I am 89 years old. For as long as I can remember I have known Jesus.
I was baptized as an infant at Huntertown United Methodist Church and
have attended here ever since. My dad used to bring us kids to church
in an open horse and buggy; when I was older, I sometimes rode my bike.
I remember how much I liked my Sunday school teacher. Church was simply
a natural and necessary part of my life.
My Christian walk has been relatively smooth. I married the sweetest
lady ever in 1939 and began teaching high school along with running
the family farm. I taught in a couple of high schools in different communities
and then landed back at Huntertown High School, where I taught for 34
years. Marscell and I raised six children, one daughter and five sons.
Life was good and still is good. My faith walk has been marked
with relatively few bumps.
But God is a faithful God…and sometimes He needs to call His
children into a deeper relationship with Him, so that our hearts might
be softened and our faith strengthened.
A couple such times remain vivid memories to this day.
It was 1949. I had been married for ten years and was teaching at Huntertown
High School. Our church was hosting some revival meetings. During one
meeting, a student from Fort Wayne Bible College (now Taylor University)
stood up and gave his testimony. As I listened, God spoke to my heart.
“He’s got something I haven’t,” I remember
saying to myself. Later I spoke with our pastor about it, and he gave
me a booklet published by the Salvation Army. I remember that booklet
being powerful. I began to pray, feeling a strong conviction in my heart.
One morning a few days later, I woke up and felt Jesus on top of me
as if He were tromping up and down on my chest, trying to tell me something.
I went off to school to teach, a bit shaken. At lunch time I needed
to run an errand at the local dime store. On the walk down there, I
suddenly felt the Lord lift a huge burden from my shoulders. It was
as if two bushels of wheat had been taken from my back. I felt convicted….
I knew what I needed to do. That afternoon in each of my classes, I
felt led to pray for the class as a whole and for each student. I did
so….aloud. Later I was reprimanded a little by my principal, but
nothing ever came of it. Today, I still weep at how God loved me, how
He used me to reach others, but mostly I am humbled thinking about how
Jesus walked with me that day.
God used me in other ways too. There was a man in Huntertown at one
time who ran the garage at Lima and Woods Road. What a character he
was! I used to hear him swearing with his buddies up at the restaurant
near the post office. He was a very colorful character. One day I was
in the local hardware store, and he walked in. He wanted to talk to
me. So we found a couple of onion crates, went outside to a garage,
and sat down. First, he prayed; then I prayed.
Later that same day, the guy appeared on my farm and came to the barn
to find me. He was whooping and hollering. He had gotten through to
the Lord, he said, and had a real change of heart. He began coming to
my church Sunday mornings and to our Wednesday night prayer meetings.
Eventually, he moved to LaOtto and joined a church. I never saw him
again, but I am humbled to think that God brought this man to me, that
maybe he saw Jesus in me.
I have always known Jesus. My mother always knew Jesus. Unfortunately,
my father did not…and it was a burden I carried around in my heart
for years. But God would prove faithful once again in using me to reach
a lost soul. He gave me the courage to talk to my dad about his faith
as we were milking cows one day. It was something that we never talked
about. I don’t remember anything that he said to me at the time.
But a week or so later, I found him reading a copy of The Upper
Room. I am humbled by how God worked in my dad’s life. I
know he knew Jesus by the time he died.
I have always known Jesus. I am thankful for a life filled with riches—64
wonderful years with Marscell, six children, 15 grandchildren, and 17
great-grandchildren. God has been very good to me. And I know that when
I leave this earth, Jesus will be walking right beside me.
--Walt
