Many of us have “touchstone”
memories that can take us back to a special place and time in our hearts. Here
lately I find that I have these more frequently as I look back on my life.
My dad provided many of those
moments. I had a great dad. He was a warrior. He was a guy; a WWII Battle of
the Bulge veteran. He was short physically but tall in stature. He worked hard
and took care of his family as best he could, even working a second job on
weekends driving a milk route. He also made sure that we went to church.
When I was a teenager, I became
concerned about salvation and my immortal soul and I had begun bugging my folks
and pastor with “age of accountability” questions such as, if a person knew
they were going to die was there still time to be saved. I was intrigued with
the whole “death bed confession at the last minute possibility” as a fall back
insurance policy for getting into heaven.
I pestered them for weeks with my salvation
questions. Finally in exasperation our pastor, Reverend Bolton, said, “Look, if
you’re asking the question then you’ve already answered it”. This was not the
answer that I was looking for. However, I was perfectly willing to let the
matter rest for a while.
Then the church we attended happened
to have a revival. So my dad took me with him one evening. It was one rip-snorting,
serious, fire and brimstone, come-to-Jesus kind of revival, altar calls and all.
Still, I have to admit that as a teenager my mind wandered. Then I was hearing
the preacher wrapping up by telling everyone to bow their heads and pray. He
was saying that it didn’t look like anyone was coming forward that evening and
we were going to finish up, unless even one
person wanted us to keep going. I was practically home free! He asked that if
anyone wanted us to keep going because they felt someone could be saved would
they please raise their hand.
The pew Dad and I were sitting in
was tightly packed. I was to his left, head bowed along with everyone else. As
the preacher asked if we should continue, my shoulders and upper body shifted
to the left. The preacher then said to the crowd that we had a winner and would
continue. (Those were not his exact words.) He continued preaching and we
continued praying. Nothing. He stopped and asked us all to bow our heads again.
Same question. Same response. I shifted to the left again.
You have probably guessed what was
happening, but it may bear mentioning that there were those in the family that
considered me to be a little thick-headed. This same scenario went down a third
time before it dawned on me that my dad was the one raising his hand and that
action was what was causing me to shift to the left. My exact thought at the
time was, “Oh, Jiminy! Dad is going to have these people here all night if I
don’t find Jesus.”
To this day, the thought of my dad’s
faith makes me teary-eyed. Because I did find Jesus that night. My dad had
faith. That whole congregation had faith. They didn’t leave. The preacher
didn’t give up and Reverend Bolton ended up baptizing me.
A couple of years later Dad had a
heart attack. He fell to the floor in his bedroom. He wasn’t breathing and was
turning blue. A couple of weeks earlier I had learned how to provide mouth to
mouth resuscitation. I worked on Dad. I didn’t give up, just like he hadn’t
given up on my finding salvation. We had him for another wonderful decade
before another heart attack took him home. Saving my dad’s life, though,
doesn’t compare to what he did for me.
That anchor point of faith got me
through a lot of tough times over the years. Though I drifted from the church
for 40 years, I never drifted from my faith and belief in God. When I served in
Korea it was that faith that led me through the dark. I held onto it through
divorce, single parenthood, caregiving, loss and all the other events we go
through in a life’s arc.
Faith has been there for the good
times as well. It has helped me find the community of church again and the love
of a good woman as well as to appreciate my many small blessings. My hope is
that if being a Christian becomes a crime there will be enough evidence to
convict me.
Thanks, Pop.