I am the adopted son of George and Mary Cooper, who was fortunate to be raised in a stable and loving home during my formative years of life. My parents also adopted my middle sister, Michelle, as in infant when I was about three years old. Since my mother was told that she would never have children of her own my parents thought their family was complete. A little over a year later my youngest sister, Tina, was born. Our father was a man who demonstrated and sought to instill a strong work ethic in each of our lives.

During my high school years, it became clear to me that God had something for my life that was different than what I had planned. It was through the guidance and encouragement of my pastor and other trusted leaders that I surrendered to a call to ministry and following high school began my studies at a Baptist University in my home state. It was during my senior year of high school that I began dating the woman who has been my wife for the past 38 years. Debbie and I are blessed with two daughters. The oldest, Savannah, is married and living with her husband in Hagerstown. Our youngest Olivia, is at home with us while she is working a part-time job and attending the University of Maryland’s global campus.

While I have been fortunate to serve in ministry for the past 38 years, I rediscovered chaplaincy and served as a chaplain intern at Frederick Health as I was enrolled in their CPE program. In 2021 I became a board-certified chaplain through CPSP and over the last few years have been prayerfully seeking the opportunity to expand the ministry that God has given me through chaplaincy.

Some of the struggles and challenges that our family has faced over the past few decades has prepared me for the joys and difficulties of walking with people through their own lives. It is my hope that I can continue to engage and journey with others as they seek to discover their path in life.

Welcome to 12-Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation.

Our prayer is that this listening space brings growth and transforms your life forever.

Praise God for you, Michael.

It's a great pleasure to connect with you.

What part of the world are you in today?

I am on the east coast of the United States, within an hour of Washington, D.C., here in Maryland.

All right, all right.

When I saw that you were married for as long as you have been, I thought immediately, what advice could this guy give to a younger guy like me, right?

To keep going.

Cherish her.

I mean, that's the main thing.

Cherish her.

Always communicate.

Keep talking, no matter what.

Communication is key.

As the scriptures tell us to love our wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

I mean, I can't think of a better standard than that.

What contributed to your decision in deciding she would be the one?

That was some prayer.

And it's kind of, it's a long story.

I don't have time to get all of it.

But I had prayed to God because my youth pastor, when I was probably in high school, but a freshman in high school, no, actually, I was in junior high.

I was probably only an eighth grader.

He told us we should be praying for our spouses.

And I hadn't had a date yet or any girls even interested.

So I thought, well, I'll give it a shot.

And so I just began praying.

And it was interesting.

Her cousin actually lived next door to me in that little town we grew up in.

And I had heard of her.

I knew who she was because in those days in junior high, kids went together, which meant that they might hold hands, exchange a ring, and that was about it.

Maybe kiss when nobody was looking.

But she was actually with a friend of mine.

That's how I first heard about her.

And so I knew who she was.

And I saw her standing there and didn't think much about it.

And it's funny how she remembers that moment as well, that we just saw each other.

Just fast forward.

We had no classes together in high school until our senior year when we finally had our first class together.

I was dating another young lady.

That relationship ended.

And she wasn't dating anyone.

So I asked her out, and that's where it began.

So we started going out when we were 17 and still together.

And how long after did you get married?

Oh, it was quite a few years.

I graduated college.

So it was almost four years we got married after we started dating.

Is that something that's been a natural theme of your life, listening to what God suggests and then doing it?

I'd love to say always, but if I were honest, no.

There are times he tries to talk to me, and I don't pay attention.

I get my head stuck in the wrong place.

And eventually he gets my attention.

It just takes a while sometimes.

I'm what they call the remedial or slow learner track for spiritual growth and development.

So he kind of has to work with me in special ways and sometimes has to use some different circumstances to get my attention.

Eventually he gets his way always, but sometimes I'm a little slow at that.

I'm a lot like, in some ways, I think Moses was a little bit that way.

He was kind of a slow learner.

So it took him about 40 years to get it all straight.

So not quite to the extreme maybe as Moses, but I've got a little bit of that streak in me as well.

I can relate to him quite well.

Jacob came to mind while you were speaking.

Jacob's another one.

There's a lot of slow learners in the scriptures.

Even the Apostle Paul was quite a slow learner for a while.

So I resonate with guys like that that kind of take a while to get it.

That's okay.

Is that another thing that contributes to who you are, understanding and the word of God?

Oh, definitely.

That word of God, that was something that my parents, I was raised in a home where that was essential, going to church.

Got my first Bible when I was in grade school.

That's kind of where that came from was reading scriptures together and learning to do that, going to church, going to Sunday schools, those kind of things, worship, all those different kinds of things you do in church and just getting to know more.

So I was blessed to be in that kind of environment.

After I felt God's call to ministry, I went to a Christian school, a college here in the United States and studied under some amazing men of God who kind of helped me on that journey as well to understand some things and just been blessed throughout my life.

It goes all the way back to my prime years when I was in grade school, sitting in front of a Sunday school teacher with a bunch of little kids and a Sunday school teacher was actually a woman, was using the flannel board to teach us things.

It got my attention.

So those old cheesy things nobody has anymore.

But I remember those kind of days and those were essential to my spiritual growth, but mostly blessed because my parents felt that was important.

And so they took us to church all the time, whether we wanted to go or not, we had to go.

At the time, I was not happy always about it.

But overlooking back, it was probably, it is the greatest blessing of my life that they felt that need to do that for us.

Your parents adopted you, if I'm not mistaken.

Yes, I was adopted as an infant, so I never knew my birth mother.

At the time I was adopted, all records were closed in this part of the United States.

They wouldn't let you, but about 15 years ago, they opened them.

I reached out to try and contact, I had permission of my parents, my dad especially wanted me to do that.

But my mom as well, they wanted me to just reach out.

Unfortunately, by the time I found her, she had passed away.

But I have connected to her sister, who was a little bit younger than her and was a child when I was born and did not even realize it.

We contacted, I remember the phone call when I told her who I was, and I sent her pictures of our daughter and she couldn't believe it when she saw pictures, especially of our oldest daughter.

Our oldest daughter is uncanny how much she looks like my birth mother.

I mean, it's obvious that there's a relation there.

My youngest daughter looks a lot like this woman.

She watches our live stream faithfully almost every Sunday.

She lives out in about 1200 miles from here out in Western Kansas or Eastern Kansas.

So it's been interesting.

We've not met face to face.

We've just talked on the phone and met through the social media, but at least we have some sort of a connection.

I've met a couple of people who would have been cousins of mine.

We mostly spoke through Facebook.

When I'm on the phone, we talk for a little bit.

Her and her husband live out not far.

And I grew up around, my birth mother and I lived in the same, we lived in the same town for about four and a half years.

And didn't even know it when I was an adult.

She was living in the same community before, this was all before she passed, obviously.

And then that was about the time right after I moved away that they finally opened the records in Missouri.

So it's been quite a journey on that side of it.

It's not because I was upset with my parents who adopted me and raised me.

That's my mom and dad.

It always will be.

Of course, my dad's been gone for almost 11 years.

But my mom and him both did a great job, but it was really something I just wanted to know some things.

And that's a hole that was in my life.

I just wanted to kind of get some understanding.

And just unfortunate that I didn't get a chance to meet her until she, until too late.

But maybe, I guess on the other side, we'll get to see each other, hopefully.

Would you say your parents who adopted you really created the incubator for what you do as a chaplain?

Oh, absolutely.

They're very much a part of my faith.

And like I said, they took me to church as a child, as a teenager, as a young adult, I was always there.

And church was a very important part of my life.

I built a lot of relationships in the church that we went to in my hometown.

It was, in fact, we just had our 100th anniversary here about, the church did about a month ago.

And I got to speak at that, which was really quite an honor.

I remember the 50th anniversary many, many years ago when I was a kid.

So it was kind of interesting to be a part of that.

And just the relationships and things there, they helped me get integrated in that and understand who I was.

And we're very supportive of that.

My dad even was my Sunday school teacher for a while, which was kind of fun.

He and another guy, they kind of team taught it.

The other guy had to shift work.

And so he would sometimes be gone on Sunday mornings because he'd have to work.

He worked at a factory.

And so when he had to be gone, my dad would fill in for him.

That's kind of how he got started teaching our Sunday school class.

It was a bunch of us boys.

I don't know how he kept his sanity.

There was about six or seven of us in there and we had more energy than, you know, it's hard to imagine six or seven, 11, 12 year old, 10, 11, 12 year old boys.

We got a lot of energy.

For some reason, it sounds as though one of the things that you do have is a lot of energy, if anything, being slow as a learner, right?

As you, as you mentioned, right?

It feels as though like quick draw, quick thinker, quick, quick to action.

How's, how's having to slow down though?

If I am accurate, right, about the concept of what you do as a chaplain, is that...

There is that, you know, it's, it's, it's really more about listening.

It's not about giving advice.

I'm trained in, you know, clinical pastoral care.

I've been board certified and all that kind of stuff.

So I've went through that in the hospitals and in hospice and other facilities.

I now work for corp, as you see in my, you know, I work for Corporate Jobs of America and I work at a couple of places.

I work at a warehouse where I hang out with guys mostly at the warehouse.

And then I work out, serve at a place where we, that is a high tech company.

Kind of, they, they're really all these young 20 and 30 somethings, really smart.

I mean, just that build systems for businesses.

And they're, they're basically most of their, it's virtual mostly.

They, they work with companies all across the country and across the world, actually.

They actually have countries overseas that they work with and they build their, their business platforms and those kinds of things.

So it's kind of interesting to be in those two very different environments, but it's just a matter of building relationships and getting to know people and listening and hearing their story and, and trying to just, you know, not, not trying to insert a lot more than, more than anything, just to hear their story and just, and just be present in that.

That's really a lot of what chaplaincy kind of teaches us.

Do you have stories of leading people to Christ?

Oh, yeah.

I've had some fun experiences in, you know, in chaplaincy, which was not expected.

And when I first, first started doing, I was doing hospice chaplaincy before COVID.

I did that for about the first year of my, as I was getting ready for going through the process of CPE and board certification.

And I had the privilege of leading a 92 year old man to Christ.

We were talking as I was coming to visit and I was telling him, he asked what I did.

And I told him I was a pastor and he was just telling his story about his life.

And he says, you know, he'd been to church, but not too much.

I didn't know what he thought about God.

And I told him, well, that's what I, what I've done, you know, what I can just kind of that.

And he said, well, can you tell me what you, what you believe?

And so I just basically shared the gospel with him in about two or three minutes, as simple as I could.

And he said, well, I don't think I've ever heard that before, which I thought was kind of strange, but you know, he was raised in a different tradition than I was.

I don't know.

I guess maybe he did not hear it in the way that I shared it.

But after a few moments of conversation, I said, is there something, I told him what we believed in becoming a follower of Christ, what that looks like, you just to surrender your life to Christ and let him in a prayer.

And he prayed to receive Christ and unfortunately died within a few months, but it was a pleasure to be a part of that experience for him.

So that was one.

Then a couple other times I've had that happen.

It's by invitation only is how we do it in Corporate Chaplains of America.

I had a gentleman I was working with at a company and he was really dealing with some issues.

He had been in church, but not really, not connected.

He had never been someone who would be really, he understood that there was something out there, but he didn't know what to do with it.

And in the same manner, I was able to share the gospel with him.

This happened probably just a few months ago, about three months ago when he got saved.

And then he ended up getting baptized in a church out where he lived about an hour from where I am in West Virginia, which is awesome.

And he's trying to go there and get plugged in and get his teenage daughter plugged in and their kids.

So he's divorced and dealing with some struggles in his life, made some mistakes, but just trying to get where God wants to be and God's doing a work in his life.

So that's always, those are just a couple.

There's others, but those are the two that come to mind.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

Just focus on the one who loves you more than anything.

He loves you more than I can even express.

My words are inadequate to describe the power of his love, but if you ever doubt it, look to the cross.

The cross is what he was willing to do to make a way for us.

Michael Cooper, again, a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on What Is Inspired by 12 Minute Chronicles.