Unlikely Guides

    I came to know Christ as a teenager so the people involved in my salvation were also teenagers.  The first was Calvin.  Calvin was a friend of my older brother.  He had a round, acne prone face, a pear shaped body and somewhat effeminate mannerisms.  He was, of course, extremely unpopular at high school.  Calvin attended a teen Bible study to which he invited my brother, Clell.  Clell, who had been raised in the Mormon church like me, started inviting me to the monthly parties for the teen group.  I attended some of the parties, but began to feel guilty for not attending the Bible studies on Thursday nights.  My brother seemed to believe what was being taught and I was in a spiritual gap between the Mormon church, in which I believed but no longer attended, and the various theories popular at the time: evolution, the lost continent of Mu, ancient astronauts etc.  Like many people, I was creating my own beliefs combining whatever spiritual elements I found most compelling. 
     Then I encountered the book of John.  The pastor of the small, Baptist church was leading the teens in a study of the book of John.  As a Mormon I was taught to believe the Bible, it was one of our articles of faith.  "We believe the Bible to be the Word of God, as far as it is translated correctly.  We also believe the Book of Mormon to be the Word of God."  Somehow, when the Bible conflicted with the teachings of the Mormon church, I believed the Bible.  Though I didn't know it at the time, this was God's grace working in my life.  In Mormonism, as in all other cults and most other religions, salvation is a result of things we do: baptism, church membership, attendance, obedience, service etc.  In the Bible salvation, is the result of what Christ did for us by dying on the cross to free us from our sins, our only role is to believe and trust in that.  I found this interesting and, mentally, I agreed with it, but I wasn't ready to admit my sin and ask Jesus to save me.
     That is where Donna came in.  Donna was a friend from grade school, a fellow "smart" girl and in my homeroom.  I never discussed spiritual beliefs with Donna, Donna impacted my life by dying.  We were 15 and sophomores when she started acting and talking strangely.  Somehow Donna knew she was dying before she knew she was sick, she had even written about it.  By the time she was diagnosed with hepatitis, it was too late.  She died on my mom's birthday, March 14th.  Suddenly I needed to know what happens after we die. It was not enough just to have ideas about it, I needed to be certain of what I believed.
     Still I resisted trusting my life to Christ.  I realized it would be unfair of me to ask Him to save my soul without offering to give Him my life after all He had paid for it.  And I desperately did not want to give up control of my life, or the illusion of control we humans have.  My childhood had been controlled by my mother's mental illness and I didn't want my emerging adulthood to be spent controlled by someone else, even someone like Jesus.  I wanted to hold the steering wheel.  So I resisted, even through the altar calls to come forward for salvation that the pastor gave at the end of every service.  I stood gripping the pew in front of me until my knuckles were white, fighting the inner urging of the Holy Spirit to go forward and give in.  I resisted until October 1972 when, after hearing a speaker at our church harvest dinner, I went home and asked Jesus to save me from my sins.
     That night changed everything.  Looking back I could see hundreds of events that brought me to the place of believing.  It was my mom's paranoia that got me out of the Mormon church, it was Calvin's invitation that brought Clell and then me to Bible study, it was Donna's death that forced me to decide what I believed.  They were the most unlikely guides to God you could imagine.  When I wonder how God could possibly use me to serve and bring others to Him, I need to remember the unlikely creatures He used to guide me.