Birth Story

 September 14, 2023

Everyone has a story. Last night, our daughter Jessie stopped by to do a short video of her birth story for use to promote this year’s Walk for Life. It’s quite the story, but I won’t be the spoiler; you’ll have to log onto her Facebook page for Options Care Center. When we were done, she asked about our birth stories. Both Linda and myself came up blank. Neither of us remember our parents talking about when we were born, and we never thought to ask them while they were still with us.

I can however, tell the story of my second birth, when I came to Christ. Sunday mornings, I would watch my friend Jack Pease staring sadly out the window of his parents’ car as they drove off to church. Cheerfully waving goodbye to him didn’t seem to help his mood. Then one Sunday morning when I was about eleven, I joined my friend Jack in that sad journey; my mother had decided we were going to start attending church. I was less than thrilled.

I can’t remember how long we were there when my brother came to Christ. I saw such a change in him that I thought to myself, “If this can help him, maybe Jesus can help me, too.” One night at a pre-teen meeting in the basement room off the kitchen of the Westside Baptist church, an elderly gentleman gave a talk using a light fixture with one of the wires going directly to the outlet, and the other one cut in two with the two ends submerged in a bowl of water. He slowly stirred salt into the water and we watched the light begin to glow. 

“You are the salt of the earth, the light of the world,” he told us. “But only if Jesus Christ lives in you.” He gave an invitation, I raised my hand and outside the door of that room, talking with the pastor’s wife, I gave my life to Jesus. I’ve been back to that church, and although it has grown and changed, I can still point to the very spot where I invited Jesus Christ into my life.

One little twist to the story: the gentleman who spoke to us that evening was a widower. My grandfather wasn’t a Christian, but every day, pastor Ellis would drive across the city and out to Clifton Springs where he was hospitalized, dying from colon cancer. Before he died, pastor Ellis led him to Christ. And a few years later, my widowed grandmother and the man who led me to Christ were married. So my spiritual father became my earthly grandfather.

That’s my (new) birth story. What’s yours?