normally do. Subliminal messages sounded interesting, but could be misinterpreted, and, of course, there aren't a whole lot of refutable studies on the subject. Not to mention I had no idea where to find a good Christian woman to my liking... I mean Jessica Akers didn't even belong to a church so it couldn't be her.
And as the Bible says, 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
