10/18/2018
“Where did all those years go?” is a somewhat common rhetorical question asked by those (like me) who’ve reached an advanced age. Recently, a friend asked me if I ever said that. I responded, “probably, but not despairingly.” He nodded, quietly. After a moment he shook his head and said, “I wish I could say the same thing.” “You saved?” I asked. He said he was, “but, I had a lot of years which stacked up a lot of regret,” he muttered quietly. And my mind slipped back to my friend, Mo.
After Mo had been saved and coming to our assembly for about a year, he walked into my office one day with a brochure in his hand. It was a brochure for a lakeside retreat (at Canyon Lake in Texas.) On one side of the brochure was a picture of the lake from the sky. It showed where the retreat center was, but also most all the lakeshore. Mo pointed out to me a public dock on the North shore, then marked a place on the South shore where an old road just ran down into the water’s edge. I told him I knew those two places—about 1 1/4 miles apart—and he started this story:
“About a year before I come here that Sunday night and went home saved, I had reached a place of great despair. Life had just piled up on me. There was no one but me to care for our mother, I had debts galore, my kids were into all sorts of trouble, I just wanted to go, just go.
So one night about 2AM, I pulled into this public dock area, got out of my car, took off my shoes and socks, my belt, glasses, emptied my pockets, put all that in the car, and walked into the water. I figured I’d just swim out so far I couldn’t swim back. The water felt warm for that time of year.
The next memory I have was my hands reached down into mud. It was a shoreline, and a feet seconds after that I felt a hard surface under my legs and feet and I stood up. Looking around, I saw this road come up out of the water. It was almost dawn, just a hint of light. I thought at first it was a strange way to go to hell, then I saw it was this road [pointing to the brochure].
I was shocked and bewildered, but I walked a little ways up that road till a car approached me. It was an old man in a pickup with fishing gear in the bed of it. He stopped and asked, “Mr., You ok?” I responded, “I don’t know.” He said you’ve been in the water, are you sure you’re ok?” I asked him if he could take me to my car and he opened the door and I got in. He said where is it? I said, it’s at the North shore public dock. “How in the world did you get here,” he asked. I told him I swam. “In the cold of the early morning?” he asked. I said I guess. He said, “Mister, you need help, can I take you somewhere else?” I told him the car would be fine. When I got to my car, he let me out with these words: “Mister, I don’t know what you wanted out there, but I suspect you didn’t get it. If I were you, I’d ask the good Lord what He wanted from me and then, I’d do it!” and with that I thanked him and he left.
I went to my mother’s place and began to help her full time. No money, barely enough from her for us both to eat, but we were together. Then, about 6 months later, I saw Berean Bible Church’s ad in the paper, telling me that y’all believe the King James Bible is the word of God. I asked my mom if she believed there was anybody left that believed the KJB was God’s word, her reply was no, I don’t think so. The night I came here and talked with Mike, I had that same despair and I remembered seeing that ad and came.”
[Elder’s note: a 61 year old, obese man (about 200# overweight) who was also a diabetic, swam 1 1/4 miles in cold water, taking roughly 4 hours to do it, but survived long enough to “hear the word of truth, the gospel of his salvation,” believe it, trust Christ and be saved. Then bless us for about 5-6 more years with his zeal for the Lord]
Mo didn’t want me to tell that story while he was living.
Thanks for reading, the Elder
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