Showers of Blessings (Part 1)

This is a series featuring Guest Writers.  We hope the Lord will shower you with blessings through some of the people who have showered us with blessings.

Guest Writer Bio:  John R. Oglesbee, M.D.

Dr. John is Tricia’s father.  You can read more about him in the article she wrote, A Great Physician.

He is a spiritual mentor for Tricia & Darryl.  He leads by example with a fervent desire for God’s Truth and a deep knowledge of Scripture. 

Experience of Grace – John R. Oglesbee, M.D.

In my childhood many precious things were provided to me by my parents. I was born in 1939, so I was only two years old when my father was called up for World War Two. It was during those formative years that two children’s books were read to me by my mother. They were “Tell Me About God” and “Tell Me About Jesus.” From them and her quiet piety I was made aware that God is and that Jesus is.

But that is not salvation.

It was not until after the war that I became accountable to God. I stole something. It was a conscious, deliberate act in which I succumbed to the lust for something that belonged to someone else and took it. The very moment I had it in my hand I looked up at the sky and I knew that I had sinned and was at that very instance no longer an innocent child, but a sinner, guilty before and in fear of God. Fear of dying with condemnation upon me rested upon my brow from that day, and I spent the next years of my life with that conviction. Otherwise, it was a fairly common time of growth, education, maturation, but always with that shadow in the background.

I repeated the prayer my mother taught us when we were very small at bedtime many, many times:

NOW I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP. I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO KEEP. IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE, I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO TAKE.

It did give me some hope and comfort, but I still knew I was not free from sin.

I learned the Lord’s prayer also at home and repeated it often as well. I learned one other thing in a Presbyterian Sunday School: Psalm 23:

THE LORD IS MY SHEPHERD, I SHALL NOT WANT. HE MAKETH ME TO LIE DOWN IN GREEN PASTURES. HE LEADETH ME BESIDE THE STILL WATERS. HE RESORETH MY SOUL. HE LEADETH ME IN THE PATHS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS FOR HIS NAME’S SAKE. YEA THOUGH I WALK THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I WILL FEAR NO EVIL, FOR THOUGH ART WITH ME. THY ROD AND THY STAFF THEY COMFORT ME. THOU PREPAREST A TABLE BEFORE ME IN THE PRESENCE OF MY ENEMIES. THOU ANNOINTEST MY HEAD WITH OIL. MY CUP RUNNETH OVER. SURELY GOODNESS AND MERCY SHALL FOLLOW ME ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE AND I SHALL DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD FOREVER.

I pursued religion, more or less, while my life expanded. I went to a Methodist Church most of the time. The Church sponsored a Boy Scout Troop in which I became very active and learned solid moral principles about things like honor, duty, loyalty, helping others. I will leave it to you to read the Scout Law and other details of that organization elsewhere, but as I grew up these influences impressed me. But none of this satisfied a deep, abiding longing for the security of my soul. God was indeed present throughout all my growth and development, molding, preparing, leading His errant child, but I did not know this. What I knew was that I was a sinner under condemnation from the very moment I committed deliberate sin and became accountable to God.

In my educational career I was somewhat of a rowdy and was not exactly welcome at the school I had attended since the second grade, Franklin Grade School in Muskogee. I was sent to Sacred Heart, a Roman Catholic school in the fifth grade where I learned, besides my typical fifth grade lessons, about holy water, crossing yourself, Mass, relics, saints, baptism, confirmation, the rosary, catechism, and other tenets of that religion. I began to think I needed to be baptized.

I still attended the Methodist Church and much to my dismay, even went to “Vacation Bible School” one summer. But not really. The second floor room my brother Tom and I were sent to happened to have access to the fire escape. We only had to raise a window when no one was looking and, presto-chango, we were free as the breeze, scampered down the steps and escaped in very deed. To this day the concept of “Vacation Bible School” remains an enigma to me. How can you be on vacation and attending school of any kind. That is clearly not a vacation.

When I was in High School my struggle with accountability, conviction or condemnation, as you may consider it, continued and lo and behold, the Billy Graham Crusade was coming to town! Perhaps there I would find what I was looking for. I attended only to find out the great reverend Billy Graham wasn’t there at all. There was only some lieutenant of his who was not very impressive. I did make an impression on a man in the crowd who was standing behind me. He said he knew how I was feeling because he saw me clenching my fists behind me as the preacher sermonized. I was mortally embarrassed to go with my disappointment at not hearing the great Billy Graham.

I went down at the “altar call” but there wasn’t really any altar, since the “crusade” was held in the football stadium. People milled around on the track with it’s gritty, black, loose surface crunching under their feet. I milled right on out of there as there seemed to be no order or direction regarding what to do when you got down there.

I went to Tulsa to hear the real thing. Very charismatic speaker. At the conclusion I went down again and got some tracts and was told how great it was and I should figure out some church or other to join (every form of Christian denomination had representatives there ready to scoop up new converts the Reverend had gathered) and by the way, give us your address so we can send you some stuff. In accordance with their directions via U.S. Mail in the ensuing months I set aside a little spot and hung up the hollow, plastic sign that said, “Religious Service Will Be Conducted Here Daily.” Other trappings followed, some I made myself. The only thing faithful about the process was the persistent pleas for donations of money to the “crusade.”

It was all as hollow as the plastic sign itself, which I eventually disposed of into an ordinary trash can. However, I did keep and read a Bible which I took with me whenever I left home, whether visiting relatives or camping. I carried it on every trip I made to New Mexico from age 14 to 18. Read it too, all over the Sangre De Cristo range of the Rocky Mountains, their foothills, desert, peaks and canyons.

I graduated high school and enrolled at Northeast State College. I had girlfriends in High School, but college was different. The difference was magnificent, unbelievable. I had a friend who worked at the hospital and another in our circle from the neighborhood who was dating a girl who worked in surgery. We managed to wrangle invitations to the Christmas party. It was an annual event of the hospital. I got a date with a girl named Kay who lived on K street in Muskogee.

When we got to the party, I saw a girl sitting under a purple light bulb facing away from me. We had not met and I had not even seen her face, but I immediately fell in love with her. I said to myself, silently, “I want to marry her.” She was there with my best friend, Alan. A week later at the New Year’s party she was there with me. It took me two years to convince her to marry me, which is another story.

Our courtship was like nothing I ever imagined. This girl was a down hard, steeped in truth, old-fashioned Baptist. A Missionary Baptist. We spent hours with her witnessing to me one on one. Everything she said made sense. Then one night when I brought her home we were sitting in the living room and she read from Romans 9:16,

 “It is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.”

I suddenly, powerfully knew that I was not destined for hell, that I was God’s child and he was going to take care of me, no matter what my condition was at that time.

My first visit to her home and family was a most fantastic experience. I arrived after dark. When I knocked on the door, the most beautiful Choctaw girl I could ever imagine answered. It was Patsy’s younger sister, Barbara. But I was there to see Patsy. During that visit Patsy’s father and I sat in the living room floor and he preached more plain truth to me out of the Bible than I had ever heard before.

I continued to keep up with my studies at Northeastern, but my heart was not in it. It was looking for God, more and more desperately. Finally one day I left my classes, left the campus, and went to a Baptist Church and met with the pastor in his office. We talked a while and he focused on the struggle inside a person in the fix I was in. He made an allegory of two dogs fighting inside you and the possible outcome. But I already knew what the outcome had to be. I knelt on the floor and prayed, “God have mercy on me a sinner.” Not just verbally, but from deep within my heart.

God heard and answered my prayer of repentance. My ancient fear and burden vanished. I went on my way rejoicing. I felt as if I were floating on air. My feet never touched the ground. I returned to my classes. A young lady, the professor teaching my next classes, spoke to me after class because I was late. She said she knew it was better for me to be late that session, that she knew I had to “find myself” and that it was more important than anything else. I have always wondered how she knew and what she knew, but I never had an opportunity to find out. She was satisfied to leave it at that.

She was right, of course.

Nothing is more important than salvation.

The first person I related my experience to was Patsy. She knew, too. Her witness was God’s instrument to bring me to that moment of repentant prayer when, like the Publican (Luke 18:9-14), I would go down to my house justified.

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