It’s June Letter Month at Kinship Radio!
This year’s theme is, “Jesus is the cure.” So, write us a letter, tell us how Jesus is your cure, include a donation of any amount and you will receive an official Kinship Radio First Aid Pack and a CD by Unspoken which includes the song, “The Cure.”
Here’s a link with more info: https://kinship.secureallegiance.com/kinship/WebModule/Donate.aspx?P=JUNELTR21&PAGETYPE=PLG&CHECK=oyVw9hfpknaK%2fyegIKYtia1gzMC6uhq5nDjkJobrCdg%3d
I’ll start, but please keep in mind that yours can (and probably should) be entirely different.
I was raised in a home where my mom was a Christian and my dad was not. At the age of maybe seven or eight years old I met Jesus at Vacation Bible School. Although I remember very few of the details, the filling of light and love that day is something I will never forget.
When I was thirteen, my mother passed away as a result of breast cancer. By the time I graduated high school, I was a drug addict. I bought into the lies of the hippy culture of the time and I led a life of sin.
I knew deep in my heart that what I was doing was wrong. I often thought, and prayed, that I should change my ways and come back to Jesus, but I was unable to do so under my own power.
And then one day, in the late summer of 1983, I was headed home from a motorcycle trip to Colorado when I spotted a campground behind the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo, South Dakota. (I remember the sign said Elvis’ motorcycle and many classic cars were on display in the museum.)
Now, if any of you have ever noticed, Murdo sits in the middle of all the flat boring nothingness in the center of South Dakota. I pitched my half-man pup tent (I call it a half-man pup tent because if I stretched out on my back, my feet would stick out the door.) as night fell and went to sleep.
At about 2:00 a.m., I was awakened by a thunderstorm. The wind pelted my little tent, threatening to tear it from the ground. I stuck my head in the peak off the tent and grabbed the corners as I knelt on all fours. The rain pelted my side, stinging through the thin tent material. I, my sleeping bag, and everything in the tent was rapidly becoming saturated.
And then it stopped.
The wind and the rain simply ceased. I waited a couple of minutes to see if it really was over. And then I heard it.
From off in the northwest, I heard a low rumble. It grew closer and closer until it sounded like there was a freight train directly over me.
Yes, it was a tornado.
Now, you may have heard it said that there are no atheists in fox holes. I can assure you, brothers and sisters, neither are there any atheists in half-man pup tents underneath a tornado.
As I tried to hold the tent down and keep from being sucked into the swirling vortex above me, I cried out to God. And I promised God that if He would just save me, I would quit doing all the bad stuff I knew I shouldn’t be doing. I even promised God I would start going back to church.
Well, since you are reading this, you obviously know God did indeed spare my life that night. The tornado tore the roof off the Stuckey’s truck stop to the south of me, blew my motorcycle over, scattered picnic tables and cast iron fry pans throughout the campground, and spared my miserable life.
The funny thing is, I did not immediately follow through on all those promises I made to God that night. In fact, as I drove away in the clear morning sunshine, I remember thinking to myself, “I’ll never be able to keep all those promises I made to God.”
And God chuckled.
For, over the next two years, God let me descend further and further into sin. My life got worse and worse until one day, I looked in the mirror and knew I had hit the bottom of my existence. I knew only Jesus could save me and I pulled out my old Bible that had been given to me just before mom passed away and I started reading.
And I got some other books, and God put me in contact with people who knew Jesus, and I did start going back to church and I began to find out who Jesus really was.
It did not happen overnight.
It’s been a long, slow process but in it, I have resolved to simply follow Jesus where He leads me. I do not cure myself. Jesus cures me a little bit more each day.
And because of what Jesus has done in my life, I have been blessed beyond measure. Love has been multiplied in my life again and again through my family, through writing this blog, through studying His word, through the tapestry of worship and the Word on Kinship Radio, through the dozens and dozens of pastors and missionaries and simply disciples I have met and come to love over all these years.
I have found love and peace and joy –unspeakable, miraculous joy– in following Jesus and allowing him to cure me.
Case-in-point: I recently responded to a survey sent to me by Bethany Global University in Minneapolis. BGU is a missionary training college, and it has been instrumental in many of the mission trips that have blessed me. In that survey, I offered to help their ministry in any way I could, whether it be by writing or preaching or evangelizing, or through my work experience with donated cars.
They responded quickly and asked if I would like to help with publicity on a 1965 Mustang that’s been donated and will soon be auctioned off –at the Pioneer Auto Museum in Murdo, South Dakota.
All I could do was smile at the power of the cure.
Today’s Praise
“Return, faithless people; I will cure you of backsliding.” “Yes, we will come to you, for you are the LORD our God. Jeremiah 3:22 (NIV)