Tag: testimony

Posted on

30 Years – Part 4 – Where the Rubber Meets the Road

This is the last in a series of self-indulgent blogs celebrating the 30th Anniversary of my new life in Christ. Check out Teens Opposing Poverty’s Blog for the rest of the story. 

February brought with it the formal filing of divorce papers.  Ever since my “warm honey” experience in November, I had been free of my angst over the situation.  I thought nothing else would bother me about it.

I was wrong.

As I signed the divorce papers, I was overwhelmed with a sense that I was a failure.  Instead of signing my name, I thought I should have written “LOSER.” My feelings took me by surprise and threw me into another funk. It wasn’t the mind-numbing emotional pain I had felt before, but it wore me down nonetheless.

Hoping to change my attitude, I dug into my research with gusto. By Groundhog Day, I had concluded that Christianity, the faith of my childhood, made the most sense both intellectually and in the way it fit with my experiences over the previous three months.

Once I embraced following Jesus on an intellectual level, it was up to the Holy Spirit for my faith to travel that short, but obstacle strewn, path to my heart.

I can’t tell you the date or even what week it was, just that it was February. I remember that it was a clear, dry day and I was cleaning stalls in the barn of my parents’ horse farm. I had scooped up a fork full of horse manure and stood there staring at it with the words “failure” and “loser” filling my mind. I looked at the manure and thought, “This is your life. This is what you are on your own.”

I continued to stare at the manure when, all of a sudden, memories of sitting with my grandfather watching Billy Graham Crusades flooded my thoughts.  I could see the crowds shuffling down the aisle toward the platform.  I remembered the prayer of salvation.

It was time.

“Jesus, without You my life has turned to this. What scares me is that I know I can go lower, and I don’t want that to happen. I know I’m a mess. I know I’m a screw-up. I know I’m a sinner, but You want me despite all of that.  I guess that’s what I see in you that’s so great. I’m yours. You paid a huge price for me. Forgive me for turning away from you and all the other sins I have committed. I can’t begin to count them.  Do what You will with me. You lead. I’ll follow.”

I dumped the manure into the wheelbarrow.  To be honest, I didn’t feel that much different. I just knew I had done the right thing; the best thing. The wild adventures of faith that would follow over the next thirty years and the ones still ahead continue to convince me that I chose the best path.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

http://www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org

 

Posted on

30 Years – Part 3 – The Search (continued)

Around Christmas 1982, I picked up a book my grandfather had given me that had sat unread on my bookshelf since I was 12. It was “All the Apostles of the Bible” by Herbert Lockyear.  I pored over the accounts of the lives and martyrdom of Jesus’ disciples and the generation of Apostles that followed them. They suffered tremendously for the gospel.  Most of them died horrible deaths in order to share Jesus with the world.

Would they die for a lie?

Would they deny themselves the core comforts their civilization provided for something they knew to be false?  I know I wouldn’t.  If they had achieved great earthly gain, I would have continued to question the validity of the resurrection, but their sacrifices reached across the millennia to satisfy my doubts.

On Christmas Eve, I took the Bible I had received when I joined the church in 1965. I opened the red cover and smiled as I looked at the inscription that had misspelled my name.  Then I headed to the second chapter of Luke and looked at the wax stains on the page from where I had set the Bible in front of some candles as a Christmas decoration in my room many years before. It was time this book stopped being a decoration and started giving me some answers. I started reading.

Over the next week I read the four Gospels and the book of Acts. The words of Jesus made sense. If everybody lived according to His teaching, the world would be a much better place. I marveled at His parables and contemplated His words.  I also discovered that my understanding of Jesus as somewhat of a wimp was totally out of step with the man revealed in the pages of that long-dormant Book.

Throughout January I continued to read and compare. I reflected on the things that Mary said in our conversations that seemed to be just the thing I needed to hear, and I began to hurl questions at my grandfather.  I didn’t stop studying other faiths, but I began to feel an irresistible pull toward Jesus.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

 If you haven’t gotten the rest of the story, here are the links.

 http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/02/28/30-years-part-1-flashback/

http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/30-years-part-2-november-to-remember/

http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/30-years-november-to-remember-continued/

http://teensopposingpoverty.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/30-years-part-3-the-search/

Posted on

30 Years – Part 3 – The Search

After the events of November 1982, I spent some time searching. I wanted to know this God who had revealed Himself to me as a personal God.

The only religion I was familiar with was Christianity, but I didn’t immediately turn to this “default religion.” The search I was about to undertake wasn’t just about finding a set of beliefs I was comfortable with; it was about finding the truth.

So I spent the next few months studying religions, New Age, Wicca and other even more esoteric belief systems. I rejected out-of-hand the ones based on “human potential” and those that weren’t based on a god you could relate to on a personal level. My own experience belied those choices.

During my search, God continued to drop divine guideposts on my path to point me to Him. One of those guideposts was Mary Ashby.  As we talked on the phone about arrangements for my move to Texas, she shared brief nuggets of treasure about her faith. I found myself looking forward to our conversations.

Another guidepost was my grandfather, Rupert Kincer. He was a strong-willed man with a powerful faith in Jesus.  He knew the Bible inside and out, and fearlessly shared Christ with whoever would listen.  Not only did his personal relationship with God impact me, but he had given me some books years before that I had never read.  One of them, in particular, would have an impact on my decision.

At first I didn’t think Christianity was unique among religions, but as I examined it more closely I realized I couldn’t have been more wrong. Every other belief system I studied was based on laws, rules or levels of consciousness. Attainment of rewards ultimately depended on the believer’s discipline or adherence to a standard. In most of them, the believer could call on divine help to achieve the goal, and all of them had the potential to grant their followers a level of purpose and contentment. 

As I continued my search, something kept pulling me back to the faith of my childhood. When I began my close study of the core tenets of Christianity, it all made sense.  First, it recognizes that we are all imperfect, and as long as we are in this tent of flesh we will always be imperfect. In looking at myself, people I knew and the world around me, that was an obvious truth.  The Christian faith also recognizes that we cannot attain holiness and righteousness in our own power. Reaping the rewards of the faith does not depend on our abilities. It depends on how much of ourselves we surrender to the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Our salvation comes through the works of another who was worthy.

Christianity’s accurate assessment of the human condition pulled me strongly in its direction. But I still had a problem accepting the resurrection. For some reason, I found that proposition hard to swallow.  Little did I know that God would answer my concerns.

More searching to come.

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

http://www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org

 

Posted on

30 Years – November to Remember (continued)

Fast forward to the weekend before Thanksgiving.  I had dropped back into my funky fog as I was headed south on Interstate 81 to Tech. I was indulging in my pity party when I saw the blue lights flashing in my rearview mirror.

I pulled over.

The state trooper asked, “Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No sir.” I answered

“You were going 14 miles an hour over the speed limit. I tracked you for over three miles at that speed. Were you in a hurry?”

“No. Just going through a tough spot.  I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

I put the ticket in the glove box and headed more cautiously down the road, fighting back anger at myself for letting my problems get to me so badly. For the first time since I was a young boy, I prayed.

“OK, God. I’m a mess. I don’t know if you’re a personal God or just some cosmic force.  If you’re real, now would be a great time to prove it.”

I finished my meeting in Blacksburg and headed to the nearby town of Dublin to spend the night with my grandmother. My uncle was there, too.  He had come down for a hunting trip.

That night we had a delicious dinner of wild turkey.  As we ate, I noticed my uncle drinking a lot of water.  He was diabetic and I knew what was going on.

When we were out of earshot of my grandmother, I said, “Your blood sugar’s all out of whack. Do I need to take you to the hospital?”

Nah, I’ll be alright.  I cut back on my insulin when I hunt. This morning I took the lower dose, but didn’t go out because it started raining. I’m back on it, now. This will pass in a couple of hours.”

It didn’t.

At 2:30 in the morning, I awoke to the sounds of Tommy throwing up in the bathroom. I went to the bathroom door.  He could hardly stand up. I called for an ambulance, but the dispatcher said something big was happening and it would be 30 minutes or more before they could get there. We couldn’t wait that long, so I called my cousin Tony, who lived nearby. He helped me carry Tommy down the stairs so I could take him to the hospital. Tony stayed to tell my grandmother what was going on. Tommy had to be admitted to the hospital and put on an IV to get his blood sugar under control.

The next day, as I was driving home, I thought about what a coincidence it was that I just happened to be at my grandmother’s on the exact night Tommy went into sugar shock. I found myself thanking God that my grandmother didn’t have to deal with it.

As the miles rolled under my tires, I settled back into my all-too-familiar funk.  “Gee, thanks, God,” I thought. “You’re doing a great job here.”

I was nearing a rest area north of Harrisonburg with my emotions still spinning like a waterspout, my brain foggy and my attitude in the toilet when the most amazing thing happened.  In an instant, my mind cleared and my emotions calmed. Something wonderful washed slowly over me like a bucket of warm honey being poured on my head. It was beautiful and refreshing. I got an answer to my prayer.

“OK, God. You have my attention.”

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings

Executive Director

Posted on

30 Years – Part 2 – November to Remember

I was still reeling from the separation and impending divorce from my first wife. I had never experienced that much emotional pain.  Something like this was never supposed to happen to me, but it did.

At first, I didn’t deal with it well at all. I couldn’t think straight. I had forgotten what a decent night’s sleep was like.  There was this huge, black hole in my heart, filled only with anger, an engulfing sense of unworthiness, and betrayal. 

I hated November 1982. I thought it was the end of love in my life, but it was really the beginning of the most life-altering love I would ever experience. I just couldn’t see it then. The month that began in misery ended with events that would point me down a path of adventure I never could have foreseen.

My newly estranged wife stayed at our house in Richmond.  I moved back in with my parents in northern Virginia; yet another blow to my young adult sense of self-worth. From there, I began planning to head to Texas to work on a horse ranch and test an ovulation detector for horses I was working on with a bio-engineering professor at Virginia Tech. We never could get the thing to give us a stable enough reading, but that’s another story.

I connected with a large horse breeding operation in Texas and started putting things together in November.  On one of my trips to Tech to work on the ovulation detector, I visited my major professor from graduate school and updated him on what was happening. He told me that Mary Ashby, another graduate of the Animal Science Department was working in that area and gave me her phone number.  Perhaps she could help me find a place to live.

The next day I called her.  We had met before but I didn’t know her.  She was helpful and friendly as I shared my plans. I even felt comfortable enough with her to mention my separation from my wife.

In that conversation, something strange happened.  Mary just mentioned “God” in passing.  Normally that would have passed my ears without any consideration, but when she said that word, I became VERY uncomfortable.  After I hung up the phone, I thought, “Whoa, what was THAT about? Why did I get so uncomfortable?”

Next: 30 Years – Part 2 – November to Remember – Continued

God’s grace to you,

Steve Jennings, Executive Director

http://www.TeensOpposingPoverty.org