My doctor came into my hospital room, that night in July, 1967, and gave me and my family the long-awaited diagnosis for what had caused me to be so sick for the nine months after our little girl, Kim, was born.  Continual weight-loss, high fever, severe abdominal pain, etc., had kept me in and of our local hospital for the entire nine months.  "Female infection" was my family doctor's diagnosis.  And he didn't seem the least bit concerned that nothing he did helped me.  But I rather grew worse.  My daddy and my husband, Frank, finally was able to get this doctor to release me and send me to a specialist, an OB/GYN, about forty miles away.  Now, the results of  the preliminary tests that he had done earlier that day in his office were back.

"Part of the afterbirth was left in you when your baby was born.  It has been in you all of this time and now has turned into gangrene.  I have you scheduled for surgery, in the morning at 7:00, " the OB/GYN said.  Then he looked at my daddy and Frank and added, "There is a ninety-percent chance that Shirley will die on the operating table during surgery, tomorrow.  But she doesn't have any hope of living if I don't operate."

I had been admitted to a semi-private hospital room.  My room-mate was a nurse, who had had minor foot surgery, the day before, and a Christian. And she was going to be released from the hospital the next morning.  If I remember correctly, her name was Lois.  I will always believe that God had Lois there for me at that particular time.

From the very beginning, I saw that there was something about Lois that was so very different from me and my relationship with the Lord, and from any other Christian that I had ever known before.  For one thing, she was so happy and she talked about "my Jesus" in every conversation we had. And she talked about Him as though she knew Him personally, as though she had spent a lot of time with Him, as if He were a long-time trusted friend of hers or neighbor, who lived door.  Or better still, as a family member living in her own home.  I have to say that this was the first time that I had ever heard the true gospel of Jesus Christ.  And I had been in church all of my twenty-seven years of life, having grown up in a country Southern Baptist Church, and at that time, a member of another Southern Baptist Church in the small town, where Frank and I had lived since soon after we were married.  So I had heard many, many, sermons.  I had been in many church revivals, geared toward the unsaved, those who had never joined a church.

Lois and I didn't have but a few short hours to talk.  And the hospital staff continually interrupted us during that time, as they prepared me for surgery.  At 10:00 that night, the head nurse came in, closed the curtain between our beds and turned off the lights.

Suddenly, the realization of the doctor's words hit me like a ton of bricks, as I lay there in the darkness.  Even though I had wanted and had prayed to die many times (read Despair to Triumph), this was the first time that I had ever come face to face with death.  Thoughts questioning my salvation raced through my mind.  Did I really get saved, when I joined the church and was baptized?  I wondered over and over.   My pastor declared me saved, that night during a revival meeting (the most appropriate time in my church to get saved), when I joined the church, years before.  I had repeated the sinner's prayer after my pastor.  Then I answered the following three questions that he asked me with a "yes":

1) Do you love Jesus?
2) Will you obey the Lord and follow him into water baptism?
3) Do you want to join this church, where you can serve the Lord?

Then the Lord showed me a glimpse of hell and let me know that hell was where I was going if I died tomorrow because I was not saved.  I cried out something like this, "No Lord!  I have lived a hell on earth, all of my life and I don't want to go to the literal hell to live forever and forever."  I saw myself as such a filthy sinner and that none of my good moral living, church attendance and good works had made the least bit of difference.  Then I remembered a passage of scripture that I had studied in Sunday School, 1Corinthians 13.  I switched on the little lamp on my bedside table and pulled the Gideon Bible from the top drawer.  As I read 1Corinthians 13, the Holy Spirit began to show me the love that Jesus had for me and how He accepted me,  just as I was right then and there.  In an instant He saved me and made me white as snow.  And I knew without any doubts, for the first time in my life, that I was truly saved.

Many years later, I asked the Lord to show me the very first seed planted in my heart for Him.  He took me all the way back to a large picture of Jesus blessing the little children taped on a brick wall, in what must have been the Sunday School Card Class that I was in, before I started school.  It was so hard for me to see it, though.  For one thing my chair was at the back of the room.  Plus my eyes were so crossed and I had such poor vision.  The thick, round, wire-framed glasses, that I had worn since I was three years old to correct my crossed eyes and help my vision, only helped me to see clearer when I got up real close to what I was trying to see.  Otherwise, I saw through a thick fog.

I saw myself walking up to the front of the room to where the picture of Jesus and the little children were.  Children were seated in front of Jesus and standing near Him and behind Him.  It looked like they all were trying to get as close to Jesus as they possibly could.  But the little girl sitting on Jesus lap was what focused on.  Jesus let me know exactly what I was thinking at that point.  She looks like me, I thought.  She had golden blond hair, just like me.  And big blue eyes, just like me.  And a very fair complexion,  just like me.  She was seated on Jesus lap, her head rested on His shoulder. Jesus nestled her in His great big arms, as she looked up into Jesus' eyes and He looked down at her, as though she was so beautiful and precious to Him.  And then I noticed such a beautiful smile on the little girl's face.  She looked so happy.  And no wonder she's so happy, I thought in my little mind.  I wish that I was special and loved that way.

From that day forth, I searched for that Jesus, the Lord showed me.  But I couldn't find Him anywhere.  In Sunday School, the teachers taught about Him as though He was not real, putting Him into the category of fictional characters, such as Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood and Santa Claus. Hardly ever did pastors mention Jesus, except at Christmas and Easter, and occasionally during revival meetings.  That was about the only time also that I heard anyone in my home even utter Jesus precious Name.  They spoke of "God" and the "Lord".

However, Mama had a younger brother who came to our house about twice a year.  Mama would always make the remark, after he would leave, "I love Johnson but he gets on my nerves so bad with all of his talk about Jesus.  Its good to talk about Jesus and I'm so glad that he's living for the Lord.  But you know, there's other things to talk about."  But Uncle Johnson didn't get on my nerves.  When I was a little girl,  I sat on the floor at his feet, listening to him talk.  I didn't have much of an idea of what he was saying.  But oh how I loved to hear him say "Jesus"!  I wanted so much for him to tell me about Jesus.  He never stayed long enough though to tell me who Jesus really was.

I didn't get to tell Lois about what Jesus had done for me before she left the hospital.  They rolled me ot of my room and into the operating room, around 6:30 the next morning.  And by the time I got back to my room, Lois had already been discharged.  But she did leave her address with my family.  I finally wrote her about a year later and shared how God had saved me, the night that we shared the hospital room together.  I also shared with her that I had heard the true gospel from her for the very first time in my life.  She was very surprised that God had sent her.

The surgery was a complete success.  I was indeed a new creature in Christ.  And from then until now,  I run to Jesus.  He sweeps me up in His great big loving arms.  I lay my weary head against His shoulder.  I'm sheltered from the storm as He hides me in His secret hiding place.