A Personal Testimony

Let me introduce myself. I grew up in the church. My parents, grandparents and family were all church people. Mom played the organ and piano at church, taught children and played for children’s choirs. Dad served on nearly every committee imaginable. In truth, some of my oldest memories, going back to the time of preschool years, were church. One Sunday, as the preacher preached about Jesus dying on the cross and coming back in the clouds, I fell asleep on my mom’s lap. As a four year old child, I put all the sermon into one visual dream and saw Jesus flying back into the church on his cross. To this day, I can recall waking up and pointing to the very place Jesus had been in my dream and shouting for everyone to “Look, it’s Jesus coming back.”

My books were Bible story books read to me by my grandmother who lived with us. All my life, Sunday School teachers would tell my parents: Sammy knows more about the Bible than we do.”

Then, at twelve years old, my father died and the world changed. He was 38 years old. One day he was the most important person in my world. The next day, he was gone. Where was the God who loved me? Where was the God who answered prayers? Who was God anyway?

For the next several years, I moved any direction that would take me away from God. A well meaning friend of my father’s, trying to console me at my dad’s graveside, put his arm around me and said: Be a man, Sammy. Don’t cry now. Although I said no words to him, I remember the words that formed in my heart and mind as I looked up. In my mind I said, if I can’t cry for my daddy, I won’t cry for you or anybody else, ever again. It would be more than six years before another tear fell from my eyes.

From twelve to sixteen, I challenged the existence of God and gradually began to push life to the edge. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God, I was angry and wanted God to know. Breaking the rules, tasting the forbidden fruit were angry cries to an unseen God who ignored me in a moment of great sorrow -- or so I thought.

My church never quit praying for me. My mother never gave up. And to my great surprise, neither did God.

Three teenage girls at my church, asked me to go on a church youth retreat to the gulf coast. I liked those girls and it was that attraction that led to my decision to go.

As much as I had once been in the church, I was now outside. Outsiders live in a different world, talk a different language and walk a different way. Nothing about my new life fit on the youth retreat. I knew it and so did they. With one disastrous encounter after another, I asked the youth pastor if I could go and walk alone on the beach. It was dark.

With a sense of relief, he sent me on my way. For me, it was a time to smoke a cigarette and enjoy the water and the night. For God, it was a moment to meet me as the night visitor met Jacob in Genesis 32:24. I wrestled with God. I was sixteen.

“Walk out on the drain pipe,” an inner voice compelled. No, I won’t get my new clothes in that dirty water. Walk out, the voice repeated. At the end of the pipe were concrete pilings. I climbed on the concrete and sat in the darkness as the waves sprayed all around. The voice spoke: Why won’t you give me a chance? You’ve been looking and I am right here.

I knew the voice belonged to God.

Going back to the retreat, I climbed in bed and turned my face toward the wall. The next day, when the youth pastor asked if anyone had anything to share, everyone was silent. Uncertain about what I had experienced but knowing it was something significant, I finally told my story of the night before. It was so shocking to the group that they asked me to tell it again that Sunday night. By Monday, the story spread throughout the high school.

It would be two weeks later before I responded — to God. For two weeks, I enjoyed the attention but still remained the same rebellious teenager. Late on a Friday night, as my best friend and I got ready to repeat our usual misbehavior, I heard the question again. Truthfully, hearing the question in a teens mind was probably different from what God was saying. My interpretation of that voice was once again framed in the words: Why won’t you give me a chance. Telling my best friend about it, I got up and started walking a different path. I went to find our pastor and tell him that I wanted to return to God.

As obnoxious as my behavior had been running away from God, it paled compared to my overbearing zeal as a Christian. I now wanted to save everyone, including the people who had prayed for me, taught me in Sunday School and stood by me in my rebellion. All instances of my former misbehavior became targets as I swung the sword of the Lord in all directions. Dancing, alcohol, swearing and rock and roll all became certain tickets to hell. Living with my new faith posed no less challenge than my former life. I looked for church services at all times of the night, of every variety. Hungry to regain the lost years, I forged on hiding my grief and pain under the new blanket of being born again.

Not all that energy was lost. During these years, I memorized large portions of scripture, passages and verses. And, I read the Bible as if it were the only book every written. My pastor never tried to put out my fire. Instead, he taught a group of us and pushed us in Bible studies and theological discussions. As young people he gave us some good advice that remains until this day:

•Read little books by big people, he said.

•Study the writings of those who disagree with you for you will learn from them.

•Study to show yourself approved unto God (Paul’s advice to Timothy).

•The Holy Spirit is not an it but one of the persons of the Trinity.

•Jesus is the only one who will never let you down.

•When you offer Jesus, you offer the best we have to give.

While there were many others, these stand out.

My life continued to quickly transition as I pushed forward. From the time I reached 17 years old as a High School senior, I have served a church as pastor or youth pastor. What was missing because of age and inexperience, I tried to make up for in enthusiastic faith and work. I listened and learned. What I received, I tried to give back. Through college, through seminary, and through the first fourteen years of ordained ministry, life and ministry moved forward together. God put people in my path that encouraged me and helped me up when I fell. It was the church at it’s best.

Something was missing. (to be continued)