Little did I know, when I got out of bed that Saturday morning in 1972, how the events of that day would cause me to seriously question, for the first time, the practice of the giving of tithes--and eventually, the other basic doctrines of Protestantism.  Jimmy, our son, needed a new pair of shoes.  His old shoes were so worn out.  For weeks I had glued the bottoms on with crazy glue, trying to make them last as long as they would. But when he was putting on his shoes that morning, I noticed that the bottoms were completely gone.  There was nothing left to glue.  I would have to buy him a pair of shoes, somehow, before the day was over.  But with what?

Frank, my husband, had come home in the wee hours of that Saturday morning, drunk and flat broke, as he had done so many times over the years, after getting paid the day before.  And all that I had left out of my pay check that week--after I  bought groceries, paid for day care for our daughter Kim and for Jimmy who went after school, and paid other bills--was my ten-percent tithe, which I had saved back to give to church on Sunday morning, the following day.  But I couldn't take my tithe, which I firmly believed at the time was God's money, and buy Jimmy's shoes, I reasoned.  Yet I couldn't  let Jimmy go without shoes for another week until Frank and I got paid again.  I was so torn, not knowing what I should do or what would be the right thing for me to do.  But I knew I had to make a decision, one way or the other, before the day was over.  If only my husband didn't drink,  I thought, when I went into our bedroom to get dressed, there wouldn't be any decision to make.  There would be enough money to buy Jimmy's shoes and for me to pay my tithe to the church.  But there he lay passed out in our bed sleeping off the drunk, oblivious of my dilemma.  I couldn't worry about that now though.

Does God allow an exception to paying the tithes to the church?  I wondered.  Since I had always held back ten-percent of my pay check and gave it to the church, when I worked, the thought hadn't ever entered my mind before.  I would delay paying a bill or cut back on groceries, do anything, so that I wouldn't use "God's money"  for anything else.  And this time wasn't any different.  I had paid all that I could pay until I had spent out, except for my tithe.  Had I known that Jimmy would need a new pair of shoes,  I would have held out enough for them also.  I took my Bible and turned to the all familiar scripture, which I had heard all church pastors, church deacons, Sunday School teachers, and my parents use all of my life to support the giving of tithes to the church--Malachi 3:8-10.  But after reading this scripture over and over many times, I couldn't find even a hint of any exceptions. I had no other choice but to give my tithe to the church.  What then would I do about Jimmy's shoes?

"Lord, Jimmy is just a little boy,"  I cried out to God, falling down on my knees with tears streaming down my face. "If only my husband didn't drink, there wouldn't be a problem buying shoes for Jimmy.  He needs shoes so desperately.  But Lord, regardless of his desperate need, I choose to obey your Word.  I will give my tithe to church in the morning."

Suddenly, I remembered the missionary who had come to our church a few weeks before.  She showed slides of children in some impoverished country oversees, who didn't have shoes to wear in the coldest part of the year there.  It was such a pitiful sight to watch these children going outside to a little stream to get water in their bare feet and ragged clothes.  They didn't have sweaters or coats to protect them from the cold temperatures and keep them warm.  Our pastor was so moved he gave the missionary a check for $10,000 from the church fund.  Although the missionary had asked only for enough money to buy shoes, she said that now she would be able also to purchase the much needed sweaters and warm coats. What a warm feeling I had as I left the church that day, knowing that part of my tithes from the church fund had gone to put shoes on children's feet and clothes on their backs.

"What would be the difference, Lord, in using my tithe to put shoes on my own child's feet?"  I questioned.  That was the answer!  I was convinced, absolutely, that God had dropped that account into my memory at that particular time to show me what I was to do with my tithe.  By the time I had finished studying the Bible and praying that morning, and Jimmy and Kim had finished their breakfast, it was around 10:00.  I had Jimmy to put on a pair of his thick socks to keep his feet warm until we could get to the store.  He was so excited  when he learned that he was getting a new pair of shoes that day.  By the next morning, however, I was having second thoughts about what I had done.  Perhaps my remembering that account about the missionary was not from God after all.

Frank had left with our car sometime during the night while I was asleep.  And he didn't have drivers license--he had lost them again on a DUI charge, a few months before. Oh well, I thought to myself, we will just have to walk the five blocks to the First Baptist Church, as we had done so many times before.

I can't remember now exactly what the title of the pastor's sermon  was.  But I do have a vivid memory of his text though.  Malachi 3:8-10!  The following things that he preached that Sunday morning has stuck with me to this day.

1. Ten-percent of our income was God's money.
2. God didn't give us any options for not giving Him what was already His.
3.  If we didn't give God our tithes, then He would curse us with a curse.
4.  If we didn't give our tithes freely, God would take it forceably from us.  He would make us pay it in doctor bills, hospital bills, the sickness and/or death of a loved one, undertaker bills, jail incarcerations and jail fine.
5.  We hadn't given God back anything for saving our soul, when we gave tithes.  We just gave Him back what was rightfully His.
6.  In order to give to God, we must give offerings, over and above the ten-percent tithe.

Frank was home and passed out in bed again by the time we got home from church.  And I was so thankful that he was not awake in a drunken rage, and that my car was home and in one piece.  At least I wouldn't have to worry about a way to get to work the next morning.  But I was so confused and guilt-ridden over my pastor's sermon.  Would God punish me in such a manner for failing to give my tithe to church, just this one time, and using it to buy Jimmy a new pair of shoes, when he had no shoes?  And what about offerings, over and above the tithes?  Malachi 3 didn't say that; not  anywhere that I could find in that entire chapter.  It had been hard enough for me to pay my tithes.  And what about the words "curse" and "cursed"?  All I knew about "curse" and "cursed" was a person being damned to hell for taking the Lord's name in vain.  That's what I had been taught.  But that interpretation just didn't fit here.  Nor did the pastor's, for that matter.

It would be years later before I would see that all of the basic doctrines of Protestantism were tied together.  For example, one couldn't keep the doctrine, going to church, fully without giving tithes and offerings at church, and keeping the sabbath by going to church on the sabbath day, where a true christian gave tithes and offerings on the sabbath day at church when he went to church, and so on and on, continuously going around and around like a merry-go-round.  In other words, no one could keep just one of these doctrines and not keep them all.  They are so tightly woven together and totally dependent upon each other, so as to produce the results church leaders are after.

But I did begin paying close attention to what really went on at church and to the pastor's sermons, writing down every scripture that he preached from and took notes of the sermons he preached.  Then when I got home, I studied those scriptures over and over.  But I never saw in black and white his interpretation of them.  I really thought that the problem was with me.  What did I know about the Bible?  I was not seminary-trained and called by God to preach.  How I prayed for many years that God would let me see in the Scriptures, exactly what my pastor saw.  I had no idea during all of that time that it was actually the Spirit of Christ in me, who was leading and guiding me to the truth of God's Word, thereby, opening my blinded spiritual eyes to see.

About that same time, the Charismatic Movement hit our area through the Full Gospel Business Men's Fellowship.  Several of the deacons from my church, who were business men, helped organize a tri-county chapter in our town.  Weekly meetings on Thursday nights were open to everyone, and were held in the large conference room of a popular restaurant there.

It was during those meetings that I heard many different speakers from around the world say that going to church, giving tithes and offerings, and keeping the Sabbath were not New Testament practices for christians, since they were found only in the Old Testament.  They explained that it mattered not where we worshiped God or in what building we worshiped Him, when we assembled together.  So far as the tithe, they said that God didn't require ten-percent of our income, but He did require love offerings.  They said that God hadn't given christians a Sabbath day since everyday was the Lord's. This teaching was contrary to everything that I had ever heard about these practices.  Since I had grown up with the belief, "look to your pastor for spiritual guidance", I discarded, for the time, what these speakers taught about the tithe.  I continued going to my Baptist church on Sunday mornings, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights.  And I went to the Full Gospel Business Men's  Fellowship Meetings every Thursday night.

Such a hunger for Jesus and His Word swept over our church - a hunger that I had never seen before or since - during the 1970s.  Bible studies sprang up everywhere.  When I first began attending First Baptist, in 1970, the Sunday School hour in our class was a Bible study.  On Sunday nights, Bible Study replaced Adult Training Union.  And on Wednesday nights, one of the deacons taught the book of Acts, verse by verse, after the regular Wednesday night prayer meeting.  That same hunger for Jesus and His Word has remained with me and has grown through these many years, through the most difficult years of Frank's drinking.

Frank hadn't gone to church with me since he started drinking, two years after we got married.  But in 1973, he went with me and the children every night during the Spring Revival.  And on the last night, he went forward and said yes to Jesus.  He joined the church and was baptized. Needless to say, I was beside myself with joy and thankfulness to God.  I had prayed so long for this very thing for so long.  I knew that the only answer to Frank's drinking problem was for God to save him.  For about a year, he stayed sober.  He went to church every Sunday and to most of the other services.  And instead of most of his paycheck going for drinking, practically the same amount now went to church.  Our pastor told us that Frank's giving to the church as he did was a sure sign that God had really saved him.  But after a year, he started drinking again, worse than ever.  And when he started back drinking, he stopped going to church.  So did his giving most of his weekly pay check to church.  He went back to giving it to his drinking.

I couldn't understand why all of this had happened.  The pastor explained to me that Frank didn't really get saved, the year before.  But that exclamation made me that much more confused, especially, about the tithe, and the pastor's interpretation concerning the curse if we didn't give tithes and offerings.  During that entire year, Frank hadn't missed one Sunday Sabbath day going to church.  And he had given far more than ten-percent of both our incomes.

Frank, along with me and our children, joined so many other churches, and was baptized in water so many more times.  Each time, he would stay sober for a couple of months and he would start drinking again, worse than before he stopped while in church.

Now, twenty-eight years later (in 2001),  Frank is sober.  He took his last drink in April of 1989!  But I shudder to think where my relationship would be with God today if my husband had not drank those twenty-seven years, and there would have been enough money to buy my children shoes and everything else they really needed, without having to worry about keeping my tithe for church.  If only my husband had not drank, I would never have questioned any church doctrine or turned to God to show me his one absolute Truth of His precious Word.  Furthermore, I wouldn't have spent ten years to research every Protestant church, every great Protestant leader of every spiritual movement (such as Luther, Calvin, Knox, Finney, Spurgeon, etc.) and trace the historical origins of Protestantism back to their roots.  And finally, I couldn't have shared what I've learned with all of you so that you might know the truth also.