This is my fourth post telling stories from my childhood. After lamenting the impersonal nature of many posts I decided to tell my readers some of my stories. The stories that filled my childhood and the stories of experiences that shaped my life. I'm hoping you will also relate some of your stories!
The first couple of stories are about my grandmother. Here are the earlier posts.
My grandmother stayed with us in a small house from about my third birthday. As previously mentioned, she had a huge influence on my relationship with God. As she grew older she became less active and was content to stay home most of the time. One of her hobbies was to pray for everyone in our street. We lived at the end of the street and was house number 45. I would often hear her pray, 'Lord, tonight I pray for the people in number 11. Would you draw close to them at this time...'
Over the years people heard of her prayers for them and would often visit in times of need or big decisions, asking her to pray for them. At the end of the visit, she would gather everyone in the household for prayer. We would stand in a circle with whoever came for prayer and often she would ask me to pray. It was frequently unexpected and even at 10 or 12 years of age, I would mumble a bunch of platitudes just to get it over with.
This would not go down well with my grandmother and she would stop me and tell me to pray again. 'Dont just say words. Speak to God.' she would say and I had to pray again and again until she was satisfied. It was embarrassing but I learned! The following acronym was not popular back then but my grandmother lived it.
During my early childhood, we had one television and we had access to the only four channels available in South Africa at that time. On a Saturday night, my dad and I wanted to watch two different programmes at the same time. His choice was a music programme of traditional music that no person under a hundred wanted to watch. Mine was a comedy that everyone at school would discuss on Monday. No one in our neighbourhood had a video player and I'm unsure whether they existed at the time. (Yes, I'm that old!)
Obviously, my dad got his way but every third Saturday he had to work. I counted the days! Nothing was going to stop me from watching my comedy on that Saturday. However, I clearly remember this one time when things went awry.
About halfway down our street lived a family with whom we had very little contact. The father was a large, loud man with a severe drinking problem. He often beat his wife and everyone would whisper over fences about her newest bruises. No one ever did anything about it though, except to entreat my grandmother to pray for them. He heard about this and often laughed about the little old lady praying for him, especially when he was drunk.
On this Saturday night I'm busy telling you about, he actually knocked on our front door, drunk as a skunk. His knocking was heard just as the theme song of my comedy started playing...
He belligerently confronted my grandmother about her praying for him, stating that he was not afraid of her and her God. I waited impatiently for him to finish so that I could watch my comedy. Somewhere in his rant, he said something that upset my grandmother. In the words of her generation, a righteous anger came over her. She slowly got up out of her chair, pointed her walking stick at him and said something like, 'I rebuke you in Jesus name!'
He fell down as if somebody slapped him very hard. No one was near him. My grandmother was on the other side of the room. I was lying on the couch, impatiently waiting for an opportunity to watch my comedy.
When he raised his head from where he was lying flat on his back (right in front of the tv), his face was white as chalk. And he was stone cold sober. This huge man knelt right there in our living room (right in front of the tv) and repented of his sins. My grandmother prayed with him and his face shone with joy. Mine was a study in inner conflict. The tv was still off...
He never drank again and his house became a place filled with joy. He often teased my grandmother in later years about all the money he had wasted that evening to get drunk, just to end up sober in a moments time. My grandmother, who never owed anyone money in her whole lifetime, looked very uncomfortable when he asked for a refund.
As for me, I still want to know why it all had to happen at the same time my programme was on. It was three whole weeks before I could catch another episode and I was tempted to lock the gate that evening.
These experiences shaped my faith more than all the years of study at the seminary.
I will welcome your comments to my stories. This is the last grandmother story I will tell for a while.