A New Life Begins

My earliest memories are of the dairy farms on which I was raised until age 12. Ah so many great memories of walks in the pasture to bring the cows in for milking....climbs into the silo to throw insalge down to feed the cows, of 5AM feeding of the cows...even milking by hand some of the "fresh" cows....when I was a bit older. Ah yes....one of my favorites feeding the calves. They were fed milk from a bucket with a nipple on it, but the great fun was letting the calves (who had no teeth) suck my fingers and hands. As they sucked their saliva would run off my elbows. Strange fun huh?
Work was always a part of life and I have no memory of ever even thinking of complaining about any of it. Well ....maybe one thing ....pulling weeds out of the 5 acre truck patch of tomatoes.
In the midst of all of this in my 10th year.....a dramatic change occured in my family. My dad and then my mom were born again....I mean born again! We had been invited to go to a "tent meeting". This meeting was in a huge 4 pole tent in the middle of a field near Herr's potatoe chip factory. The speaker was Oliver Greene. We drove from Chads Ford to Nottingham for this meeting and I can remember clearly my dad roaring with laughter and riddiculing Rev. Greene on our drive home. But guess what? The next night we headed for Nottingham again...the difference? On the ride home dad cried like a baby. The message so clearly presented of our sinful condition, a holy God who could not tolerate our sin and the good news of God so loving us even in this sinful state that He gave His only begotten Son....Jesus (Merry Christmas)
And this Son Jesus.....the only one to ever live a sinless life...died on a cross ....shedding His blood ...becoming our sin sacrifice. Only Believe...and that is exactly what dad did that night.
Well...I said our lives changed? From church 2 times a year..to now every time the church doors were open. And tent meetings? Yes...every time Oliver Greene was within driving distance either in a tent meeting or in a church for revival meeting...we were there.
At age 12 in Sunday evening service (Sept 10, 1960) I believed the gospel for myself and began a journey of knowing God personaly. A personal relationship with the living God.....awesome!
Now these many years later....after much failure....adversity...much answer to prayer...seeing the faithfulness of God and beginning to understand His heart and His jealousy over His name.......and His insistence that the way of proving my love for Him is ......simply.....to His word.....OBEDIENCE.