This is my Story. This is my Song . . .
April 21, 2016.
That was the day I published the first installment of the Letters from Roscoe. Seventy nine all told. More than that if you include the ones I wrote but never published. I am writing less now than when I first started but I remain hopeful that God will continue to use me to communicate to you through this medium.
I thought I’d share with you a few key events in my journey as a Christian in Training so you could see how far I have come and perhaps how far you can as well.
When I started attending Highland Park, I was cynical and naïve when it came to religion. I came to Church only because it was important to Cindy. I didn’t think I believed, and I certainly didn’t understand or even know very much about the story our Lord Jesus Christ. Truth be told, I still don’t know that much and understand completely even less.
But I know now that I am saved.
The first crack in my glass house came during a Memorial Day service probably two years before that first Roscoe letter. Tom Brown and Tara Wright were singing “I am Blessed”. Hearing the lyrics of that song being sung to me by those voices made me realize just how many blessings I had received from God in my life. Without thinking about it and to my utter surprise I found myself heading to the altar and getting on my knees to just thank God for his kindness.
Later another crack formed when after repeated requests from Hobert Perdue to come to the Men’s Prayer Breakfast, I relented. I got up early on a Saturday morning and went to breakfast and felt the immediate love and respect from a group of true Christian men. Ed Mcgill showed me the depth of one person’s love of God and desire to serve him.
My glass house was falling down around me.
One day, I stopped changing the radio station when I got in the car after my wife had driven. I began leaving it on KLUV.
And then one day I was on Interstate 81 about to take the exit to Johnson City to do a Boat Survey. My mind was in turmoil. All during the trip I had been praying and talking to God. Asking his forgiveness, listing off one sin after another until finally with no one there but me and Him, I asked Jesus to take control of my heart and my life.
From that day on, I was changed. I even began going to Church on my own.
So, in between scrambling eggs and cooking biscuits on Saturday mornings I continued to inch closer and closer to God until finally when my grand-daughter and her father (my son) went to Brother Eddie to be baptized and surrender their hearts to God. I asked Brother Eddie if he couldn’t make it three? So, a few weeks later the three of us met Brother Eddie in the baptismal waters and we were reborn as children of Christ.
Afterwards when Brother Eddie asked if I had anything I wanted to say, I think I choked out an emotional and probably unintelligible “I am blessed.”
My training as a Christian really began to pick up speed then. The Roscoe Letters began. I became more involved in our Church. His Church. I became aware that I had a whole new ‘family’. Sure they had been there all along but I had never thought of them (you) that way. I do now.
Mike Pickell one day handed me a paper bag. Inside were four hardcover books, the four volumes of ‘Thru the Bible’ by Vernon McGee. “Here,” He said, “These will help you.” And they did, and do still.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing though.
There were bumps in the road. Times when I really began to doubt that I was saved. Satan was trying to convince me that I was ‘alone’ in my car that day when I made that plea to God. He tried to convince me that I wasn’t ‘really’ saved. It got to the point that I went to Brother Eddie during the invitation one day and asked him to lead me through the ‘Sinner’s Prayer’ to try and beat that ‘doubt’ down.
I didn’t need to do that. I know now what was happening. God WAS there with me in the car that day. Jesus was there listening to my pleas for help and he heard me then and hears me now. As Doug Reynolds would say Satan was trying to steal my joy.
So when Brother Eddie was speaking today about if you are really ‘saved’ you look forward to being in Church. Not just on Sunday morning, but on Sunday night and Wednesday night. When he said that I just smiled, because he had just described me!
I am saved. I am a child of God. I am a Christian in Training that is so far from perfect that . . . well I don’t know how to end that sentence.
But I can say this. I love my God, I love my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and I pray that if anyone reading this has any doubts, you can make the same journey I did and find the love and the soulful peace that I have found.
I have listed names of specific people in this letter not to praise them for what they’ve done for me but to show ‘you the reader’ the profound effect you may have on others who may be around you and are as lost as I was.
Sometimes you don’t have to open your mouth to be a witness for God. Sometimes you just need to let Him shine through you.