My family was from Pennsylvania and I was a farm girl. I was partially raised by my grandmother because my mother suffered terrible migraine headaches. During my mom’s migraine times I stayed with my Italian grandmother. My grandmother was a Roman Catholic and not the best person in the world, although I loved her. In later life I suffered from emotional problems from some of the mind controlling methods that she used. She was like this with everyone especially the girls in the family. You have heard or maybe known of families where they had one particular child that a parent would pick on. This was my family, my grandmother picked on my mother (she played mind games to always have the upper hand) and thus also with me although at the time I didn’t know it. I loved her because she was my grandmother.
In 1959 I was a brand new follower of Jesus Christ. The year after graduating high school in Needles, California I registered for college at Pasadena City College in Pasadena California. Pasadena is about 300 miles from Needles so I was able to catch the El Capitan train occasionally bound for Needles.
I felt for some time after accepting Christ that God wanted me to talk to my grandmother. I prayed about this to be sure that it wasn’t just my crazy imagination. A long weekend was coming up and I didn’t have the money to go home. Mom called and invited me to come home. When I explained that I didn’t have the money she wired me the money and insisted that I come home.
I prayed and told the Lord that if I was to talk to my grandmother please give me a sign. The sign I chose was that when I took the bus to the train station to please let me have the same driver that I had on a previous trip. This may sound strange but I had only had that particular driver maybe three times before and I rode the bus every day. Guess who the driver was? You guessed it, my friend. I rode the bus regularly and this particular driver had seen me carrying my Bible and had commented that he was a believer also.
Then I asked the Lord to give me a particular Red Cap that I knew. Red Caps were what they called the Porters who helped people with their luggage. They were usually Black men, always extremely polite but there was one particular Red Cap that had taken a shine to me and was very warm. He wasn’t always there but guess who I got to help me with my overnight bag when I arrived? You guessed it. This was Bizarre!
When I got to Needles mom picked me up for the trip up the hill. About an hour after getting home my grandmother called. She never called! We chatted and she invited me to come down and spend the night. She just lived a couple of streets over so I walked down. After she greeted me, she looked at me and said; “So Kathy, I heard you weren’t coming home for the weekend. What made you change your mind?” I was flabbergasted, what an open door. So I said a quick prayer and jumped in.
I said, “Grandma I came home because I wanted to talk with you about what has happened in my life since I met Jesus”. We had a nice talk well into the evening hours, she asked me some questions which I answered from my limited knowledge of Scripture. Beyond that nothing happened, then she announced it was time to go to bed.
The next morning I attempted to reopen the subject and it wouldn’t open. She had no interest in talking further about this. Over the next few years I pondered why God had sent me to talk to grandma. The only answer I found was John 3:16.
She died about eight years following this incident and no open door was ever again presented. After her death, which I heard from an aunt who was there was very hard. I was told she died screaming. A fact I could have done without because I know what Scripture says about the lost.
One particularly bad day I was out for a bicycle ride with my husband Dewey, and I shared with him what I was feeling. He said something that I never forgot. He said “Kathy, I remember a sermon that my pastor preached while I was still in high school. I had forgotten it till just this moment. My pastor said that God isn’t obligated to give a person more than one opportunity to accept Christ.” Mercifully he does, but not in every case. God had sent me home to be His messenger of His love, I obeyed but she rejected it. Now before you blow your cork and say “What kind of a God only gives me one chance”, let me clarify – the Bible says in Psalm 19 that the very heavens (God’s creation) declare the glory of God! – All day, every day! It says in another place (Psalm 95:7) “Today if you hear His voice, don’t harden your heart”. So the choice is yours. I hope you will choose to accept God’s plan of salvation!
If today you are reading this and you haven’t made the commitment to let Christ forgive your sins, He wants to. The Bible says that he won’t turn away ANYONE who comes to him. So I hope you will come. God isn’t willing that any should perish but wants everyone to come to know Him. See you in Heaven too, if you ask God to save you. He will!
