Christian Family Services Ministry

12-6-2023 – A Word to the Wise – I have shared the following many times and, in many ways, just feel compelled to tell again some aspects of my journey with the Lord. It is like Psalm 136. I never want to forget what the Lord has done. Now, from what follows, you reach the conclusion that I was my mother’s favorite I was not. Actually, I was 5th If I was on the list at all. However, that is a different story.

I want to share some of my experiences with prayer. I must begin at the beginning; I was born a twin premature, in the middle of World War II. Deathly sick from the beginning things, I did not look well. Then things got worse. I had been in the hospital for nearly two weeks before my second birthday when the doctor told my mother that I would not make it through the night. A few months prior to this I have my first memory. My mother rocking me and softly singing the popular hymn “ I come to the garden alone.”

But back to this fateful night. As my mother related the story, after the doctor left she bowed in prayer and beg the Lord to spare my life. My mother had a unique saying about prayer; Why would anyone think that prayer is a one-way street? How is it possible to take comfort in praying to a God who does not talk to you?

When I was four my parents divorced, and I was taken care of by a host of abusive people. From time to time I spent a few weeks with my mother then went back to these places. During one of these interludes, under the care of my mother, I was perhaps six years old. I got in a rock fight with another child and got hit in the eye. Mother rushed me to the hospital. After the examination the doctor told my mother that I would probably lose the eye. It was bandaged and sent home. Upon arrival mother asked me if I wanted to know if I would lose the eye or not. I assured her that I did. We went in the bedroom knelt down and she told me to ask the Lord. This is the first time I prayed. I asked the Lord would I lose the eye and he said no. Mother asked me what he said, and she confirmed the same answer.

That is the beginning of my prayer life. But now I return to my private hell.

When I was nine, I had enough and did not want to live any longer. It was the summer of 1952, there was a terrible plague going around. Far worse than Covid, it was called polio. Midafternoon Mrs. Smith called my mother and told her to come and get me I was running a high fever of 106 degrees. She told her she did not even know how to take a temperature. Mother was pretty straight forward. She came over. Took my temperature it was 107 degrees. She rushed me to the hospital. I still remember that gurney someone pushing it quickly towards an elevator, a doctor on one side and nurse on another shoving injections into me as fast as they could. I passed out. She prayed, diagnosis polio. She prayed more. Later, much later I was going home, and I told her I would never go back to Mrs. Smith’s. She agreed and the family moved to Lawton.

However, by this time the damage had been done. A host psychologist was of no help. I had an emotional block to learning, plus what is now ADD, and all types of acting out behavior.

Late one night in early September 1955 the phone rang. All the children were getting ready to go to bed. It was 10 PM. Mother answered the phone and there was dead silence. We started to cry, she hung up the phone, and quietly said we will be going to Oklahoma City tomorrow, your father died.

Six weeks later I was walking home from school (it was a 2 mile walk hot cold, rain or snow). I was nearly home crossing a field when the Lord asked me a question just as clear as day. Do you want me to be your father? I said yes. Thus began a unique journey that was to be a deciding factor for the rest of my days. I was 12 years old.

Frequently mother and I prayed together, and we would ask and agree on the answer.

I did begin to wonder was this just unique to us? Mother had warned me never to talk about prayer in church for these people believe that communication with the Lord was a one-way street. That would have gotten me kicked out of the ‘synagogue’ really quick.

However, for me some very difficult life questions had to be answered and I did not trust my own judgement. only the Lord could know the wise path to take. I just turned 17, very shy, and I would be graduating in 4 short months. Lord, what do I do? I Have no clue.

He said to talk to a recruiter there will be one at the school tomorrow. Which one Lord? The Air Force. So, I obeyed. June 6, 1961, I was headed to Lackland Air Force Base. How do I put it I am astounded at the perfect timing and the lifelong blessing that prayer led to? Even today, sixty-two years later, I benefit from what the Lord told me to do. The VA still pays a portion of my medical bills. The last few months I was in the service we lost 11 F105’s in a place called Viet Nam.

However, two years before another event took place which was to have a profound effect on my prayer life. It was late fall I had come home on leave and my mother told me the church was joining with another church in Norman for a hayride. Do I want to go, Absolutely, emphatically not, first off, I do not like crowds I am an introvert. Second, I have a terrible allergy to hay. No, I am not going. Well ask the Lord. So, I went. Drove up to the farm, got there in time to get on the hay wagon and sat next to a girl named Mary.

As I left that night, I reminded the Lord of one of his passages Matthew 7:7, “Ask and you shall receive, Seek and you shall find, Knock and it will be opened”. Lord, I want Mary as my wife. He said it would be but I needed to mature. Two years later we were married.

Now this is not an autobiography. Rather descriptions about prayer, its power, and just how often the direction came from the Lord and how it always came to pass. Trust undergirds this powerful tool the Lord gives those who choose to believe.

After the Air Force mother told me I should start college. I reminded her I had a huge emotional barrier to learning. She said ask the Lord. Well against my better judgement I ask him. Sure, enough he said go.

However, the first semester I made poor grades. I told you Lord, I told you what would happen. I Finally brought the grade card home bowed down and told the Lord if he would remove the barriers to learning any degree earned would be His. That next semester and each semester thereafter I was taking 18, 19, 20 semester hours at a time and on the honor roll. I finished a 4-year college in 2 years and seven months with honors. During the same period, I was working at an airport 40 hours a week refueling airplanes and my son was born. The Lord did that! He did it, I obeyed, but He did it.

Part 2 will follow