"I tried to reach you yesterday," she cried!

It was 9.30 A. M. on the Friday before Christmas. I had just entered "my favorite restaurant" Bob Evans for breakfast. I eat breakfast there almost every day of the week. After I was seated, the waitress took my drink order and went to get my coffee and water. Before she could return, the phone rang, and she took the call - she was closest to the phone. She came to my table and said, "Pastor, the call is for you. It's ______. She wants to talk to you. This person on the phone had waited on me many times. As I walked to the phone, I remembered a conversation we had had about two weeks before. She spoke to me as I sat at the counter and asked, "Would you pray for me? I have some spots on my liver." I assured her that I would and immediately added her name to my prayer list on my trusty Treo phone/pda. When I picked up the receiver and identified myself, she sobbed, "Pastor, this is _________. I tried to reach you yesterday but couldn't get you. I went to the doctor and he told me I have cancer and I have 3 to 6 months to live." I asked for her address and arranged to meet her later that day. After a brief trip to my office, I told my secretary that I was going to visit this lady. I arrived at her house, about a ten minute drive from my church. She asked me in and her first words were, "I want to go where your wife is. I want to know how." She knew Jean and me from the times we had eaten at the restaurant. She quickly told me something of her background - raised in the Philippines, met a G. I. in Germany and came to the states and got married, a Catholic, but in name only. I asked if she would like for me to give her the knowledge of how to go to heaven to be where Jean is, and she responded, "Yes." I slowly shared the verses on salvation with her, asking her to read, and then I asked if she was ready to receive Christ. She replied emphatically, "Yes." I helped her pray and then went through the steps of giving her assurance. I asked her to get her Bible - a Phillipine/English translation - and had her write in the front fly leaf the date and time and her decision to receive Christ. She said, "Is that all there is? Am I going to heaven now?" I replied, "God did all the work. All you had to do was trust Jesus. He wasn't concerned about your religious label but about your personal relationship with Him through His Son."
In a few minutes her husband came into the room. He is disabled. He told me that some years before he and his wife had been married in the church that I now pastor. We talked for a little while. I asked if I could come back and visit them at another time. They assured me I could. Just after Christmas I went back to see them. She was still rejoicing in her new found faith and said, "I have a real peace inside. I have been reading my Bible."
These events are "God moments" and I rejoice that He allowed me to be part of them. I have withheld the name to protect this dear lady. I know she would appreciate your prayers for her.

Jerry Burton

It's Almost Christmas

Christmas will be here inless than two days. I have fond memories of Christmas. One year my wife and I were driving from Texas to Iowa to visit her sister and husband. Red Hobbs pastored in Round Prarie, Iowas. We were almost at their house when we got caught in a valley between two high spots and the road was too slick to get up the other side. It was just before day break. We couldn't see any lights in any houses no matter what direction we looked. I kept the car running to keep us warm. After a little while I spotted a light in a farm house several hundred yards away. I began the trek to the house to see if they could help us. They invited us in, gave us something warm to drink and let us call my wife's sister. In a little while he was there to get us and we were able to get on to their house for Christmas. Jean's nephew, Billy Hobbs, liked to play basketball and we would go almost every night to a school nearby to play with his friends. We actually packed the car twice to come home and Billy begged us to stay a little longer. Finally we had to go home but I remember that Christmas with fondness. My wife and I had a wonderful time with her family who had become my family when we got married.

This year I will spend Christmas with my daughter, Kristi, and her family - Greg, her husband, Lindsey, Chelsea, and Kaylee, my three wonderful granddaughters. It is a day filled with mixed emotions - I love being with them and I miss my wife so much. But God knows all these things and He will, in His goodness and grace, sustain me through these difficult hours. I trust Him and He loves me.