|
 My Conversion – August 21, 1961
I was 23 years old when God saved me. I was not raised in a Christian home. My mother took me with her to the Lutheran Church and I went through the Confirmation Classes. I left home at age 17 and joined the Air Force, getting deeply involved in all the pleasures of this world. I am not proud of the fact that I tried just about everything. It is a good thing there weren’t any drugs at that time or I probably would have tried them. I was discharged from the service December 1959 and was introduced to my wife by a cousin of mine. I was attracted to her immediately, because she looked and acted different than any girls that I had met before. I asked her to go out with me. She said she would only go with me to a Gospel meeting which was held every Sunday evening at the Gospel Hall. After the meeting one night, when I was taking her home she opened her bible and read to me Luke 16. It was about a Rich Man who had died and gone to Hell! I had never before heard this and it deeply affected me. At this time, the Christians were building an addition to the Gospel Hall. People spoke kindly to me and I wanted to be with them, so I offered to help. Shortly after this, they pitched a tent nearby at a place called Minard’s Mill. There they preached the gospel and I went almost every night. Then they moved the tent to another location. I went every night. Even when Carolyn and Lois left for Vacation I called Carolyn’s Mom and asked if I could go with her. She was only too happy to go with me. The preacher, Mr. McBain, came to help me clean the travel agency that I cleaned every week. I just knew he was going to preach to me, but he didn’t! I was shocked and disappointed. He just got down on his hands and knees and cleaned and hummed hymns. He was only pleasant and kind to me. I remember going to a funeral where the preachers said that they KNEW she was in heaven - for sure! I knew if it were I in that casket, I wouldn’t be in Heaven. The same night after the funeral, I was home alone and I got out the Sunday school paper that I had saved. Inside the paper was the bible verse John 3:16. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son. That whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."
I just sat, reading it and underlining it. Two preachers, Mr. McBain and Norman Crawford, came over to my house and read some verses to me and prayed with me. I still kept going back to John 3:16 as that was stuck in my mind, and I finally saw ME in that verse and EVERLASTING LIFE (knowing for sure) that I’d be in heaven. John Brokaw
No one has commented on this article.
Related Items:
|
Shelly McKenna
