Testimonies
TIME SPENT WELL
The afternoon was misty and foreboding as a young pastor stood before a small group of people huddled around a tiny casket. A two year old cried, looking for her baby brother. The young mother, whose face was strained and tearful, appeared unable to comprehend the finality of the scene. The father sat stoically, as he felt a man should when his only son was being buried. The grandmother listened intently as the pastor shared the gospel message while committing the baby’s soul to heaven.
After the service was over, the grandmother accepted the pastor’s challenge and received Christ as her Savior. On that day, she begged God to help her little granddaughter know Him also.
As years went by, the mother and father had two more sons. Nevertheless, they didn’t forget their little Jack nor the fact that God took him away from them at such an early age. The grandmother found a God-honoring church to attend, often bringing along her granddaughter. The mother and father did not want to hear about God or His ways. They attended services only when their little girl was part of the program, at Christmas or Easter.
The little girl soon embraced Jesus for herself and allowed His Spirit to guide and teach her. She needed her Savior much as her father descended into alcoholism. Many nights she cried herself to sleep with a pillow clutched over her head to drown out the noise of her parent’s arguing while she pled with God to help them. Thankfully, she always had her grandmother to encourage her faith.
When the young girl was 13, the family moved to a small country town. Though now miles away from her grandmother, the girl started attending a community church on her own. Although her parents attempted to discourage her faith, it only grew stronger. The people in the country church gathered the girl into their embrace and the girl asked them to pray for her family’s salvation. They did so, faithfully.
A few years later, the teenage girl learned an evangelist was coming to the church for a series of revival meetings. She began to pray that her parents would come, just once, to hear him speak. The church people also prayed. Unbelievably, on the last night the girl looked out from her place with the choir to see her mother and father sitting in the last row. She happily smiled at them, while silently begging God to touch their hearts.
As the evangelist shared the gospel message, the father’s hand gripped the pew in front of him until his knuckles turned white. The mother knew she wanted to learn more, but she was afraid of what her husband would think.
During his sermon, the evangelist said, “Some of you need to push the ole Devil right off your lap and come up here to get saved.” The evangelist wasn’t really done with his sermon yet, but the girl’s father was ready. He literally began to run down the aisle of that country church. Halfway down, he stopped and went back to grab the hand of his wife, shouting “If I’m going, you’re coming, too!”
Not only did several people follow the man and wife down the aisle that night, others came to the church looking for whatever it was that changed this couple so dramatically.
The girl attended a Christian university where she received her degree in education. That girl was my mother. She spent 50 years teaching thousands of kids about God’s love in schools and Sunday Schools. She also trained many people to teach as well as influencing others for the Kingdom.
Her son, my brother who is an outreach pastor, runs week long sports camps that bring in hundreds of kids from the community. Not only are these kids taught sport techniques, they are presented with God’s Word and the salvation message through daily sports-based devotionals.
Her grandson, my son, works with a ministry called Sanctuary which is attempting to make a difference for the homeless and distressed in the downtown are of Toronto, Canada.
Such are the ways of God. He is a dwelling place for all generations. I don’t believe that young pastor had knowledge that anything resulted from his sacrificial ministry on that dark day so many years ago. He simply obeyed God’s command to share his faith when presented with the opportunity.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. The results will be amazing.
~Deborah Kaye McDade~
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