This is a part of my family's testimony of how we got into Church. I thank God every day for the people that God put in our path that helped guide us to Church. Some planted the seeds, some watered...God gave the increase! My family was saved! God can and will still do this in your family too! Are you planting seeds for Christ? Watering? Reaping the souls for Him? Two particular families did this-and my life will never be the same!
All Hope Was Gone...Then JESUS Came!
(Italics are showing thoughts or actions done in the past.)
It was a bright
Sunday morning when the little woman walked into the foyer of the Church.
Beside her were two older children, a boy, 10 years old and a girl, 11 years
old and a baby about a year old, clinging to her neck. The woman looked around the
narrow glassed window foyer almost bewildered at her surroundings. She looked
like at any moment she might cut and run if anyone said "boo!". A few
people approached her, introduced themselves and shook her hand. They invited
her in. She walked along the back row of the pews in the auditorium and spied
an open spot on the left side, three rows from the back. She sat down and the
children sat as closely to her as was possible. She thought back to what
brought her here. She had run into her dear best friend whom she hadn't seen
for a few months and she had invited her to visit her new Church.
"This Church is so friendly! The
Pastor, Rick Scarberry, is just a great Preacher and just
loves people! He preaches the Word! You really
should come visit sometime!" Margie said.
It had been quite
a chore to get the children up, dressed and out the door this morning, but they
had made it. Right on time! She came to herself as she heard the song leader
announce the page number to turn to in the hymnbook. She didn't recognize any
of these songs, but it was kind of fun to hear the voices of the congregation
sing them. Her children just stood looking straight ahead unsure of what
exactly was going on. They sang a few songs, took up an offering, and then sang
a few more. The other children were dismissed to their Sunday School Classes,
and although encouraged by the teacher, Mary chose to keep the children with
her. Then the Pastor got up in the pulpit and started telling a few jokes. They
were funny. He spent a considerable amount of time on them. It put her at ease
and she started thinking how different he was from the Pastors she had in the
past-so personable and real. Then he opened his big black Bible and started to
preach. She listened intently as he spoke of a 'new life' that could be found
in Jesus Christ. A new life seemed almost impossible at this point. Her life
was so messed up. What a great thought that she could have a new life, if she
wanted it. He went on to explain how God sent his only Son, Jesus, to earth to
die a horrible death so that she could have this new life. It was a fresh
beginning. It wouldn't make all your problems go away, but it promised Someone
would be there to help you go through it all. Her mind was reeling with the
possibilities of all she heard as he closed the service with what he called an 'invitation'.
She wanted to know more about what he had talked about. A new life for her and
the children would certainly be welcome. A new life would give her children a
chance.
On the way out,
Pastor Scarberry was tucking his Binaca into his inside jacket pocket when he reached
out his hand to her.
"Hi,
I'm Pastor Rick Scarberry! What's your name?"
"Mary",
was all she could manage.
He shook hands and got the other children's names. Then he
patted the baby and said,
"Who's
this little Red head?"
"Roxanne"
"It sure was good to have you visit our services today.
We hope you come back and visit again!"
He smiled a million dollar smile that just immediately made
you feel like you just met your new best friend. Mary managed a faint smile in
return.
"Thank
you".
As they walked out
to the car, Mary continued to think about what Pastor Scarberry had been
preaching about. All the way home she thought about it. A new life. One with hope. One with joy. She
almost couldn't bear to think about it too long
just in case it wasn't true. It wasn't real. She couldn't really stop
thinking about it though. Her mind went back to the last time she felt like
things were right.
It was so long ago. It
was right before her Father left, when she was eight. He was such a
kind- hearted man. He worked so hard to provide for his family, sometimes not
even getting to eat himself. He had five children to support. The oldest one
wasn't even his, but he had adopted him just as if he was. He loved his family.
Mary was a Daddy's girl. Then one day, he moved out and another man moved in
and the days and nights were filled with yelling and drinking. Then more siblings came along. Two sisters and a brother. She was the babysitter. She
lived in a home that was filled with turmoil and completely devoid of love. She
vowed when she was old enough she would leave. She would go live with her Father
and his new wife. She would run away. Whatever. She just had to get out of
there! Then her Senior year of High School, her best friend who was a little
older than herself and attending a Vocational School, introduced her to George Franklin. He was ten years her senior, but quite handsome. They went on a
double date and before Mary knew it they were off to elope right after she
graduated from High School in May. Right away, she could see life wasn't going
to be a bed of roses. George had hurt his back at work and had to have surgery.
They were living at a farm and George was supposed to be doing a bunch of the
work there. He couldn't even get out of bed most days, so Mary would get up and do the chores and whatever else was expected of them. When the farmer found
out, he told her he hired her husband and not her and kicked them out.
The years past slowly
and Mary found herself three years later, with two little children and a husband who refused to work, was abusive and liked to drink just like her step-dad.
They had to move into George's parents house because they had no money to live
on. George's parents lived out in the country in Bennett, Wisconsin in an old
farmhouse. They were immigrants from England and Wales, and came by way of
Canada. They had migrated in and lived in Chicago for a time, until Agnes had
developed some lung problems and were told they needed to live somewhere with
cleaner air. How exactly they ended up in little old Bennett, Wisconsin was
unclear. Mary loved her Father-in-law, Wilfred. He was kind and had a great
sense of humor. Her Mother-in-law was a bit peculiar, but still enjoyable. Mary
loved to spend her days outside in the country, playing with the children,
tending a garden and taking care of her in-laws. Things didn't seem so bad out
there. She met the Priems, a delightful farm family with 10 children who lived
down the road. She spent some time getting to know them and Margie Priem's
Mother, Beulah Maki. They would all have coffee and chat sometimes. They became
good friends. It was this Margie Priem that had found her and invited her to
Twin Ports Baptist Church. Well, as time went on, George would get jobs and
lose jobs. He would come home drunk, and all the things that Mary hated about
her home life before George, started coming back. This went on for years and
years.
She let her mind
wander a little not wanting to remember the all too recent past. She got lunch
for the children, and laid the baby down for a nap. Then she sat at the kitchen
table of the little rented apartment she
had and sipped her coffee. She slowly let her mind wander back, back to about a
year ago. Back to the worse night of her life.
Agnes had passed away
about eight years prior. She had been taking care of her ailing Father-in-law
and had already put him and the children to bed. George came home drunk again.
They had gotten into a fight and things got out of hand. She still cringed when
she saw, in her mind, her 10 year old
son standing by the gun cabinet trying to figure out how to load the pistol he
had loaded flawlessly a thousand times before, as George was raging out of
control. She still held her breath thinking about what could of happened if he
had remembered how to do it. As soon as George fell into a stupor and started
sleeping the alcohol off, Mary went into the children's room and packed a
suitcase. She started to tear up as she thought about how scared she was. What
if he woke up and caught her trying to leave? She could hear his heavy
breathing in the other room. She roused the children and got them dressed,
telling them to be very, very quiet that Daddy was sleeping. She packed up the
car with a few of their belongings and she drove away as fast as she could. She
drove to Superior, to her Mother's house. She didn't have to tell the family
why the next morning. The evidence was all over her face.
Mary stopped and
leaned to the right to check on the children watching television in the living
room. They were talking and watching some cartoons. She leaned back in her
chair and took a deep breath.
She had found an apartment. She enrolled the
children in school. She filed for welfare. She was starting some nursing
classes at the Vocational School and had started carving out some kind of
existence for the children when she found out she was pregnant. When Doctor
Scott told her it felt like someone had just punched her in the gut! It had
only been a month since she had left him, and it felt like she would just never
be free or be able to breathe again. She couldn't even support the two children
she already had, how in the world, could she afford another one! How could she
possibly start over...alone. She remembered
just crying day and night. They had little money for food or anything
else, so she pretty much lived on cigarettes and coffee. She made sure the
children were fed, and their clothes were washed and they were cared for. She
didn't really care about herself. She was in a deep depression and felt like
she could only go on for the children. Abortion was about to be legalized, but
even if she could have done it , she didn't have the money. She decided in her
depressed state that she would just try to miscarry the baby.
Mary, got up from
the kitchen table and tiptoed into her bedroom. She sat on the bed and watched
the little, red-headed baby laying in a drawer of her dresser beside her bed.
She was very small for her age, born a month premature because of the abuse she
put her body through while she carried her. She was surprisingly healthy,
though, she thought as she smoothed her wispy red hair. She was so glad that
all the attempts to miscarry had failed. She was a real joy to have around, a
blessing, if you could call her that.
She thought how
different life would of been if she had given in to her Father-in-law's final
plea. The nursing home he was staying in called her on December 31, and told
her that Wilfred was asking for her.
She drove down there knowing that he had
been put there because she had left and George couldn't and wouldn't take care
of him. She knew he must of hated living there, but at least he was being
properly cared for. She walked into the room and over to his bed. He looked so peaceful laying there sleeping, she hated to wake him. She loved this man. How
someone so sweet & kind could possibly birth such a monster she had no
clue. George had even abused his parents in front of her. She hated it. She
hated him. Wilfred started to stir and looked up to see her looking down
lovingly at him.
"There you are! I was
looking for you!", he said.
"Hi Dad. The nurses called
and said that you wanted to see me. Are you okay? Can I do anything for you?"
His eyes got all teary and he
opened up his hand to reveal her wedding ring.
"Would you put this back
on?", he cried.
"Dad, please don't ask me
to do that! I can't...I just...can't! I have to think of the children. If I could for anyone it would be you...I just
can't!"
"I understand." he
said quietly as he closed his fingers over the ring again. "I had to
try."
Later that night, after the clock had
struck a new year, Wilfred passed away.
Mary wiped a tear as that memory
came over her. She felt so guilty. Would he have tried to make it longer if she
had told him she would go back. Now he would never know his youngest grandchild
who was to be born in just a few months. He might of rallied if she could of
taken him home to live with them. It still hurt way too much to ponder. She
loved him and she knew the divorce was a disappointment and a failure to him.
There just wasn't anything she could do.
Mary looked back
at the sleeping baby. Just a few short months later, this baby would come on
the scene, quickly, unexpected & a
month early.
She had just gotten
out of bed and went to the bathroom when her water broke. She got to the telephone and called her Mother, Harriett, asking her to come pick her up and
take her to the hospital as she was having the baby. This baby was almost born
in the car. She got to the hospital, the doctor came in a few minutes later and
basically caught her as she was being born. She touched Roxanne's downy head
again as she remembered them wrapping her in a blanket and laying her in her
arms right after she was born. She remembered the feeling of holding such a
teeny tiny baby. She instantly felt love and pity for this little screaming angel. How could she even think of killing her. She was perfect, tiny and completely helpless.
The circumstances surrounding her being wasn't her fault. She remembered signing
the divorce papers the day she was born. George had come by to see the baby. He
wouldn't even hold her. He just looked at the baby completely unemotional and unattached,
and said,
"So, whose is she?"
"Yours"
He stormed out. Later, a nurse came in and
took the baby's footprint and handprint for the birth certificate and drew some
blood from her feet. Some was for the jaundice screening, and some was for the
paternity test that George's lawyer had ordered. Her baby would have to stay in
the hospital for several weeks as health issues developed. Mary smiled as she
thought about how she showed up every time it would be a feeding time to see
her and try to get the nurses to let her feed her baby. She thought the nurses
must of been sick of seeing her walk through the doors. A few weeks later, she
brought Roxanne home to the little upstairs apartment.
A few months later, she had taken the
children to school and she decided to go to the cemetery where her in-laws were
buried. Roxanne was asleep in a little basket in the backseat of the car. Mary
got out and walked over to the graves. She knelt down and started to pull some
of the weeds and long grass that had framed the name plaques. As she sat there,
thinking about them, she heard a familiar voice.
"Mary?"
She looked up to see Beulah Maki standing
there. She had been over at her husband's grave and had noticed her over here.
"Beulah? What a surprise!
How are you?"
Just then, almost as if on cue, Roxanne
started crying in the car. Beulah looked around, obviously distracted. Mary
just kept on talking. She didn't want anyone in Bennett knowing she had had
another baby.
"Do you hear a baby?",
Beulah questioned.
"No, I don't hear a
baby!" Mary answered nervously.
Beulah started walking toward the car,
following the cry of the little babe. She got to the car and she opened the
back door and there was Roxanne putting up such a fuss she could of raised all
of the dead! Beulah leaned in and picked her up from the basket.
"Mary! Did you have a
baby?"
"Ummm, yeah, I did. Her
name is Roxanne. She's about two months old." Mary admitted.
"Oh my goodness! A baby! We
just have to go see Margie!!!! She will definitely want to see her! Did you know Margie had a baby boy
in January? His name is Jeffrey. Oh! Let's go see Margie!"
With that she laid the baby back in the
basket and ran to her car.
The visit with Margie was not as difficult
as Mary had thought. Margie was always a kind soul and never pried or wanted to
hear gossip. Mary did tell her some of what was going on leaving out most of
the details. It was then Margie had told
her that they had started going to Church in Superior. Twin Ports Baptist
Church was the Church's name. It had only been started a few years prior and
the Pastor was from Oklahoma. Margie told her that she had learned that God loved her. She then invited her to come to Church sometime with her, and that
she would pray for her and her little family. Mary said she would think about
it. She was very non-committal these days. She left Bennett that day, thinking
how much she missed her friends. She thought about all the sacrifices that she
had to make because of this failed marriage, this failed life. She was thankful
for the freedom, but hated the circumstances she had found herself in. Was her
life ever going to be any different than it was now?
Roxanne started to stir bringing her back to the present. She got up to
go get her. Crying again. This baby does a lot of crying! She thought.
"I'd cry too, if I thought it would help!" As she sat on the couch
mindlessly watching television with the children, Roxanne on her lap, she
decided she was going to make a commitment. She decided she was going to go
back to that Church next Sunday. She was going to find out more about this 'new
life' Pastor Scarberry was talking about. She was going to see if she could
have it too. Her children's future depended on it. HER future depended on it!
