"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for
the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my
salvation." -- Isaiah 12:2 (RSV)
Forty-three years ago tonight, I made a personal commitment of my life to the Lordship of Jesus. By the grace of God I was raised Catholic and never left the Catholic Church, but on this night at a Christian concert when I was fourteen, I made it my own.
The story actually began several months earlier when my mom and I went to see a movie at my high school. I remember nothing about the movie except that at some point the mother in the film was on a stepladder decorating a Christmas tree when she had a heart attack and pulled the tree over as she fell.
When the movie was over, someone got up front and invited people who wanted to commit their lives to Jesus to come to the front where they would take you to a room to pray with you. Cradle Catholic that I am, I had never seen anything like this before. Thinking, I suppose, that Catholics believe in Jesus so this was a Catholic thing to do, I leaned over to my mom and whispered, "Shouldn't we go forward?" She whispered back, "No, we already have a church." It wasn't really clear to me what that had to do with it, but I wasn't used to arguing with my mom, so I just said, "Oh," and stayed where I was.
I watched as two or three people got out of their seats in the semi-darkened auditorium and walked forward. As I watched them go, I thought, "Wow, that must really take guts." I was not long on guts. In fact, I was probably one of the most fearful young teens in the county, although I did my best to hide it. I'd even been in plays, but being on stage is different. It's a very controlled environment in which you're hiding behind the mask of another person, saying words that are not your own with actions and responses that are all planned out beforehand. It's very different from the real you stepping out in front of a bunch of people and taking a stand.
Fast forward to October 31, 1970. A friend had invited me to a "Scream in the Dark" haunted house, followed by a Christian concert at a high school in Homer, Michigan. It was a very popular event with busloads of kids coming in from all over the county. I wasn't really into anything horror-related, but the band had played for an assembly at my high school (yes, my public high school) earlier in the week, and I had really liked them, so I went.
The concert was almost over when one of the band members got up and started to share. I suddenly realized what was going on and thought -- and this is an exact quote -- "Uh oh. Here comes one of those things that takes guts." Only this time, I wasn't in a darkened auditorium with my mom and a bunch of strangers. I was in a brightly lit gymnasium. In front of 400 of my peers. And in order to get from my place in the bleachers to the room where they wanted us to go, I had to go up to the cross aisle, over to the side aisle, down to the floor, and walk in front of everyone to the corner of the gym that was diagonally opposite from where I was sitting.
I'm still not sure exactly how it happened. One minute I was sitting in the bleachers, glancing around, wondering if the friends I had come with were going to go. The next instant, I'd grabbed my coat and made it to the gym floor, walking as fast as I could with my head down, sure that if I caught anyone's eye, I'd lose my nerve.
I finally made it to the relative safety of the room where I couldn't be seen, although the room quickly became very crowded with other teens who had made their own version of the same journey. By now, though, I no longer cared who saw me. And after they had led us in a prayer committing our lives to Jesus as Lord and I went forward to get the New Testament that they were giving to each person, I didn't care that they could see the tears on my face. I just knew in my heart that I had done what I had wanted to do, what I had to do, despite my fears. And nothing has ever been the same since.
