What's Your Story?

A few weeks ago I drove past the house on Colgate Avenue in Lancaster, PA where my grandparents raised my dad, Bill and my uncle, Bob. It was so much smaller than I remembered it being, and, sadly, it had not been kept up the way my grandparents had cared for it. The house played an important part in my dad's story. As he told his congregation at Paoli United Methodist Church in 1989, that little house on Colgate Avenue was the place where he first felt called to ministry:

In 1959, I was an insecure, pimply-faced high school junior.  I was somewhat shy, but I had a few friends, had been in a school play, worked on the school newspaper, and took care of my paper route. I came from a strongly church-oriented family ... people who had some sense that church was about personal faith and salvation.  In that year, 1959, nobody knew how deeply troubled I was, because teenagers don't talk about these things. I was all wrapped up with who God was, whether I could ever really be accepted by him, and what I was going to do with the rest of my life. As I look back on it, I was struggling mightily with those issues, sometimes without even knowing it.

One night I lay awake far into the night with my thoughts, as I often did. But this night was different. I heard no voice and felt no tingle, but suddenly I knew first of all that God wanted me to give my life to him in full-time service, and if that was true it meant that he loved me, accepted me just as I was, and claimed me as one of his children. I will never forget the relief I felt, the burden lifted, as I realized that my relationship with God had been settled.

It was winter; we heated with coal and one of those big pipeless furnaces in the basement with a large three-foot square cast iron grille in the floor between the living and dining rooms to heat the entire house.  It was a favorite meeting place to finish dressing in the morning and enjoy the warmth. It was there, the next morning before school, that I told my mother what had happened the night before, and I began my journey.

We don't all have stories about being called by God to professional ministry, but we do all have stories of experiences that moved us closer to God.  These are stories to be shared.  As my dad put it, "[When] we share what God is doing in our lives or how we see him moving in our world, [God's] Spirit grows all the more strong and real, and everyone is blessed." So, what's your story? Consider sharing it with others, and then watch what God does with it.

"We Love to Tell the Story"

Galatians 1:11 - 2:10