I’ve written a lot about things I did in school, work and such, but I’ve yet have not written much about an underlying portion of my life that was laying a foundation under me for my future. I’ve really said little or nothing about church past my Sunday School years where my mom taught me to cut and paste. Let’s let this little section be a breather before I go into my Army years.
Growing up between seven and sixteen were spent in spiritual curiosity. I would spend many Saturday evenings at my grandmother’s house watching Saturday Night and the Movies at nine till eleven while she sat in her chair with her little Baptist Sunday School book that she taught the junior class with, along with her Bible. More often than not I would be watching the movie and she would be sitting there with her chin down and snoring lightly. But she was always prepared.
I finally reached my teen years and was promoted to her class and I was starting to feel my oats and in a church with no A/C we would open the church windows. The windows where hinged in the middle and the window would swing out at the bottom while the top would swing in like a see-saw. Some of us young ne’er do wells would sit at the back and while she was teaching a couple of us would slide out the window to the outside and skip class. In church we guys would sit in the back pew on the right coming in. It was our “reserved” seat. Being country boys we always carried folding knives in our pockets. I carried a hawk blade myself. We used them to carve on the back of the pew in front of us. Church leaders knew it was us, but little was ever said of it that I remember.
But enough of the stuff we did in church. In all this, God was talking to me. I was about eleven or twelve when I specifically heard a call to become a preacher. It scared me, but also fascinated me. We’d moved into the new house by this time and I would lie in my bed at night staring at the darkened ceiling and preach hell fire and damnation to the lost and dying. I’m not trying to poke fun. I really meant it. I was on my way to being a preacher. I only had one problem. I was deathly afraid of public speaking unless said speaking was something that was preplanned and I read it from a paper. The reason I say that is because every year when we had our Christmas show I was the announcer for each class presentation.
I think the first time I got a revelation from God was one Sunday morning sitting in my regular back pew. I sat there not really paying much mind to anything in particular when I got a vision in the upper left part of the sanctuary over where the choir is and probably still is. God spoke to me saying, “I have many people in many different churches. I have scattered among them true believers.” Then He pointed out only a few in the service I was in and my soul dropped at how few really were His people. But then I felt that combined with those in the other churches around the world they were large in number. I remained troubled though at the small number in our own church who were being counted as true believers in His name.
Along this same time, which really isn’t totally related to church, I had an experience that I cannot totally describe. I was awakened one night and felt the presence of someone in my room. I raised my head up and looked towards the end of my bed and there floating in the air was a white foggy apparition. It was not recognizable, but I knew it was my grand daddy Colie. He told me all was well and assured me everything would be okay. And then it faded away. I know this isn’t totally a church thing, but it gives pause to the idea that one can see into the spiritual realm.
And just to let me know that there are negative forces at hand I will tell this one story and that will be the only one this descriptive. When we had the Collie she had gone off to the front corner of the yard into the roadside ditch towards the fork in the road and had dug a hole in the side of the ditch. She had dug it out in a fashion that allowed even me to get into totally out of site from passing cars. It was cool in there, so I know she dug it just for a place to get out of the heat of the day. Well, anyway I had gone looking for her and being this was one of her popular places to go I went over to this hole and peeked in and she was not there. So, I stood back up looking back towards the house and there standing at the back corner of the house where mom and dad’s bedroom was a demon. He was tall enough to see into their bedroom window. Now that window was a good eight feet up from the ground and he was to the top of the window making him at least nine feet tall. This is no child’s imagination. I sensed his reason for being there was to watch me. Fear struck me deep upon seeing him, but I was mesmerized by this creature. For a few moments we stared at each other and then he turned and went around behind the house. I never saw it again. So much for that. I know some of you are already thinking of swearing off reading any more of my story, but you’ll be back. There’s too much here to not want to know more.
Then came those revivals every June. I would attend them to see what the man of God had to say. What came out of that was an increasing sense that God was after the salvation of my soul. When the old song “Just As I Am” was sung at the end of each night’s service I would stand there with a death grip on the pew in front of me and I’d break out in a sweat. My heart would be pounding in my chest and I could hear God saying take the step, I’ll do the rest. It wasn’t until I was sixteen when not only did I hear this again for the umpteenth time, but also the same words spoken aloud by the visiting evangelist. I was still breaking out in a sweat, heart pounding and holding onto that pew, but I finally let go, stepped out and walked to the front and was met by the preacher. He put his arm on my shoulder, looked down at me and asked me if I was there to accept Jesus as my Savior. That I acknowledged. And prayer was said and I sat on the front pew for a change along with one or two others who did the same.
My mom decided to celebrate a little bit and we popped some popcorn and got out the Pepsi. She told me she was proud of me and that she went that night especially because she sensed what I was going to do that evening. She was like that I believed in the Rapture at the time and I went home that night with a whole new outlook with an old mindset. The old mindset part is when I finally went to bed I couldn’t lie down, so I got up on my knees at the head board looking out into the starry night sky and told God to come now, because I didn’t think I could make it to the end. Rescue me now Lord. I got this experience of salvation now, but I don’t think I could maintain it till I reached old age.
I rose fast after that. In the next couple of years I started singing in the youth choir and such. My step grandfather, Jamie nominated me for Sunday School Superintendant when I was nineteen, but I was turned down for the nomination by other church leaders because of my draft status and I’m sure my age was a factor as well. The Army was breathing down my collar.
