I was taken to church a couple of times as a very small child (<4 yrs old) and attended with neighborhood friends maybe twice before I was 10. Other than that, I had essentially no exposure to practical or doctrinal Christianity. To to say the least I was ignorant of The Way. Those few experiences undoubtedly shaped me in some way, I just cannot be sure of what extent those experiences shaped my view of God. Though I was frightened terribly by the one Baptist church experience I had where the preacher screamed and hollered about hell (in which I literally cried myself to sleep all summer long for fear of dying and going to hell) , and those memories struck fear in my little heart, I think the general nature of God that taught me generally by His common grace surrounded me that was how I clearly was a "God-fearing" atheist. One example of that was when I told my girlfriend in school that if I hear the Lord's name taken in vain from her mouth that we couldn't be a thang. That worked, and today she is my bride of 33+ years. Even though I chided her for her "immorality" I was a pagan who was lost and on his way to hell, but at least I had standards <tongue firmly in cheek>. But whatever sense that story reflects any moral compass in my life, it shows that I "believed in God" in some abstract (and at the same time, in some sense, real) way.
Fast-forward to my high school years. I was running late to a <previously unscheduled> baseball game that my coach called me from home. I was racing down the backroad too fast and ended up wrecking my car. It was a horrendous crash where I went over an embankment, through thick forest growth and trees, and ended up on my car top in a running creek with a full tank of gas spilling out into the creek and running all over the car. The rescue team ultimately had to cut me out of the car with the
Jaws of Life. The jolt had knocked me out for a couple of minutes and when I came to consciousness I was startled by the sound of a man up by the highway screaming at his friend who was coming towards me to help, he was screaming "put that cigarette out you're gonna kill us all!" What awareness of the situation I had while coming out of a groggy haze was slammed into the reality that though I had escaped a certain-death crash that I was now going to be burnt alive by some idiot redneck hero-wannabe, lol. As these fearful thoughts flooded my mind I can still vividly remember earnestly and sincerely thanking God for not taking my life right then and there. You would think that would be enough to lead me to some conversion experience, but I was thick-headed like many presumptuous teens that think they will live forever.
Speed forward 2 years and I was in my 77 Jeep J-10 pickup truck, stuck over an embankment on our hilly property up one of our hollers near a small watering pond. It was February in Ohio and a thick frost covered the ground. My dad was on our Massey Ferguson 165 tractor and attempting to pull me out of the mess I'd made. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I have an idea though it doesn't matter now, but the next thing I saw was the tractor tipping straight up in the air, front end coming backwards and the whole tractor landing on him, pinning him to the ground. I frantically raced to his side, and I'll spare you the nightmarish remainder of the story, but to say the least I was traumatized by the death of my father at an age when I was just becoming a man myself. It shook me to my core. I was practically comatose for a week. My girlfriend (lovely wife of my life for these 3+ decades now) stayed faithfully by my side trying to make me come out of the shock. I eventually asked her if she had went to church anywhere as a girl, and she said she had. I determined to go there and hear about this Jesus stuff, because I knew that just as my dad had came to an untimely death, I wasn't promised tomorrow either and I didn't want to face the God that I KNEW existed unprepared to answer Him. After 3 Sundays of sitting in that country church (a non-denominational community church with an oldtime gospel preacher) I surrendered to conviction on Easter Sunday 1988 and became a believer. Extremely fortunately for me, though I had no clue or care at the time, my girlfriend followed me down that aisle of decision and committed her life to Christ at the same time! Glory to His Name !!!
Sorry for the length, but not sorry for praising how He always reminded me He was near, until I couldn't resist the Truth any longer.
