May/Jun 2005

Coming Home

By Chuck Norris

Since this article is for Father's Day, I would like to dedicate it to all the fathers and tell them my story of fatherhood.

I now have seven children, three of whom are grown who each have three children of their own. YEP, I have nine grandchildren. Thank the Lord, my relationship with my grown children is very strong even though I have been divorced from their mother for more than 16 years.

The divorce was mainly caused by my getting hooked and addicted to the secular Hollywood lifestyle and drifting from God. But, God never drifted from me. He brought a woman into my life that loves Him with all her heart and soul.

One of my best friends who visited me in Dallas while I was filming the TV series Walker, Texas Ranger saw that even though I had all this so-called success, I was still unhappy and had a huge hole in my heart. One night, we stayed up late talking and I said to him: "Larry, why aren't I happy? I have everything I want, but I still don't feel happy." He said: "What you don't have is someone to share your life with. There is a woman I want you to meet." That's when I met my future wife, Gena.

Gena reads the Bible every day and would encourage me to sit with her as she read the Bible aloud. I don't know how it happened, but the Holy Spirit took hold of me and said, "It's time to come home."

I did recommit my life to Jesus and the most amazing thing happened: The hole in my heart was healed. Even though Gena and I had five children between us, hers almost grown, we decided to start another family. God blessed us with not just one child, but with twins, a boy and a girl. I call them my miracle babies, because I almost lost them three times during the pregnancy, as well as Gena.

I remember waking up from a restless sleep early one morning a few months after our babies came home. Trying not to disturb Gena, I got out of bed and went to the cribs where our twins, Danilee and Dakota, were sleeping. When I bent over to kiss them, I could feel their sweet breath on my cheek.

I remained for a while looking down on them with wonderment, and giving silent thanks to God for blessing Gena and me with our miracle babies. Danilee and Dakota are truly diamonds from heaven, the more treasured of God's creation.

If newborn children can be viewed as diamonds in the rough, parents are truly God's diamond cutters. There are few professions more demanding than that of the diamond cutter. His hands have the skill of bringing out the latent fire and life of a nondescript stone. It is only after a raw diamond is cleaved, cut and then polished that it is transformed into a gem of awesome beauty. However, if the diamond cutter is careless, he can destroy the inherent beauty of the stone.

Just as the diamond cutter follows absolute laws of physics and mathematics to cut a rough diamond, I believe the Bible has given Gena and me, as parents, laws of living that will help us guide our babies in a spiritual and positive direction in life. In the same way that only a diamond can cut another diamond, and only diamond dust can polish a diamond, Gena and I must live by God's laws to be capable of raising our children to do the same. We must instill in them a road map of a strong spiritual character to live by.

I went back to bed but could not go to sleep. I laid there reflecting back over my life: the successes I have achieved, the failures I have endured and the mistakes I have made along the way. There is so much I want to pass on to Danilee and Dakota about life, but I am also aware that by the time they become young adults, I will be in my 70s. While I would love to live to the age of Methuselah, I realize that is not practical and that is when I decided to write my book Against All Odds.

I want my children, and the public for that matter, to know that God had a plan for me--just like He does for everyone.

Chuck Norris is the star of more than 20 films and the long-running TV series Walker, Texas Ranger. His new book, Against All Odds, tells the inspirational story of how he overcame abject poverty from childhood, the effects of his father's alcoholism and desertion of the family, and his own shyness and lack of strength and ability early in his life. Learn more about his life and ministry at his Web site, ChuckNorris.com.