Fanny Crosby once wrote:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.
We are all storytellers. The regular days of our lives gradually weave themselves into a drama; most writers are simply observers and tellers of the stories that are all around them.
When we are young, we are given a lot of advice and instruction. Parents, teachers, preachers, and friends fill us with information about life. But those lessons are illustrated or refuted by the story told as we watch people make choices and observe the unfolding consequences of those choices.
I think of the stories of four men. The first was a young father named Bob, who was an explosion waiting to happen. He was gifted with his hands and had a bright mind, but he felt as if his life were an endless cycle of meaningless activity. Eat, sleep, go to work, come home, and start again. He had a well-paying job, a wife who loved him, and three beautiful children, but his days were full of frustration which he vented at home to those he loved best. Weekend parties only served to increase his sense of dissatisfaction, for once the alcohol haze wore off, the emptiness still gnawed at his soul. His wife and children tried to stay out of his way; they learned to not make waves when he was in a bad mood. During those rare moments when he was happy, they absorbed his affections like a sponge, but eventually they learned to be wary even then. His personality could change as quickly as the weather during tornado season on the plains. Several people invited Bob to church, but he didn’t want anything to do with it. He’d attended as a kid, and he’d long ago walked away from the restrictions of that!
But at this loving church the people kept praying for Bob. His wife took the children to church in spite of Bob’s opposition, and one day she convinced him to go with her to a concert of a singer named Doug Oldham. A concert wouldn’t be too religious, Bob thought, so he went. Besides, he was feeling guilty about his ugly disposition at home and wanted to make it up to his wife.
The music was upbeat, and the crowd seemed to really be into it. Bob loved music and found himself clapping along. About halfway through the concert, the singer told his story—how he used to be so hard to live with and so selfish that his wife finally took their children and left him, how he had contemplated suicide when faced with the reality of what he had done to a family that had loved him.
Bob could hardly believe what he was hearing. It could have been his story. It was as if the singer knew what was going on inside him—the way he did things he down deep didn’t really mean (though he seemed powerless to stop himself), the way he was hurting the family he loved, the way he felt empty and helpless to change his life.
Bob knew he had to change direction, and he knew he was powerless to do it, as if he were all bound up inside. As Doug had sung, he was
Shackled by a heavy burden,
’Neath a load of guilt and shame...
But the song continued:
Then the hand of Jesus touched me
And now I am no longer the same!
He touched me; Oh He touched me!
And oh, the joy that floods my soul....
Joy! That was it. His life had no joy.
Bob talked to the pastor after the concert about his soul, but he wasn’t ready to surrender his life. He’d had too much pain in his childhood—some related to church—and he wanted to make sure that if he started something, it would be “the real thing.”
Some months later his wife convinced him to go with her to a revival that was sweeping a nearby college campus. Doug Oldham, the singer he’d heard at the concert, was to sing. Bob never got to hear the singer that night. The power of prayer was so strong at the beginning of the service that he knew he had to respond. He made his way to the altar. Doug saw him coming and met him there. Together they prayed that God would change Bob from the inside out. He did! And what a change!
Bob was a new man. He never took another drink. His anger began to subside. His lifelong habit of smoking stopped that night. His family could hardly believe the change in him at home. One day his little daughter said to her mother, “Something’s happened to Daddy! He’s not mad anymore.” She was right. He was becoming a walking example of Paul’s words, “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17 kjv).
Not long after Bob told his story at our local church, Bill and I attended two funerals in our small town. The first was that of a man who had lived a selfish, reckless life. He had destroyed most of his relationships and had damaged people who got close to him. He died cursing those who tried to help him and refused all efforts at reconciliation. The visitors to the funeral home were few, and those who came were uncomfortable. What does one say? For those who had to live with him, there seemed more relief and guilt than genuine grief. There were no words of hope. The tone of the room was depressing, indeed.
The other funeral was after the death of Bill’s grandfather, Grover Gaither, a simple man who lived what we thought was an ordinary life. A man of quiet integrity, his word was his contract. He had farmed a small Indiana farm and, when younger, worked in a factory. On weekends he traveled with Bill, Danny, and me, when the Gaither Trio sang in churches. He and Blanche never missed a service in their church; they supported their pastors; they housed evangelists and missionaries in their farmhouse. I’m sure Grover would have told you he had had a good life, though he had never done anything very spectacular.
How surprised we all were to see the funeral home packed with people of all ages. They filed by Grover’s casket to tell stories. “He put me through electrical school,” said one middle-aged man. “I stayed at their house when I had no place to go,” said another. “He always cut my hair on Saturdays,” said a young boy from the neighborhood. Each person went on to say something about Grover being “a good man” and how he had quietly impacted that person’s life in practical ways.
There was much laughter and storytelling, too, reminiscent of Grover’s great sense of humor. And great rejoicing! The tears of sadness were shed through smiles, remembering a man who had “died with his boots on” and his fields ready for planting, come spring.
Bob’s story. Doug’s story. The story of a sad, wasted life. Grover’s story. My story. Your story. How it is told in the end and what the story says depends on what each of us does with Jesus.
For us, it has been the stories told—and lived—by real people that convinced us to stay with the way of the Cross. These stories made their way into a song we called “The Old Rugged Cross Made the Difference.” For us, it truly has.
