Testimonies

In 1958, we moved back to Kentucky from Indiana. I had been going to a tent revival in Indiana, where I got deceived. I had not been to an old-fashioned Baptist church, and didn’t know that I wasn’t saved. After I started going to church at Old Union I joined. I attended regularly to church and revivals.
In 1962 I was in an afternoon service sitting behind the mourner’s bench praying for sinners, which was when the Lord saved my soul. I was so happy, I just thought I would fly away. All the old saints were standing in the altar. I can see then now: Mr. & Mrs. Babe Tuck, Mr. & Mrs. George Meador, Will Dearing, Margaret Board, Edith Daniels and Brother Overton. How wonderful to have those memories. Martha Jo Hayes was playing the piano at that time. I didn’t tell anyone that day and I wrestled with the Devil for years. I knew I was living a lie. I was a church member and couldn’t join in and tell my testimony, because I had just truly gotten saved and I knew I was already on the church books.
I went for several years, until 1969, on the last Saturday night in July. I went to talk to Margaret and Ervin Board. They advised me it was nothing more to do than to tell my experience and rejoin the church. So at that Saturday night service, I rejoined the church. What a blessing it was. I don’t know why I waited so long, but the Lord works in wondrous ways. On the Sunday morning service before baptism, Bobby, my husband, joined the church and that afternoon we were baptized together by Brother H.C. Vanderpool. What a blessing!

Fingerprints of the Soul
I have always looked at a person’s salvation experience much as a set of fingerprints, except for the soul. Everyone has parts of their experience that seem much the same, but then they are all as unique as one’s own fingerprints. The wonderful thing about these fingerprints is that they are registered in Heaven.
I was brought up in a strict Baptist home. Part of this was because both of my parents were raised in another denomination. I feel this made their belief and support of the Baptist Doctrine even stronger after they were saved and joined the Baptist Church. My father was a deacon and always stood by his interpretation of the Baptist doctrines. To this day, I still admire him for that.
When I was but ten years old, there was a revival going on in July at Sand Lick Baptist Church, our home church. Elder Rex Hagan was the pastor and Elder Carl Jones was the evangelist. During those hot summer months, my interests were like most ten-year-olds’ – baseball and anything to beat the summer heat. On Thursday night of the revival, everything changed. Even though I had been to church all my life, I guess I had never heard the preacher until that night. Well, how could I miss it? He was speaking every word to me, or so I thought. When the altar call was given, there was an old sister that could read my face like a book and knew I was in trouble. She asked if I was lost, and I knew that if I died that very minute that Hell would be my home. I didn’t take time to go to the altar. I made my altar right there under the bench where I was. There was no question that God’s power was there that night. I can remember people shouting and praying, but that had no effect on me, because I had my own salvation to work out. I did my best to pray through for God to save me there at Sand Lick, because I thought if I was saved there at church, everyone would have more confidence in my salvation. You guessed it, I wasn’t saved that night at church.
Very little was said on our way home that night. As soon as we got home, I went to bed and tried to pray over and over again. Sometime during the early morning hours, I fell asleep. With the bright sunshine of anther day came the same deep emptiness and despair in my heart. No breakfast for me; I was out the back door, not to play but to pray. I prayed in every secret place that I had on our property – still I was lost. I was walking through the backyard and I thought, “God, I don’t want to live like this.” It was then that God touched my heart and I got my fingerprints. That burden was gone and there was a peace that I had never known before. There are a lot of people that I have the ultimate confidence in, but I have not met anyone yet that I would trade fingerprints with.

Date of salvation was 1981. I was 35 years of age.
It was the year following the birth of our child that the Lord saved my soul. I did not do public work for six months following the birth of our child. This was the first time I had not worked outside the home. I was restless and felt like praying a lot, but I just did not understand why at that time. As a child I was reared to believe in God, and that going to church was important in keeping that belief alive. My family was Pentecostal and did not believe that once saved, always saved. I was very close to my father-in-law, and he was continuously speaking with me about the church he attended, Athens Missionary Baptist Church. We lived in Tompkinsville, Kentucky. I was one of those people who thought that I had Christianity all worked out, so out of respect for him, I listened, but tried to dismiss what he was saying. This went on for many months, and finally I told him that going to the altar was old-fashioned, but if I ever did go it surely would be due to his insistence. We had not been to church for a good while, but revival had started at Athens and the preacher that Papa talked a lot about was helping preach. Bill and I and two other friends attended services one weeknight, and I felt as if the preacher was speaking directly to me, but my thoughts were that Papa had told him about our many conversations. His message was on the woman at the well and emphasized that there is no middle ground. You are saved or you are lost.
I remember being surprised, because at that instance I knew that I was in the situation of believing that I wasn’t saved, but certainly I was not lost. The preacher, Brother Paul Strong, struggled through the crowd and he seemed to be driven to get to me. He said, “I don’t know you but I want to know how it stands with you. Are you lost?” Suddenly, I knew the answer was yes, even though I did not respond. After church, everyone mingled, and this lady came up to me, and I said I just couldn’t lie in church before God. I confessed to being lost. She said I had better get down on my knees and ask the Lord to save me. It was the weekend, and I wanted to stay at home while everyone else went to church. That had to be the most miserable time of my life. I could not cry, I could not even speak. I had no idea what to do or say. I attended the following service. Papa came to ne to go to the altar for prayer, but even though I wanted to, for him, I could not go. Another lady, L. Lyons, came to me and said, “Don’t. put it off too long.” That moved me, and I went to the front and kneeled on the bench to the right of the pulpit and begged the Lord to save me. I had to say to myself that I can go to Hell with my friends, but if I want to go to Heaven I had to go with the Lord. I felt His big hand reach down and a warm, secure feeling came over me. As I reached for his hand, the burden was lifted away. I was on the altar about five minutes and was excited to let everyone know of the good news. It was so easy to love everyone, and Papa along with others shouted and rejoiced. I am not as close to the Lord as I would like to be, but what happened that Sunday has never left me and never will!

When I was nine years old, people had been asking me for a while if I was lost. I told them no, so they would leave me alone. I didn’t like how it made me feel. My mother and I were getting ready to go to a youth meeting at church and a friend of mine, Mary Beth Stanley, had just come under conviction. Her mom called and asked us to pray for her and to tell us that they would not be at the youth meeting because Mary was seeking the Lord. When Mom turned to tell me that Mary needed our prayers, I knew that I was not in any condition to pray for anyone but myself.
We went to the youth meeting and Mary came and said the Lord had saved her. I didn’t do anything that day, but I thought about it all the next day at school. Monday night I was going to sing in a play at school. After the play, I was at home in my room changing my clothes, and the conviction was so heavy that I fell beside my bed, praying. My mom was in the kitchen washing dishes and began to wonder why I was gone so long. She came to my room and saw me crying by my bed and knew immediately what was wrong. We began to pray together and I moved back to her bed. I can remember walking into her room and hearing her on the phone telling people that I was lost and needed their prayers. I got mad because I felt like such a horrible person and thought that everyone else would think I was horrible, too. I stayed there probably thirty minutes, praying and screaming and crying to God, telling him that I was sorry and please, save me. All of a sudden, that heavy feeling of guilt was gone. I stopped crying and sat up in bed and my mom looked at me. I said, “I’m saved.” We both started crying and laughing.
My dad must have heard us crying and me yelling, “I’m saved, I’m saved,” because he came running down the hall and met me. I wanted everyone to know. My mom and I drove to several people’s houses to tell them what had happened. I know in my heart that this will never leave me because this was between God and me, and nobody told me I was saved, because no one can know that but me.

After my family moved from town to the country, we visited several churches. One Sunday morning, we were sitting in the living room, and my mom told my sister and me to go get ready for church. My father looked at her and asked, “Where are you going, Old Union?” She said yes. I did not understand that the Lord had impressed her heart to go to the church where she had been saved as a girl until later that day.
We went to church and I was introduced to many people that I had never met before but that seemed to know my mother. Brother Paul Bryson preached the sermon, and I remember only that he seemed to talk directly to me when he used the term “sinner friend.” At the end of the sermon, he announced that he was not going to give an altar call and that church was dismissed. On the way home I questioned my mother, and the conviction that began at church got worse and the burden became heavier until I began to cry and could not stop. When we got home, I went to the bathroom and cried. My mom told me that I could pray anywhere, but I wanted to return to the place where this awful feeling started in order to get rid of it. My mom called Brother Bryson and told him about my condition, and that I wanted to go back to the church. He said he would meet us there as soon as he could return from his home. No one had even taken time to eat lunch.
My mother, sister, and I returned to Old Union, and Brother Bryson was standing on the porch. I held the Bible that my parents had given me in my arms and entered the church. We went straight to the altar with stopping to turn on the lights. I knelt down and Brother Bryson knelt down beside me. He asked me how I felt and why, and then suggested I pray. I told him I did not know how to pray. He said, “Let’s all pray,” and led a prayer out loud beside me. I do not remember anything he said, only that I felt even worse instead of better. When he finished, he looked at me and said, “Now it’s your turn.” I remember having my hand on the Bible and bowing my head into the first pew. I started to pray out loud with, “God, nobody can tell me that you are not real.” My tears were falling fast, and my burden was so heavy that it was hard to breathe. My prayer became silent and I asked to be saved. In a moment that is hard to describe with words, the burden was gone, and I lifted my head and looked at Brother Bryson. I shouted, “He saved me, He saved me,” almost in disbelief that all of the sorrow and burden could go away so quickly. I grabbed Brother Bryson around the neck and hugged him like an old friend, though I had only met him that morning. Then I hugged my mom and sister.
I went to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. I felt sure that the extreme change that had taken place on the inside must have affected my appearance. The only thing that had changed was that the tears were turned into a smile. On the way home from church for the second time that day, I questioned my mom again, but this time to find out who in our family had not been saved. I called everyone and told them of my experience, and if they were not saved, I invited them Old Union. That night at the business meeting, I joined the church. I am so thankful that I came under conviction, was saved, and joined the church all on the same day.

I don’t remember my age, but I was young. My mother had told me at some time I would be a sinner, and if I wasn’t saved, the bad man would get me. I guess she didn’t want to say the word Devil.
Revival started, the preacher gave an altar call, I started from my seat, and before I got to the aisle, that bad feeling had left me. I have never been bothered with it again.
Thank the Lord for saving me and keeping me all these years.
I’ve been a member of Old Union all my Christian life, and miss coming to church since I can’t drive.

My daddy, J.C. McClary, was pastor at Trammel Fork Church in Allen County in 1935. Summer revival time came. Time came for the altar service. Two ladies, Juanita Smith and Lera Eunice Pearson, both came and asked me to go to the mourner’s bench. Without much resisting, I went, thinking I’d choke before I got there. I don’t know how many days I went, but I was saved and didn’t accept it at first. Then I found myself praying for an older man that was up there (a sinner). The Lord helped me to understand that He had saved me and I needed to let it be known. I did and joined the church.
My daddy, mother, and brother all joined with me by letter from Oak Forest. I was baptized and stayed there until I moved my membership to Old Union.

With the Lord’s help, I’ll try to tell what He did for me when I was about twelve years old.
Before the July revival, I began to get disturbed. I knew my mother was going to ask me if I was lost. I knew I was, but the Devil was always getting me mixed up.
I thought if my mother would not come back and say anything to me, no one else would notice. But sure enough, here she came, when Brother Stewart gave the altar call. I’d seen other people shake their heads no, so I did that and it worked. Until the Lord sent Margaret Board back. I don’t know what she said to me. I just knew I needed help.
The last week of the meeting, He saved me and the Devil was quick on the scene again. How was I going to tell it? I went for a year going to the altar everywhere my mother could take me. I was asking for help to be able to tell people about being saved.
The next year, Brother Stewart would ask if anyone had had a change they didn’t understand, and wanted to be prayed for about it. That was what I’d been waiting for, so the next time he opened the doors of the church, I put the Devil behind me, joined the church, and was baptized.
I thank the Lord for Margaret. She was help to me when I needed it bad.

I was seventeen years old when the Lord saved me!! I have never experienced anything so beautiful since that day.
It was a Sunday. My home at that time was a dorm at Western. I had attended church that day, and my heart was heavy. That night, I was lying in bed and began praying to the Lord to save me. I told Him that I believed in Him with all of my heart. I know that I prayed for what seemed like hours when, all of a sudden, I had the most wonderful experience of my life. I felt the peace and my whole body seemed white and pure. I’ve never felt such a beautiful light. I became ecstatic, to say the least. My best friend and roommate, Melisa Lillard Clay, was in her bed asleep. I got up out of bed, screaming, “Melisa! Melisa! I’ve been saved”. She was very happy for me. I know we talked for quite some time and finally I was able to go back to bed. However, it was on that night that all of my burdens were lifted and I have slept peacefully since that day. Because now I know when I lie down for the last time, I will be with the Lord.

The Devil has cheated me out of so many blessings over the years, and I have really fought with him on trying to put my experience down on paper.
This is one he is not going to win.
I’m sure a lot of you have heard several people testify about being deceived; I fit in that category.
As a young teenager I attended a tent revival and went to the mourners’ bench for several nights. As the revival neared the end, several adults assured me I had been saved. I didn’t feel any different, but I didn’t know how I was supposed to feel, and the Devil told me, “These people know what it is to be saved, and they would not tell you that you were all right if you weren’t.” Score one for the Devil.
I went on this way for a few years, and after I married and started attending Old Union regularly I joined the church, but something just didn’t seem right. Sometimes during a revival when they would give an altar call and some good ole Christian would come back to talk to a sinner about their soul, I’d feel like they were coming to talk to me. I know that wasn’t the Devil, that was the Lord telling me I wasn’t where I should be, but again I let the Devil score another one on me.
A few years later, when my brother-in-law, David Montgomery (now deceased) was on the mourners’ bench, I remember Martha Jo Hayes staying down with us praying so hard for David. It soon hit me that I was praying for myself instead of David. He came up smiling and I came up shouting; of course, the old Devil was right there ready to score another one on me. He told me to let people think I was happy for David. “They will think you are stupid if you tell them you had been lost all this time and had your name on the church book.” So I let him rob me yet again. When my daughter Donna was saved here at Old Union it began to bother me that I had joined the church while I was still a sinner, so one night when then-Pastor Kenneth Massey opened the doors to the church, I stuffed the old Devil under my chair in the choir and made my way up there and gave my experience. I learned that night that several other people had also been deceived over the years.
The church rescinded my membership and accepted me into the church; Donna and I were baptized together. Thank God I have never again felt like someone was coming to talk to me during an altar call.
If anyone that reads this feels like they have been deceived, don’t let the old Devil cheat you any longer. Trust in the Lord for the right answer.

In my family, we only missed church if we were sick. So any time the church doors were open, day or night, we were there. Mom’s religious background had been Baptist (which had included a few growing-up years at Old Union Church), and Daddy’s background was Methodist. Mom thought she had been saved at age fourteen, but realized that she hadn’t been, for she knew that her husband had something she did not have. She was saved in the closet at home near the age of thirty. We attended church in our neighborhood, the General Baptist, but visited most churches in the neighborhood during revival times, since most of those churches practiced the same way to be saved.
It wasn’t until I was twelve that I knew I was lost. During our summer revival in July, I knew conviction in my heart. One minute I was happy-go-lucky carefree child, the next minute I knew I was a condemned sinner before God. I knew I should go to the altar, but Satan said I didn’t look good enough because everyone would be looking at me, and a few more other deceiving thoughts, which I cannot remember right now. The church was singing “Come Unto Me” and finally I didn’t let Satan win – I went – and prayed and cried and prayed some more. I went through every sin my mind could think of and asked forgiveness for each one. I went through everything I would give up to be saved. I did not want Hell to be my home when I died. I was really scared about that. I was also scared about Jesus coming back for the saved ones, and that I wouldn’t be one of them. I did everything I could do to be saved, but nothing seemed to get me any closer to it. The last thing I remembers was, “Do you want Jesus forever?” Yes, not just for this minute, or for tonight, or because I was scared to die, but Forever. When I said “Yes” to that, then I knew I was saved. I raised my head, I got up out of the floor and sat on a bench. I felt so light, and the night was so bright. There was never a doubt about this experience. At bedtime, my mother questioned me, “Are you sure?” Still at that time everything was so bright that there was no way it could not be true.
Since I have matured as a Christian, and having sat under so many good preachers, who have taught and practiced the Truth, I realized that one major point wrong with the General Baptist and Methodists is believing that a person can lose their salvation. God took care of that major point when I was asked if I wanted it forever – because it is everlasting.

Ten years ago one of my best friends got saved.
I was eight years old, and had attended Old Union Missionary Baptist Church my entire life. All I really knew about “getting saved” was that one day you realized you were going to Hell, so you went to Revival, cried a lot, and got Saved, which meant that you weren’t going to Hell any more. So once Tina got saved, I couldn’t help but think it was about time for me to get saved, too.
Tina was saved at the beginning of Old Union’s summer revival service, and I suppose it was toward the end of it that my sister and I attended, and sat near the back, as usual. I had this awful feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I just knew I was going to have to go up to the altar and cry. So, when my sister asked me if I felt like it, I supposed that that dread was the feeling everyone else had been talking about. So I went to the altar.
That night, I cried aloud, over and over, for God to save me. The church members, the pastor, all the people were crying for me, especially my sister. And nothing, absolutely nothing, was happening. What was I supposed to feel?
How do you know if you’re saved?
After a while, I realized I had no idea why I was up there, and the fact that I had made everyone feel so sad was starting to make me feel guilty. I sat up from where I had been kneeling.
“I don’t feel like crying anymore,” I whispered to my sister, hoping somehow to leave the altar unnoticed.
“Do you think you’re saved?” she asked me. The hope in her eyes was too great for me to ruin, so I said, “Yes.” And the congregation broke out in song and cries of joy.
I realized almost immediately what I had done. Not only had I lied – and in church – but I had, by pretending to be “saved,” actually realized that I was lost.
I spent eight years in a state of spiritual darkness. When I prayed, I didn’t feel the presence of the Lord. When I was asked to join the church, I declined and couldn’t give a reason why. For a few years I stopped attending Old Union. When I returned, it was plain to me that I lacked something that all the members seemed to have a relationship with God.
When I was sixteen, I was in my high school musical, and I spent most of every day in rehearsal. I could feel a despair within me, threatening to rise up beyond my control, but I kept telling myself, “Just wait until the musical is over, then you can worry about it.” “It” was the condition of my soul, but I wouldn’t permit myself to even think those words.
Once the musical was over, spring revival began at Old Union. I realized that I had put off seeking the Lord until this revival service so that I wouldn’t have to pray alone.
My mother and I went up to kneel at the altar that Saturday night, which, according to my memory, was the night before Easter. I had made a deal with myself: I wasn’t leaving until I got things settled. I had been longing for eight years for a release from the despair that had overshadowed my life for as long as I could remember.
How can I relate how the Lord works in a person’s heart? I began by praying, “Lord, show me what it is I have to do.” All my life I had followed directions and had been rewarded for obedience. Gradually, it came to me that I could do nothing to save myself. The Lord is capable of anything; my efforts next to His would be insignificant. I had been holding fast to my pride, but that night, I humbled myself before God. The church was full, but I no longer expected others’ prayers to benefit me. I prayed alone. Shamed before Him, I realized my foolishness in avoiding God for years, allowing the world to become my god. “How the Lord must love me,” I thought, “to allow me all this time to discover how wrong I’ve been.”
It was then that He saved me.
I didn’t jump up or cry out; a calmness just came over me, and for a second, that despair I’d lived with for so long was gone. The Lord had forgiven me.
Doubt immediately crept in. Are you sure?
Was I sure? The more I thought about it, the more it seemed wrong. After all, I wasn’t as full of joy as I thought I was supposed to be. Was this it? Was that all?
I questioned myself for another two years. Doubt was like an old friend I didn’t know how to live without. I attended Old Union, but also visited other churches with friends from school – Catholic, Presbyterian, non-denominational. I felt nothingness and disillusionment. I had given my all and had not found assurance anywhere. I convinced myself that I would never have the comfort of certainty.
I attended Old Union’s summer revival at the age of eighteen with that same dread in my stomach I’d felt ten years ago. I listened to the preacher’s words and felt nothing, nothing. I then had a sickening thought: what if God did not exist? What if I had wasted a decade of my life, my childhood, suffering for the forgiveness of a god that was not there? I was dead inside. If God was loving, if God was, then I would feel…but I did not.
Afraid to live with the conclusion I had reached, I went to Old Union again the next night. I sat alone, a few rows from the front, listening to the pastor’s report on a young member of our church. Anna had been confused as to whether or not she had been truly saved. She had prayed about it and the Lord had answered – she had had His forgiveness all along.
Sometimes God requires you to humble yourself before Him before He gives you His blessings; sometimes He just blindsides you with them. This was one of the latter times.
The Lord, I realized, could do the same for me as he had for Anna. He could relieve this burden of emptiness. The instant I realized He could, He did, and I knew that I was a child of God.
When the pastor called for an altar prayer, I remained where I was, bowed my head, and repeated again and again, “I have to know for sure, Lord, please, let me know.” I am sure that it was His intention that I sat up and noticed that the hymn being played was “He Whispers Sweet Peace to Me.” God had given me sweet peace two years before, and He wouldn’t do it again. Once was enough.
Sister Martha Crafton came to me, placed her arm on my shoulder and said, “If you keep on praying, the Lord will give you an answer.” I had to reply, “I think He just did.”
That night I stood up before Old Union and told its members what I’ve written here, and finally, finally asked to join the church. Had I not followed God’s will to do so, I would have missed life’s sweetest blessings, including countless friendships and meeting my life’s partner, who moved to Kentucky from a sound church in Georgia.
This July, my testimony will be ten years old. I thank God every day, not just for His Son, but for His infinite love and patience in allowing me to finally find Him after ten years of searching.

It was revival time at Old Union, July 21, 1922. A neighbor (Mrs. Belcher, Josie Dearing’s mother) came by our home and invited me to go to the day meeting. I said I needed to iron, but she would not be put off!
I went to the mourners’ bench that day and I remember Brother C. B. “Cap” Massey was standing behind the bench, singing. Brother L. A. Stewart was helping in this revival. When I came up from that mourners’ bench, saved, I knocked Mrs. Belcher’s hat off – stomped it – totally ruined it!! It was a great day for me – one that I will never forget. There is nothing like salvation.

When I was seven or eight, I went down to the altar of the church that I attended with my family. I was not really sure why I did, but when I was there, the preacher asked me if I believed in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, and I said yes. I thought for years that I was saved, but later, I realized that I was not.
When I was twenty-one, I was troubled by the thought of what would happen to me if I died and where I would spend eternity. I was going through a low spot in my life, and had a lot of questions, and I guess I was looking for something to give me the answers. During this period of time, I was invited to Union Hill Missionary Baptist Church in Homer, Georgia. I went to a few services there, and everyone was always glad to have me visit.
One day at work, I fell under strong conviction of my sins. I was scared, and did not know what to do at the time, but I prayed to God that if He could help me get home safely, that I would seek Him out that evening. There were several religious people I had in mind that I wanted to talk to, but everyone I looked for or called was not available. At that time, I decided to go to a quiet spot near Lark Hartwell and tyro t pray to God for answers. On the way, I fell under deep conviction again, and while driving down the road, I started asking forgiveness for my sins. When I arrived at the lake, I got out and continued to pray, but by that time I was feeling confused. I remember that at church, a lot of people expressed a feeling you would sense, and maybe I was thinking of a physical feeling. I got down on my knees and prayed again, and then asked God, “Am I saved?” I don’t know if before, I was not putting my faith in Him, or if I was looking towards that physical feeling I thought I should feel, but at that time, God must have been satisfied, because that’s when I knew I was saved.
I remember feeling so relieved, and all the things I was worried about were gone, and I was just so glad to be saved. The first thing I wanted to do was to go and tell a friend of mine that was close by. I arrived at his house and went in to tell him my good news. When I walked through the door, and we looked at each other, it’s almost if he was looking at me differently. I tried to explain to him what had happened, but he never really could understand.
Months after, Satan tried to confuse me about joining the church. But with the help of God, I overcame him and was fortunate enough to be baptized into the fellowship of Union Hill Missionary Baptist Church, and I was richly blessed.