Does It Pay to Turn Back?


Go back with me a few months to a scene in a little mountain home in which the lifeless body of the husband and father has just been taken from the river, where he had been found dead. Try to realize the anguish and grief of the young mother as she holds to his lifeless hand and in her arms clasps a new born babe, while three other small children huddle about her, holding to her skirts, crying and asking "Why doesn't daddy talk to us?"

Recently in my house to house visitation, I called at his home and heard the story of this man who had been a kind and true husband, a good and loving father.

I had heard how they had arranged to make improvements on their cabin home, and when God would bless them with a little one, how they would make plans for its future and education.

The cheeks of this widowed mother were wet from weeping as shed told me to how they missed him, and of the great love he had for her and the children.

Across the room in a cradle was the form of a small child. My thoughts went back through the years to another Babe—not in a cradle, but in a rough manger from which the cattle were fed. I told this mother the story of the Child Jesus, how that He grew to manhood and was nailed to the Cross on Calvary for her, and that just now He was waiting with outstretched arms to receive her, Whose great love and tender mercies would soften the ache and heal the wound that was caused by the loss of her husband. Though I read Scripture after Scripture and had prayer, I left her with rebellion in her heart because of her loss.

We prayed many times for this mother and her home. The time came and the burden was so great for her soul that I just had to go back, though she lived in another county many miles from our home. When I returned, she said, "I am getting along better and life seems much brighter since you were here." She still refused to surrender her all to God. I left her living in the past, holding on to the memory of her dead husband. We continued to pray for her and decided to go and talk to her again, my wife going along with me. This time when we left she was smiling through tears—but tears of joy, for she had found her Savior. She followed us out and said, "There is no other way but God."

In another community in which I was doing personal work, following a small trail and calling on all the homes along the way, I came to a foot path which led off the road and over through a small woodland. It seemed as though something just forced me to follow this path, which I did, through the woods, across a small ravine and to a small home in which lived a young married couple and their small child. The wife had already been born again, but the husband was not saved, nor would he accept the Lord then, but he did promise that he and his wife would pray that night, and before he slept he would surrender his all to Him.

They didn't have a Bible, just a small Testament. The next time I was in that community I took them a Bible. The lady met me on the porch and told me how happy they were and how kind and good her husband was and said, "Ours is a new home because of Jesus."

We request all of God's people to keep us before the Throne of Grace that we may be used to win many souls to His kingdom, and for health to carry on through the bad weather and so much sickness.


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Walking Barefoot Ministries

© 2000 by Jeff Doles