Keep On Keeping On

Sep 8, 2024 | by The Fellowship

Perhaps you have been praying for the salvation of a loved one for years, even decades.  Do not give up!  Because my mother never stopped praying for 60 years … I now believe!

I was raised in a very dysfunctional family where my parents were total opposites.  My mother married because she sought to escape from a home in which she was treated badly.  A strong woman of faith, she agreed to marry my father when he consented to their children being raised in her denomination.

As the oldest of five children, I went to parochial schools and to please my mother, I served as an altar boy.  Treated like a domestic, my mother was the only parent who showed us love.  My father was very harsh, demanding and domineering. When he became an alcoholic, things got even worse. Often, he would say: “If you make it easy for kids, they will never leave home!” He did not believe in organized religion and spent Sundays and Christian holidays, including Christmas, playing golf.

My adolescence was very turbulent! When I was required to pay my way through college, I enrolled at the University of Houston. Before long, my very successful father was transferred to Waco, and the family moved.  I stayed in Houston and earned my degree but left the church far behind.

My brothers and sisters remained in that very toxic home. My brother who was two years younger than me ran away three times, did not complete high school, climbed out of a window one night and joined the military by lying about his age.  He was killed in Vietnam.

Next in line was a sister.  Becoming so enraged by my father’s treatment, one night she got the pistol from his car and was going to kill him in his sleep.  This happened before my brother left home and he stopped her.  But the damage my father had caused in her life later required 25 years of therapy.

My dad died at 68, but my mother lived to 95.  Upon becoming a widow, she was free to invest her life in others. Thus began a very rewarding time of volunteering and serving as an ESL teacher.  Though each of the four remaining children kept in touch with her, we were isolated from one another. Only one sibling chose to have children.

When I was five or six, my father had taken me aside and solemnly told me, “Whatever you do, do not get married!” It was so engrained that I shied away from meaningful, long-term relationships.  But the Lord brought a wonderful woman into my life several years ago.  She invited me to go to church with her -- which I did.  Though divorced from her husband after 32 years of being abused and beaten, she still walked with the Lord and spread joy. It was through her influence that I began going back to church.  It was the happiest I have ever been, and my mother began to hope her prayers were being answered.

But then the unthinkable happened.  Following a surgery on Christmas Eve, this special woman developed infection which entered her blood, resulting in her death.  It hit me harder than anything ever has in my life.  I went into deep depression.

Then when my mother died nine months later, I was drowning in sorrow.  It brought the realization that I most likely would be the next in our family to die.  My life had been spent with total disregard for God and any plans He might have for me. Sixty years of bad behavior and materialism were the result. 

At my mother’s funeral, her Bible was placed in the coffin.  She had read it faithfully through the years.  Since she had been the family glue, my siblings and I decided to keep in touch by sharing a 30-minute FaceTime session twice a year.

Grief counseling became my lifeline, and the pastor/facilitator gave me tests to pinpoint areas where I most needed help.  During weekly sessions for 18 months, he said that as an extrovert, I needed to get involved with other people and suggested finding a church.

Because of my hobby with cars, I belong to an organization that meets periodically on Saturdays on a church campus.  I started by attending that church, completed a course on becoming a Christian, and was baptized.

Recently, The Fellowship held a Saturday car event in its parking lot.  I attended and met some very friendly men.  They invited me to attend worship services … and I did!  Everyone was so warm and welcoming that I kept coming back and soon, I joined the church.

I decided to get planted in this church, joined the Men’s Ministry and a LIFE Group, and began volunteering.  Twice a week, I serve with the Grounds Committee, mowing grass, pulling weeds, trimming trees and bushes, and I even volunteered to remove T-posts from the crepe myrtle trees -- which should have been done years ago.

It is hard to believe that my mother would pray for me for 60 years. I feel like the Prodigal Son -- and my Heavenly Father has welcomed me home with arms wide open.  Truly He has given me a new life in Christ.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:
 The old has gone, the new is here!    
2 Corinthians 5:17