My Christian Testimony of Saving Grace

I wrote this account of my salvation back in 2017 to share with our church family. Here is the amazing grace of God at work in saving power, that grows truly sweeter as the years go by. Praise the LORD!

1973 l-r, Willi, Tom, Ed, Dad, Amy in front

Mark 5:1-20 My Christian Testimony of Saving Grace

Since God has done great things for me and had compassion on me like the man in this account with an unclean spirit I want to spend a little time this afternoon telling you how great things Jesus did for me in his saving power. 

I was born in 1952 in Philadelphia to a young couple who were religious and beginning their lives near the place they had grown up. My father fought in the infantry in WW2 in Europe. They were both college graduates and were members of the Society of Friends. We attended Quaker meetings at Cheltenham nearby, where my uncle and aunt and cousins, and our grandparents were all members. We prayed at mealtimes and bedtime. My mother played hymns on the piano and we sang together at Christmas. I spent my first eleven years in a neighborhood that was diverse religiously. We had Jewish and Roman Catholic neighbors, as well as one Episcopal next door, and one family that was Presbyterian. The religion of my family had an influence on me since we were pacifists, and I later volunteered to serve as a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War, like my Uncle Bob had in WW2. We used the older style pronouns in our home when we spoke and a distinctive calendar with numbers instead of names for months and days. We did not take oaths but let our ‘yea be yea and our nay be nay’. But we wore no distinctive clothing, and nobody looked anything like the man on the boxes of Quaker oats.

Our family grew to include two younger brothers evenly spaced by three years each. By 1962 my father was at a dead-end in his career in the telephone company in NYC, and was tired of the commute, so we moved in 1963 to Sebring so he could begin a new career as the owner of a Western Auto franchise. Our grandparents had a winter home in Sebring Hills, and my family on both sides wintered here since the early days of Sebring, close to 100 years ago.

After worshiping with the Hinshaw family in their home, we began attending First Christian Church on Eucalyptus and Poinsettia. The pastor and his wife were family friends, and we spent time in each other’s homes. Church members were family friends. I worked as a janitor as a young man, and sang in the choir. In 1966 Amy was born. Mom began to work as a case worker at the Alcoholic Rehab Center in Avon Park to supplement the family income. Her struggles with depression intensified and she sought psychological counsel. Dad bought a slot-car track about 1965 and rented the building next door. So with Sager Raceway and Western Auto to own and operate, Mom working and depressed, and four kids to raise, I entered my teen years reading everything in sight and expanding my horizons. 

During 1966-67 our pastor was convicted of inappropriate contact with boys. This, combined with my reading, set me up to reject Christianity, at least as an exclusive avenue to God. I began exploring religion and philosophy on my own at the age of 15 against my parents wishes. By 1967 their marriage fell apart, and Dad announced to us that he had to leave. It was the first time I had seen him cry. He moved down to Lake Josephine, and lived in a house owned by Lloyd Evans, who was on the board of the First Christian Church and a family friend. 

My reading of philosophy and religion gave me the distinct idea that there were many ways to God, and that the Christianity I grew up with was only one of many. I began reading more radical books that advocated the use of drugs to get in touch with God and bypass the disciplines necessary to spiritual enlightenment promised in eastern religions. 

I had a steady girlfriend, Janie Brandt, during the last years of high school, whose parents were missionaries. Janie’s father, Dick Brandt was the first director of S.I.M. retirement village. I was never confronted by them with the gospel, and have no recollection of them ever telling me about Jesus. They were Presbyterians. 

By the time I graduated my father had gone to graduate school for his masters’ degree at F.S.U. and began working for the state of Florida. Mom still worked at the Alcoholic Rehab Center and we remained close. I began drinking alcohol heavily on weekends with friends during high school, and experimented with drugs when they were available. I hung out with friends that were into that kind of thing. Although I had been a decent student and was in the advanced classes I had no direction about college. Vietnam was in full swing when I graduated in 1970 and staying home in Sebring did not appeal to me. I volunteered to serve for two years by working in Miami at Goodwill Industries in July that year. 

I moved in to the YMCA downtown. They offered free coffee and donuts Saturday mornings and shared some devotional message with us. I went because I was lonely but don’t know if I ever heard the gospel there. I worked with about 400 disabled people in the main factory. One old man from Georgia, Tom Ball, was eager to tell everybody his testimony of Christ’s saving grace. I tried to keep away from him but he caught me one evening just before quitting time and I had to listen. He had grown up in a rough situation and became a real tough man and a drunk. Through some circumstances he heard the gospel and was saved by God’s grace. He was so happy to tell me about his new life and how he had a good wife and five godly daughters all married to godly men serving God. I just wrote it off at the time. 

I kept in touch with my mother by letter writing and periodic trips back to Sebring. She remarried two times and was still unhappy and depressed. 

I became friends with several Latin American men at work and moved to an old hotel for awhile before we rented an apartment together in Coconut Grove. Miguel from Ecuador was a little older and had served in Vietnam and liked to drink and discuss philosophy. It was 1971 and drugs were plentiful. I began using regularly about that time, and got involved with a Jewish woman that lived in the apartment complex. Susan was from California, worked for Air Canada, and was very progressive. By 1972 I was reading some pretty horrible stuff and using drugs and had long hair and a beard. Most of my roommates were hippies who used drugs, too. I got involved with the psychologist at work and moved in with her. Anne was bi-polar and it was about the time I moved in with her that I finished my service obligation. By the summer of 1972 I had no need to work anymore, since Anne made good money as a Ph.D. psychologist. I used drugs and read and listened to music all the time. But her mental condition deteriorated in less than one year. 

By this time my mother started acting really strange! She was attending Bible studies and prayer groups and writing me about Jesus! I was surprised and puzzled, but figured it would pass if I just waited. After a year or so it didn’t go away at all. When Anne’s mental condition bottomed out I couldn’t live there anymore so I had to find someplace and decided to contact my mother and come back at least briefly. She had a little guest cottage out back where my brother Willi stayed. I had led him and Tom into the drug culture by then. 

It turned out that Amy was at kindergarten and had learned a song from Child Evangelism Fellowship about Jesus and had asked him to save her. When Mom heard her she didn’t think much of it, but noticed after a few weeks how she had changed. Mom’s friend, Patti Cox, was another Christian neighbor that influenced her. When Mom was saved her husband was a tough guy that had been an Army Ranger. He was not pleased and gave her an ultimatum – either Jesus or him. She chose Jesus and they were divorced. 

My intention was to go to a Buddhist temple in NY State near Woodstock. Fred Plant told me it was the most demonic place he had ever been in. God kept me from that. I came back in 1973 and rented a house on N. Franklin St. with Ross’ youngest brother Roni. We took turns working and I read and used drugs while I wasn’t working, cooking or cleaning the house. Curiosity led me to attend a meeting at my mother’s house with the Christians she worshiped with there. For the first time in my life I met people who lived all the time as if God is real. They had something I needed. I tried for awhile to clean up my life and stop using drugs. That was a failure as I started abusing alcohol. So I went back to drugs. By the beginning of 1974 I was destroying myself with drugs. My friends were even concerned for me. Terrie was my girlfriend and moved into a tiny house in the back yard where Roni and I lived. 

Finally on Feb. 11th 1974 late at night I went to my mother’s house on Belleview Ave. and told her I could not stop using drugs, and knew that psychology had no real answer, and I needed help. She called a man that knew the Bible pretty well who came over and read through and explained the gospel from Romans 1-3. For the first time the Bible made perfect sense. I understood then why Jesus died on the cross and that all of us are sinners in the sight of God, no matter how civilized and nice our outward appearance. I prayed that night at 11:30 and told God how I had ruined my life, was deeply ashamed of my sin, hurt everyone that cared for me, and gave my life to him to do whatever he wanted with me on the basis of the biblical gospel. I was baptized right there in the pool and then went home and gathered all the occult books and rock and roll albums and drugs and destroyed and burned them all. I went to Terrie’s cottage and told her what God thought of her. I was pretty brutal about it and had no grace. She was furious, but by the next day she got saved. I’ll let her fill in the details another time. 

Immediately I began to devour the Bible. I was so blessed to read and understand the Word of God and was excited to share it with all my drug friends. When they came over to get high I was reading my Bible and tried to share it with them. I wasn’t very discerning about it, but was sincere and earnest. My outward appearance was unchanged. The Christian gatherings at my mother’s house were almost a daily occurrence, so I had lots of fellowship. The man who emerged as the pastor served in that capacity until 1980. He was very dictatorial and forced us to study the Bible and attend all the meetings. The discipline was very helpful in healing my mind of the garbage I had imbibed and the mess my life had become as a hippy. God brought Terrie and I together and we were married March 23-24, 1974. God taught us to live by faith together and we have grown up here together in this church. God has blessed us with Christian brothers and sisters, and has restored my family as much as it could be. Mom went to heaven at age 83 seven years ago this week, June 7, 2010. Dad is doing well at age 90 in Blairsville, GA. He remarried Mom Helen in 1974 and they started a Lutheran Church together there. Dad is a Bible lover, and prays and professes faith in Jesus Christ. My brothers are both born again, too. God had mercy on us. He blessed Terrie and I with two healthy sons who now know God’s redeeming love, two wonderful daughters in law, who know God’s saving grace, and six grandchildren being raised up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord in Christian homes. I am so blessed! God began a good work in me 43 years ago as a lost drugged out hippy that ruined my life. I have had a wonderful career as a property appraiser for 42 years with this county. I have served as pastor here for 37 years so far. God even gave me the privilege to be Lloyd Evan’s pastor for a brief time after he was saved at the ripe age of 80. God has given me a life I could not have imagined possible after I made such a wreck of myself. When I trusted Jesus and gave my life to him everything changed. He is still faithfully teaching me to trust him day by day. It is not religion or going to church that changed me. It was and is Jesus that is my Savior, my Lord and my God! All the praise is his.

I want to close with the words of Psalm 126:1-3. May he bring many more lost sinners into his fold with rejoicing like he did for me. Praise God!

late February, 1974 Amy and I at our Mom’s Bellevue Ave. house.

Benediction: Num. 6:24-26