Summer is almost here and
it’s time to celebrate! I know it’s not officially summer until June 22, but don’t
we really think of summer as being between Memorial Day and Labor Day? Many
students are already celebrating their freedom from school. For the past 238
years our country has celebrated its independence and freedom on July 4th.
Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery dating back
to 1865. It was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Maj.
Gen. Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with the news that the war had
ended and that all slaves were now free. Sheri and I celebrate our anniversary
in June (it’s either the 26th or 27th) and I celebrate my
birthday every summer in July. As important as all of these dates are, there is
one celebration I enjoy that you may be unaware of.
Every June 16th I
celebrate the most important event in my life. Because it was on that date I
made a decision that sealed my destiny. That sounds pretty heavy doesn’t it?
Well, it is, because not only did that decision determine my destiny for life,
it also sealed my eternity.
It was a Friday evening
during the summer of 1972. I was sixteen. That night I was a bundle of nerves
because I had been preparing to make a public statement. A proclamation that would prove I was a
“Christian.” Well, my little prepared speech didn’t turn out quite like I had
planned. It was better!
I was raised in a family
whose religious background was Roman Catholic. During the first 16 years of my
life I was immersed in Catholicism. I was christened; confirmed, received my
first communion, attended catechism, and went to confession. My elementary
school years were spent at Mount Carmel Catholic School. There I was taught
about God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I learned how to
genuflect, make the sign of the cross and stay away from angry nuns. I learned that if you were good, you went to Heaven
when you died and if you are bad, you went to Hell. They also talked about a
place called Purgatory, which is sort of like an afterlife holding cell for the
not too bad for Hell, but not good enough for the Heaven crowd. I never really
bought into that. So, to me, the choice was clear, Heaven or Hell; a no-brainer,
right? So I decided that if I wanted to go to Heaven, I had to be good. Problem
was, they didn’t tell you how good you had to be, or more importantly, what
wasn’t good enough.
Therefore I vowed to stay
out of trouble because I learned the hard way that it could be a very painful
experience. I remember one time in elementary school being brought by one of
the Nuns to the principal’s office. She grabbed me by my left ear, gave it a
good twist and a yank and away we went. Yeouch!! She led me all the way to the
principal’s office with ear in hand. As I entered the office my knees were
shaking in my ear was aching. I was one scared little boy. The principal, the
Head Nun, set calmly in her chair. She pulled out a ruler from her top desk
drawer and laid it very gently on her desk. This is a very effective
intimidation tactic I’m sure they learn in Nun school. The only thing I can
remember is staring at that ruler and fearing for the sake of my knuckles.
Somehow, I was able to leave with my knuckles unscathed. I am just now, after
all these years, getting the feeling back in my left ear.
From that point on I was
determined not to get my, “knuckles whacked, my bottom smacked or, go to Hell.”
I felt very confident about accomplishing the first two, but the going to Hell
thing really scared me.
How good do you have to be?
I didn’t know, and no one else seemed to know either. I try to gain points with
God by being an altar boy, as I, along with other boys tried to work our way
into Heaven by assisting the priest in conducting the mass. We would arrive at
school early in the mornings to prepare the hosts (little bread like wafers)
and the wine that only the priest would get to drink. Looking back I can tell
you that putting eleven-year-old little boys in charge of an alcoholic beverage
was probably not a very wise choice. At least it wasn’t in our case.
Someone had told me that the
hosts were sacred and that if you didn’t eat them right away, or if the
leftovers were not disposed of properly something very bad would happen. Like,
they would turn into snakes or scorpions. Well, that really piqued my
curiosity, so one day I brought some home, put them in a baggie placed them on
the top of the refrigerator. Every day for a week I would check the baggie, and
every day there was no change. As I think about it now, it doesn’t seem like
such a big deal, but for little boy it was huge. Why would they tell me this if
it wasn’t true, and, if that wasn’t true, what about all the other stuff they
want me to believe?
I left parochial school to
attend public school in the seventh grade. There I would experience a whole new
set of consequences for getting in trouble. One day, at Hartman Junior High,
the coaches and the assistant principal has set up a sting operation to catch
adolescent malefactors as they ran down the hall (as we know many of the most
hardened criminals in the world today began their life crime by hall running).
The punishment - to whacks on the rear end with a wooden paddle designed to
provoke fear into the hardest of criminals. It worked. As I sat in my seat I
was shivering with fear waiting for the assistant principal to call me into his
office.
As I entered his office he
asked, “Mr. Walker, were you running down the hall?”
“Ummm – uh – yessir,” I
whimpered, thinking that honesty might get me off with just a warning. I was
wrong. The assistant principal then pulled out a hard backed wooden chair over
and told me to lean over the back of the chair and grabbed the front legs with
my hands. Not only is that a most humiliating position, but it also makes a
skin on your bottom end tighter than shrink-wrap. Then he asked me the dumbest
question I ever heard in my life. He asked, “Are you ready?”
Are you ready? Are you ready? There I was draped over
the back of a chair with my rear end raise to the Heavens and he asks if I’m
ready. Was I ready? Was I ready to have a man three to four times my age and
bigger than Goliath blister my butt with a board? No sooner had I said, “Ummm – uh – yessir,” I
heard the board whistling through the air. It sounded like a double barrel
shotgun going off in his office. BAM!!!
My soul did that hurt? Then, BANG!, he hit me again. That was the last time I got swats (there was
one time before, but it wasn’t my fault – – yeah right). I never got them in
high school.
At Ross S Sterling High
School in Houston, I was introduced to other things that could really get me
into big trouble. I stayed away from most of it. It was during this time I
began to seriously consider life questions. I remember sitting in geometry
class wondering if all the stuff I was taught in parochial school was true. Was
I good enough to go to Heaven? What was good enough? What wasn’t good enough?
More importantly, was I good enough? I knew I was a good kid but honestly I
didn’t think I was good enough to be Heaven material.
When I was sixteen I joined
a (don’t laugh) Square Dance Club. Okay, go ahead and laugh. I mean really, how
many teenagers do you know join a square dance club? Well, I found out that
there were quite a few actually. The name of our club was the “Swingin’
Squares”. And we were. Every now and then our club would visit another club in
La Porte Texas called The “Bayshore Promenaders.” That’s where I met Gwen.
I thought she was so pretty.
I would catch myself watching her and wondering if I could ever be with the
girl is pretty as her. Well, after several times dancing with her I knew that I
wanted to see more of her. When I finally worked up the nerve to ask her if she
would like to go out with me sometime she said, “Yes.” But, there was a catch.
One of the prerequisites to
dating Gwen, set forth by her parents, was that you had to go to church. Well,
that was not a problem, I went to church. In fact, I had the papers to prove
it. What they really meant was, I had to go to their church.
On the surface that didn’t
sound too bad. Then I found out that they were Baptist, but not just any
Baptist; they were Southern Baptist.
I’ve been warned about these people. Weirdoes! They didn’t dance; they didn’t
drink; they didn’t smoke or chew. They preached fire and brimstone. They went
to church all the time and they couldn’t have any fun or they’d go straight to Hell;
Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200. These people petrified me. But Gwen was
really, really pretty. So, after weighing all the pros and cons that are
important to a sixteen-year-old pubescent boy, I decided to take the risk and
go to the “Southern Baptist Church”.
Bayshore Baptist Church was
in La Porte Texas. The pastor was Rev. Bill Baker. He had wavy grayish hair and
was in pretty good shape (athletic). He spoke with a big booming voice that
there was something else I heard in his voice that I wasn’t expecting;
sincerity. I was drawn to him because of this genuineness. He spoke of Heaven
and Hell, which I expected, but then he began to talk about how you could know
for sure that you would go to Heaven. He also spoke of having a “personal relationship”
with Jesus Christ; wait, what? I had never heard that before and I wanted to
hear more. I continued to go to church with Gwen and her family and the more I
heard about the message of knowing Jesus the more interested I became. There
were times, mainly during the Sunday night services, when Brother Bill would
ask people to stand and tell of how the Lord was working in their lives. They
call this, “giving a testimony.” When people stood up and spoke I could see
that they really had a love for Jesus. When they spoke I could see their
passion for the Lord. How did they know?
Sometimes Brother Bill would
ask the audience, “do you know, that you know, that you know the Lord?” No!, I
didn’t know, but I sure wanted to.
I wanted what these people
had but I didn’t know how to get it. The more testimonies I heard the more I
realized I needed one. I asked Gwen’s mother, Pat Shippey, what it meant to
have a testimony and she gave me a recording of a guy named James Robison,
giving his personal testimony.
It was fascinating to me to hear
how his life had changed from a being gang member in Houston, Texas during his
Milby High School years, to becoming a preacher. He explained how he came into
a relationship with Christ and something within me just knew that I needed the
same. He said that it was like a bride walking down the aisle and as she
approached her husband she was saying, “I love you. I trust you with my life. I
dedicate my life to you forever. I accept you as my husband.” He said that he
came to the Lord a very same way. He said, “Lord, I love you and I want to live
my life for you. I want you to be the Lord of my life. Please, forgive me of my
sins. I accept you as my Lord.”
I had decided that what I
needed to do was give a testimony. The next time there was a “testimony time” I
would tell everyone there that I was a Christian and then I would go to Heaven.
One problem, I didn’t have a testimony. I was just going to make one up.
Then the time came.
On June 16, 1972 a youth
choir, from Corpus Christi Texas, came to do a concert at Bayshore Baptist. It
was a Friday night. I had decided that on that evening I was going to give my
testimony. I was a ball of nerves all day long. That evening we were sitting
halfway between the front and the back rows on the piano side next to the wall.
The closer it came to the end of the concert, the more nervous I became. And
then, it was time for the “invitation” part of the service. That is the time at
the end of the service when the pastor would ask if anyone present would like
to come to the front and accept Jesus as Lord. This was it. Now it was a time
to give my “testimony” and secure my place in Heaven.
We were all standing while
the choir sang the invitation song and it seemed as if that song would go on
forever. I kept telling myself that if they sing one more verse then I’ll go.
When the next verse started I would make the same promise all over again. They
kept singing; I was shaking. No one was going down the aisle but they just kept
on singing! Really? Come on, what are
they waiting for!? Man, I was about to explode with panic. The grip I had on
the pew in front of me was so tight that my knuckles began to turn white. And
then it hit me. I couldn’t give a testimony, because I didn’t have a personal relationship
with Christ. I became more and more anxious. I didn’t know what to do.
Turning to Gwen I asked her,
“I need to know Jesus Gwen, what do I do?” She said that I should walk down the
aisle and talk to Brother Bill, he would help me. So, that’s what I did. I began to make my way toward the center
aisle. Many people I crossed in front of were smiling because they knew what
was going on inside my heart. Many were crying. Mrs. Shippey was on that row
and as I passed in front of her she said, “I’ve been praying for you.” It
seemed like it took forever to make it to the aisle and even longer to make it
to the front of the small auditorium. As I was walking toward the front, I
could see Brother Bill waiting for me. He had the warmest smile.
When I reached the front,
Brother Bill wrapped his arms around me. After a moment he asked, “Gordon, why
are you coming tonight?”
I said, “Brother Bill, I
need to know Jesus but I don’t know what to do.”
We knelt down facing the pew
of the front row and he led me in a short prayer where I simply asked the Lord
to forgive me of my sins and come into my life. I found myself crying and
noticed that Brother Bill had tears in his eyes as well. I really don’t know
how to explain to you what happened inside of me. All I know is that when I
stood up, I was not the same. There was an indescribable peace inside of me and
I knew that Jesus himself had touched my life. Now, I knew that if I died I
would definitely go to Heaven. I also knew that not only would I live forever
with him in Heaven, but he would also live inside of me and that he wanted to
be intimately involved with me.
The Lord is given me many opportunities
to share this story with many people and I always say:
Even if there wasn’t the threat of going to Hell for those who do not trust him, which there is, and
Even if there wasn’t the reward of going to Heaven for those who do, which there is also;
I would still trust in Christ as my Lord today because of the life he gives me each day.
Even if there wasn’t the threat of going to Hell for those who do not trust him, which there is, and
Even if there wasn’t the reward of going to Heaven for those who do, which there is also;
I would still trust in Christ as my Lord today because of the life he gives me each day.
An intimate, personal
relationship with Christ is truly amazing.
So, there it is; My
“testimony”. Since I have given my life to Jesus I can say without doubt that
if I die before the Lord’s return, I will be in Heaven. There is only one thing
that could make this even better, and that is knowing that you will be there
to. Will you?
