I was born to moral parents who loved me very much, but received no real spiritual foundation as I was growing up. In high school I decided I wanted to be Homecoming Queen, and felt the best way to win was to date the captain of the football team. He was a wonderful Christian who attended a great church, where many of our dates took place. It was there that I first heard the message of salvation. His pastor explained that a great gulf exists between God and man, but God bridged the gap by sending His Son to be our Savior. He also said that if anyone was hoping they were a Christian, they probably were not. Well, I had been sitting there thinking, "I hope I am a Christian!" I thought, "Wow! I had better 'go forward' to make sure I am." I really did not understand, and although I now had some head knowledge, it did not translate into my heart.
When my boyfriend's sister was chosen Homecoming Queen, I broke up with him. You can see what was important to me. I continued to have a shallow attitude, which was evident in my decision to attend the University of Alabama because they had a great football team! I still was in charge of my life and decided that after graduating from college I would get married. I picked Mickey. We would have a house with a picket fence and everything would be great. I thought it was. I joined the right clubs, associated with the right people, began to have children, and with each passing year became more miserable.
If you had looked up the word shallow in the dictionary during those years, perhaps my picture would have been part of the definition. Some people may have considered me to be pretty on the outside, but I was far from beautiful on the inside - I was a fake.
One day a friend told me that "everyone who is anyone goes to Community Bible Study. It is the place to go," so I signed up. When I first went to CBS I sat in the very back row, checked out everyone's outfits, made out my grocery list, even filed my nails during the lecture. I thought our Teaching Director, Jane Anderson, was a Pollyanna. No one could really be like that. I thought she was the most boring person I had ever heard! Now mind you, Jane is one of the best teachers anywhere-our class is approaching 500 people this year! But you see I was not really hearing what she said.
After watching Jane and the others in the Bible Study for a year or more, I decided they were for real. By this time I had moved about half way up in theroom. I was doing my lessons, I went to my Core Group, and [supposedly] listened to the lectures, but I just didn't get it. However, the seed of God's Word was being planted in my life and eventually it would take root. People thought that I was a Christian, because I used the right terminology, said the right words. But I knew I was a fake.
By the time I had attended CBS for three years, I had, little by little, moved to the front row. One class day, as she had many times before, Jane urged those of us who had not done so to invite Christ into our lives. She then said the exact words I heard as a teen, "If any of you are out there hoping you are a Christian, you probably are not." It was as if the switch on a chandelier was turned from dim to bright and suddenly the whole room fills up with light. I finally understood what she was saying. I bowed my head and prayed, asking Jesus to come into my life. I knew I was a sinner; I asked Him to forgive my sins and to become my Savior. Instantly, peace started in my heart, went down through my body and out through my feet. The sky seemed bluer, the grass greener. I knew that I had become a child of God, and He began to show me ,"The plans I have for you....plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future" (Jeremiah 29:11). The truth had finally traveled from my head to my heart. I was 32 years old.
Meanwhile my husband, Mickey, had some business problems and had begun drinking too much. This continued for years; his life was out of control.
The children and I attended a wonderful church, but Mickey said, "I will never set foot in that church." I began to pray, and I had prayed for a year when finally one Sunday he came to me and asked what our plans were that day. Of course, they were the same as they were every Sunday and when I asked if he wanted to go to church with us, he said "Yes!" I ran into the closet and said, "Hallelujah!" I was thrilled.
Mickey began to hear the gospel week after week, but there was no apparent change in his life. He was still drinking too much and things were very difficult. Finally, I felt as if I just had to leave. I called him on the phone and said, "I'm sorry to tell you this way but the children and I are going to stay with my mother." I said I did not want a divorce but was leaving until he got his life together. He said, "Well, I didn't plan on telling you this over the phone, but yesterday when I was at home alone I asked Christ into my life." I am sorry to say that I was skeptical as to whether this was genuine but I knew I could not leave. I had to give him another chance.
God had been working in Mickey's life unbeknownst to me. I found out he had been reading some of my Christian literature and had come upon a book by Henry Brandt which included the author's testimony. Mickey said when he read Brandt's testimony and the prayer of salvation, he simply prayed that prayer for himself He realized that he had reached the end of his rope and had to have help. He asked Christ to take over his life. It was 1992-ten years after I had become a Christian.
The Lord Jesus did come into his life and Mickey stopped drinking, smoking, swearing. Christ made him a new person. God's Word says, "For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether - the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new" (2 Corinthians 5:17, The New Testament in Modem English, J.B. Phillips). Mickey is now a Sunday School teacher and a CBS Core Leader in the Birmingham Men's class. The change in his life is truly a miracle.
In 1993 we were taking a late summer vacation. I was driving Brittain, 13, and David, 6, from Milton, FL to Navarre Beach, FL - a trip which goes through 25 miles of swampland.
Try to imagine what it was like: it seemed as if everything we owned was in our car. There was nothing along this stretch of road-not a shack, a gas station, even a phone booth! It was 8:30 p.m., quite dark, except for the streaks of lightning, and I was alone with two children. As we were riding along, with David asleep in the back seat, the car suddenly made a terrible noise. Brittain began poking my arm, "Mom, don't you think we ought to pull over?" "No, it will be all right," I said. In my mind I was praying, "Lord, materialize a gas station, a phone booth, something. I know you can do that, Lord!" Brittain tapped my arm again and said, "Mother, really, there's smoke. Let's get out of the car!" "Don't worry," I said, as we kept on driving. Well, finally the car quit running, and we had to pull over. I told Brittain to stay in the car; I would take care of everything. When I went around to the front of the car, I yelled, "The car's on fire; get out!" I was beginning to panic and my daughter took charge. She jumped out of the car, ran around to the back, and literally picked David up, throwing him out of the car! As I came around to where they were the whole car went up in flames!
I yelled, "Run!" And we took off down the middle of the road. As we ran I realized that I was the adult here, and [humanly speaking] I needed to take charge. So we stopped and I began to pray. "Lord, You say in Your Word to give thanks in all things. So, thank You that we didn't find a filling station - we would have blown it up! Thank You that we are standing here, that we got out of the car, and that we are all right. Thank You that You love us and have a plan for our lives." I just began to say "thank You" over and over. Then I asked Him to "please send someone to help us. And please don't let it be 'Jack the Ripper!... We were standing in the middle of nowhere! After I prayed, the same peace that came over me the day I became a Christian went through me again. A few seconds later headlights appeared down the road.
When the car slowed to a stop, I did not give the driver a chance to decide whether he would give us a ride. I opened the back door and pushed my children in the car. When I got in I said, "I know that God sent you, I know you are an angel, and I know you are going to help us." I figured if he were planning to kill us I wanted to make sure he knew God had sent him so he couldn't do that!
As we drove off the man said, "Lady, did you know your car's on fire?"
After notifying the volunteer fire department we were taken back to the scene. I asked one of the firemen if he would take my keys, open the door of my car, and retrieve my wallet which had been on the dashboard! He said, "Ma'am, I could just put my hand through the roof, there's nothing left of your car!" A few minutes later he came back with my wallet which looked like a piece of burned toast! But as I peeled it back, I saw that the money I had inside was not even scorched. I said, "That's God!" The fireman said, "Well, I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen anything like that."
Also, I had a little jewelry in my purse which was not expensive but it was important to me. Later one of the firemen found my purse and only the handle was burned! My entire car, which was in ashes, could probably have been scooped up in a shovel; yet, God had protected the little bit of money I had and jewelry that was important only to me. God knows how to show us His love for us in the most personal ways.
Two important things happened as a result of that incident. David had seen the reality of Christ in that situation and about two weeks later he came up to me and said,
"Mom, I need to talk to you about heaven. I don't think I'm going there." We sat together on the sofa, and I began to explain to him as simply as I could that we all need a Savior. I asked him if he would like to pray and invite Christ into his life and he did.
God had also begun to work in Brittain's life that night. She came to me about six months later and said that she had settled where she would spend all eternity. I couldn't believe it!
Brittain said, "I know I prayed when I was five years old to receive Jesus, but I have wondered for eight years if I would really go to heaven when I died. I could not honestly say 'yes' until the other night. I heard a speaker that night and he said, "Jesus came for you 'so that you may know that you have eternal life "'(1 John 5:13). She said "I realized that I didn't know for sure. When he asked if we wouldn't like to settle in our minds where we are going to spend all eternity, he looked directly at me and said, 'You can, you know."'
"I bowed my head and invited Christ into my life. Then I asked the Lord to assure me if this was finally settled! Mom, a voice as clear as yours said, ' Brittain, you are my child and you will spend all eternity with me."'
As I looked at her face, I saw that same peace I had the day I accepted Christ into my life. It was the same peace I had seen in David's face, in Mickey's life, and in the life of our older daughter, Brooke. She had come to Jesus as a little girl and has had a tender heart toward Him ever since.
We are so thankful that God has invaded our lives. Because we know Him we are "confident .. that he who began a good work in [us] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).
The first step in receiving that confidence is to settle the question once and for all as to where we will spend eternity. We know; you can know. "I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life" (I John 5:13).
Kathy Miller
Core Leader
Birmingham South, AL CBS