My memory doesn't seem to go much further back than third grade. What I remember is that my mother was pretty good about taking me and my siblings to church. I learned a lot about the Bible and Bible characters from various teachers. The big change in my life came in my early teen years. I remember going to the mourner's bench at the church we were attending to get saved. This church was very emotion based and I emotionally poured out my soul that night. Only problem was I never felt God heard my pleas for salvation. I decided that if He didn't want me then I didn't care much for Him either. I didn't become a wild, rebellious kid but I did decide I could live like I wanted. Fortunate for me a lot of the junk I could have got interested in didn't appeal to me. I was a sinner, did some bad things but didn't go off the deep end. I still had a convicting conscience (or just a deeply implanted fear of God).
The turning point came one night in 1976. I had been living and working in Birmingham. I would often go home to hang out with my buds and hopefully meet some girl I could date. That night lying in my old bed at my parent's house I had a terrifying dream. I dreamed that Jesus came back. It was rapture time and I was standing looking up at Jesus as he descended and was waiting to be “caught up,” except nothing was happening. I was standing on my tiptoes trying to will myself to rise but to no avail and I knew what this meant – I was lost and it was too late to do anything about it. I awoke scared half to death, sweating and breathing hard. The next day I went down to the creek behind the house and prayed that God would help me. I remember going home to Birmingham and throwing some things away but holding on to some others “just in case this didn't take”. This lasted about a week and I went back to living the way I had before.
When I was in high school four years earlier, I had to quit the football team because I had a circulation problem in my legs. The doctor kindly told me that I had a disease that only older overweight women get. He had a way with words. When I moved to Birmingham I would go to a park to run and try to help my circulation. One day I met a young man there who walked with me over to the tennis courts and introduced me to a young lady named Joyce. Joyce invited the two of us to her apartment for a meal. He was trying to put the moves on her, while I was trying to mind my own business. Later Joyce and I talked on the phone a few times and we arranged to get together for a Bible study. She began to teach me what she knew about the Bible as she had recently become a Christian. She used something called the Jule Miller filmstrips plus her Bible, of course.
The second week-end we were to study, I had plans. I had met a divorced woman whom I had invited to spend the weekend with me. I guess she later sobered up after saying yes and backed out. Thank God for that. I called Joyce and we got together Saturday night at her place. We proceeded to study the Bible. The film she showed me that night was all about how Jesus had died for our sins. After the film we started looking at the book of Acts and she talked about what people had done in the first century to respond to God's grace. I wanted to do the same as they had, so she called the preacher, woke him up and he agreed to meet us at the church building at midnight. After asking me if I believed in Jesus and if I repented of my sins and I said yes, he baptized me – a total immersion. Just as the people in the first century had been, I was baptized for the remission of my sins when I came to Christ in faith and repentance (Acts 2:38, Acts 22:16). I was now a redeemed Christian and went on my way rejoicing that Joyce had taken the time to share her new found faith with me (Acts 8:26-40).
The preacher, Jerry W, even though he would move away soon, would become instrumental in my future wife and I getting together. I don't think Jerry at the time thought I would be around for long. I had an afro (it was popular for white guys back then) and a beard (popular for hippies back then) and a motorcycle (popular for cool guys back then).
There are a lot of times when I have asked God to heal my circulation problems but I find joy in the fact that it was because of that problem that I met Joyce who introduced me to Jesus and the way to true salvation.
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