165
May, 1944
Him. I wish you knew how wonderful it is to be at rest — to have it all settled. Won’t you let Him come into four heart, too, Christine?” “I—I don’t know. Not now, Steve,” she added more firmly. “There are too many questions I want the an swers for, first.” She was deeply moved, but was not willing to admit it yet. Certainly some thing or some One had answered all Steve’s need. Nor would she soon for get Maida’s sudden flaming joy when she was told that her Daddy now loved the Lord Jesus; her quick turning to Christine with, “Won’t you let Him in, too, Mummy? And then we would be all together in Jesus.” In the following three weeks Chris tine came near to jealousy, seeing the oneness between Steve and Maida,- their joy in reading the B i b l e , in memorizing Scripture, and in prayer. She knew they were praying for herK and it made her the more miserable. At last her defenses crumbled, her last question was answered by the wit ness of the two lives closest to hers, and she accepted the. price paid for her and knew the Lord Jesus Christ as her own Saviour. . They were like babes in the woods, those first weeks. Maida knew only what she had learned at the Mission Sunday-school — the way of salvation through memory verses and uespel songs. The little family did not know where to go for fellowship. Thej went to one or two churches near them, but were not satisfied, though they could not have told where the lack was. Humbly they asked the Lord to show them where they should go. One day a young woman came into the neighborhood to hold children’s Bible classes. Maida met her and eagerly invited her home to meet her mother. As Christine talked with the young teacher, she knew this conver sation was a part of the Lord’s answer to their prayer. Following her directions, they found themselves in the services at the Church of the Open Door, conveniently located near their apartment In Los Angeles. They could tell it was a church that believed the Bible. There a desire to study God’s Word was bom within them, and the young father and mother enrolled in the Bible In stitute of Los Angeles for one term, as auditors. When school opened in September, 1943, Christine and Steve went to en roll as auditors’ again. The study of the previous year had intensified their desire to study more, and they had asked the Lord to show them His will. As they waited in the office, Steve [Continued on Page 168]
. . . By a Little Child
never woke early. Usually she had to shake him out of drugged sleep. A nameless terror pulled her to her feet and sent her to the doorway of the living room. There she stopped ab ruptly and gazed In mixed astonish ment and relief at Steve sitting quiet ly, with Maida’s Bible open on his knees. Even in that first glance, she saw that the tense look about his face had gone, and there was contentment there. He saw her before •she could turn away, if she had wanted to, and said: “ Come on in, Honey. I’ve some thing to tell you.” As she dropped into a chair beside him, she automatically reached for the cigarettes and offered one to Steve. But he shook his head. “No, dear,” he said. “Last night something happened to me. While you were asleep, I had some dealings with God, and the Lord Jesus Christ came into my heart. My life is His, now, and I don’t want to defile it further with those things. I just don’t want them any more.” She listened in amazement as he went on:- “I think you know what I was up against. . . how desperate I was, thinking of the hopelessness of the future, with my health practically gone. . . how I was unable to help my self. Well, last night I decided I had stood all I could. While you and Maida slept, I got up with the purpose of ending it all—committing suicide.” At her quick, indrawn breath, he smiled tenderly. “ It’s all right, now, dear. I’ll never be tempted in that way again. It was cowardly, I know, but that is what I intended to do. “And then I remembered the ques tions Maida had asked me and some of the verses she had quoted. I heard her frequent words, ‘If yoU really and truly loved the Lord Jesus.’ I didn’t know how to call on Him, but I did know that If Christ lived and was con cerned with weak mortals, I certainly was the one who needed Him. And that is just what I told Him. Then I asked Him to come into my life and take the rest of it all for Himself. And He did. I can’t tell how I know, but I’ve been reading it here in Maida’s Bible, just like she told it to us, how Christ died for my sins, and then rose again that I might live with
“I did quit, Maida, for a while,” she said shortly. “But it isn’t easy.” “If you really and truly loved the Lord Jesus, you wouldn’t want to smoke and d r i n k , ” Maida replied earnestly. “Please don’t preach to me this morning,” Christine answered impa tiently. “Mother’s head aches.” “ I’m sorry, Mother dear..But I want you and Daddy tp love Jesus. I want it so much that it hurts me here.” She placed both small hands over her heart. “We’d all be so happy if we loved Him together.” Christine did not answer, but she felt ashamed of her impatience. Never theless, she began a thorough cleaning of the apartment while Maida ate her breakfast, so that there would be no more searching questions about salva tion. She couldn’t say she was saved, and she didn’t want to say she wasn’t. She had not known what she was let ting herself in for when she had sent Maida to Sunday-school “for the good influence it would be.” Even the activity of sweeping and dusting did not dispel the disquietude within her. She remembered another promise she and Steve had made a few months ago—and had not kept Maida had been in the hospital, desperately ill, the doctors giving little hope that she would- live. After hours of pacing the floor in their fear and grief, she and Steve had knelt together and promised God they would do anything if He Would spare their child to them. It had been a bargain made in frantic fear. Maida had lived—but she and Steve had continued in the same round, seeking happiness in pleasure, forgetting' their promise to God. Now she was more frightened than ever she remembered being—a differ ent fear than she had felt the night Maida had nearly died. This was a dread of what Steve might do. She never had been afraid of Steve. Since she had run away from home when she was sixteen to marry him, she had never regretted her "choice. But she was afraid for him—of what he might do to himself. There was some thing terrifying in his desperate tense ness lately. * * * It was still dark when she awoke a few mornings later, to sit quickly erect, all her fear crystallizing in the knowl edge that Steve was not there. He
•
A true story of a home that was changed
•
Made with FlippingBook HTML5