The Preacherman was born as Charles Michael Tifft on January 8th, 1969. I spent my first 12 years mostly in Bismarck, ND. While just a year old I nearly died of spinal menengitis, but thanks be to God, he brought me through it. A couple years later my parents divorced and so our family just ended up being my mother, Georgia, my brother, Rick and me. My Dad, who's name is also Charles, moved around a lot and we rarely saw him. Usually just once a year at Christmas time. After the divorce, my mom who had been born and raised as a Catholic, decided to leave the Catholic church.
As I grew I developed a weight problem around the age of six. This weight problem would continue to be an up and down struggle throughout my life. I was teased a lot in school and therefore never had many friends. The only kids who seemed willing to accept me (most of the time) were other kids who for one reason or another were also outcasts.
When I was nine years old my mother got saved while attending a Reformed church. She brought the message of salvation home to my brother and me. I gladly received it, as I had pretty much always felt a close tie to God anyway. My brother, however, chose not to. I began to learn a little bit of what my salvation meant, but before my foundation was made very strong, I began to be swayed by the desires of the world. I never denied God or my salvation, but it was obvious that I was not yet ready to fully live for him.
By the age of eleven, I was hanging out mostly with a fourteen year old boy named Donald. Donald was definetly a kid who got in a lot of trouble. In my struggle for acceptance, I readily went along with much of what Donald did. I started smoking cigarettes and weed and I also started drinking. I'd go to parties with him and be out late, without my mother knowing where I was.
This was no doubt a very stressful time for my mother, made worse by other issues at home. My brother was going through a hard time with learning to manage his anger. At that time, he basically didn't manage it at all. He would get into physical fights with both me and my mother and she ended up having to send him away to live with her brother.
I continued my own rebellious ways and so my mother, for fear that I would end up getting into far worse trouble than I already had, decided to move us away from the city and into the same small town (Hazen, ND) where my brother was currently living her brother. My uncle David owned and operated a pizza house in the near by town of Beulah and Rick had started working for him there. It wasn't long before I too was put to work and got my first experience with the restaurant business.
We lived with my uncle David for a few months while our new house was being built and that was difficult. At that time my uncle was a hard man to live with. He did a lot of drinking and was fun most of the time, but if he got angry with you, it was time to head for the hills. Once our house was finished, we moved in there and Rick came back to live with us again. It seemed that living with uncle David had done him some good or maybe he just grew up a little bit. He still had anger problems and he would still fight with me, but for the most part, he now treated our mother with respect and that alone made it a more livable situation.
Still, the next few years remained a struggle for me. I still had my weight problem and I still had a hard time fitting in. Once again, I found myself hanging out with the kids who liked trouble. I quickly developed a reputation around town as a trouble maker. Sadly, my reputation far exceeded anything that I actually deserved. But that just compounded the problem as I felt the towns people were against me. I definetly did do a few bad things while I was there, but it was always under extreme pressure from other kids. I was not the kind to ever lead the way into trouble. I was definetly a follower in those days. I continued to use alcohol, weed and tobacco and I continued to defy my mothers rules. Sometime even staying away all night without her knowing where I was.
Life with my brother also continued to be a stressful situation for me. The fights got very bad at times. He once punched me in the back so hard, that to this day I still get back aches where he hit me. I would often lock myself in my room to try and escape the beatings, but he would pound on my door so hard that he began breaking the door jam and I knew it wouldn't hold much longer. One day, the stress was just too much and I grabbed a dog chain I had hanging in my closet, opened the door and went after him with it. My mom stopped me, but I really believe that if she hadn't I probably would have beat him with it for all I was worth. Things kind of got better after that. Not sure why. Maybe Rick finally saw me try to defend myself and figured his job was done, or maybe he just figured I was so close to losing my mind that it was time to leave well enough alone. Who knows?
When I was fifteen life changed a great deal for me. This was mainly due to the fact that Rick graduated high school and left home for college. His leaving meant two things for me. First, it meant that I was finally going to be able to live as an only child. I had developed a fair amount of bitterness over the years towards him and was longing for the day that he would leave home. It also meant that in a way, I was going to be ruling the roost. I was by this time much bigger than my mother and with Rick gone there wasn't going to be anyone around to get in the way of me doing what I wanted. Yes, I was a very stupid and rebellious teenager.
Anyway, I also broke my foot that year. The break was a stress fracture that came as a result of my being too overweight. I had ballooned up to 315 pounds and now I knew that something had to be done about this. So for the first time in my life I got really serious about a diet. That summer I counted fifteen hundred calories a day and by the time I went back to school in the fall I was down to 250 pounds. I went on to lose twenty five more for a bottom weight of 225. Since I was six foot one, 225 looked fairly good on me. Certainly much better than 315 did. With my weight mostly under control, I was looking better and feeling better, but my rebellion was getting worse. One last time I stayed out all night, one last time that would change me forever.
MORE TO COME
I am now thirty five years old and I currently live in Minnesota, but I am a native of North Dakota. I am a supply pastor and I am also the president of ACCESS Christian Ministries. More info on that ministry will be forth coming. My interests are songwriting, poetry, playing guitar, Christian music, and most recently....computers. I am married to a wonderful woman named Martha, and I have three kids, Joseph who is 15, Sarah who is 9, and Rebekah who is 5.
I hope to return to North Dakota someday and some people wonder why, but believe it or not I really love it There. Some parts of my website will eventually be devoted to my home state. There is no place that I would rather live. (except for heaven of course. But I'm not in a hurry, unless of course Jesus comes back.)
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© 1997 mmjsrtifft@citlink.net
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