Wendell Martin Go Now! From the Innermost Parts of the Heart to the Uttermost Parts of the World plus Forty Stories of Faith
Chapter 01 – Early Years: Part One
I was born near Cleveland Ohio in the middle of July 1953, on a very hot and humid day. And a child could not have been born to more loving and caring parents than the ones I had. God was central in our home, and “spare the rod and spoil the child” was a gentle guide that established safe boundaries and a clear sense of right and wrong at an early age. While there was strict discipline in our home, I, along with my older brother and two younger sisters, learned foundational values that served as a moral and spiritual compass, guiding me through the twists and turns of life.
At an early age, I learned that life was more than the years I would spend on earth. I discovered the choices I made on earth would determine my eternal destiny. Such a choice was initially an easy decision. At the tender age of six, a firm confidence in God rapidly expanded in my heart. But over time, uncontrollable circumstances, which shape and steer the course of our lives, gradually eroded that confidence. Thankfully, I was about to experience a real-life miracle that would always compellingly argue on behalf of God’s very existence and His love for me. This miracle, which happened very early in my life, stayed in my heart as a constant reminder of the truth through seasons of doubt and drifting.
In those days, miracles were not common among the Christians I knew. We were taught that they really did happen, just that it was a long, long time ago. But for me, it all started with warts.
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I stared in dismay at the embarrassing lumpy mass of warts covering my right knee. There were fifty-two of them! “One for every week of the year,” I muttered in disgust.
Back when I was only eight years old and quite foolish, I had become friends with a toad. I had spent an afternoon studying its grumpy face, delighting in the feeling of its sticky toes as it crouched on my bare knees, in anticipation of a dramatic leap to freedom.
Now, two years later, I was much wiser, having been informed by more knowledgeable neighborhood kids that – as everyone knows – toads were the cause of the warts! Regardless of whether they were right or wrong, I now knew that this conglomeration on my knee was the terrible debt I had to pay for my ignorance of such matters. Though I didn’t know it then, I had formally been enrolled in the proverbial School of Hard Knocks.
“We’ll schedule an appointment with the doctor to have them burned off.” My mother announced, which caused me to lay awake at night, my imagination running wild.
This ungodly solution horrified me. “The doctors might as well amputate my entire leg,” I groaned with a shudder.
My life was coming to an end, and I was only ten.
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“You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me! Yet you refuse to come to me to receive this life” (John 5:39-40 NLT).
TO BE CONTINUED TOMORROW….