How many teeter on the edge of hope and assurance? Many don’t embrace the simple yet profound words of the Apostle John: “God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The one who doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life. I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.” And we most fully know that we know that we have Jesus’ life, His new life, His eternal life when we “Love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart, with all [our] soul, with all [our] mind, and with all [our] strength. [And we] love [our] neighbor as [our self].”
I had an older brother, Steve. I cannot say I ever really looked up to him, though he towered over me in strength and size. No matter what he did, I loved him and loved his heart! I will never forget that he never criticized another person. Yet he was, so to speak, the prodigal child in our home. Growing up, he got into trouble daily. Some of the things he did, are unspeakable. Feeling less than he was, he became a habitual liar. Always trying to make others believe he was something, someone bigger and better than the rest. I am not trying to paint an ugly picture of my big brother. He, like many of us, had emotional childhood trauma that impelled him to make bad decisions in life.
Those decisions eventually landed him in prison. When Steve went to prison, it sent me back to my past. A past I did not want to ever revisit. Memories I had tucked away so neatly began to come crashing down. At the same time, I was all he had. Mom didn’t talk to him. Dad could care less. The rest had figured him out long ago and had given up on him. My heart was broken in ways I couldn’t and at times still cannot piece back together. I made a choice to be there for him. I told him he had to be nothing but honest with me or I would quit talking to him. He promised me and after that never told me another lie. I told him that there were things he did when we were young that I needed him to apologize for. He listened, we cried and he told me how very sorry he was. I forgave him. I told him he needed to write letters to those he wronged. He wrote letters admitting how wrong he was and how sorry he was for what he had done.
For the next two years, every conversation began and ended with Christ, His amazing forgiveness and abundance of love for us. Weekly I sent him verses to look up, poems, my favorite songs and stories of how God was working in my life and in those around me. My brother started out sweating the small stuff, questioning many things of the bible. At the end of the two years, my brother accepted Christ!
A couple weeks later my brother was transferred to the prison that would be his home for the next 35 years. The day he got there, he fell ill and wound up in the infirmary. He went back and forth from there to the hospital several times. His guards were amazing. They let him call and talk to me a few times. He died of euro sepsis a few weeks after arriving, never serving one day in a cell! The day after he died, the nurse that was with him called me. She told me she had sit and talked with him about God for three hours before he took his last breath. He made her promise that she would call and tell me that he was very comfortable in his salvation. I know my brother didn’t just die, but God rescued him.
I pray that one day I will see him in Heaven and we can talk about how wonderful Jesus is… And that we will reflect on those days we openly shared His word. Those days where he began his pilgrimage from doubt to assurance. When he affirmed in his head and his heart that he loved Jesus above all else – with all that he is, with all that he has, based upon all of Christ’s worth.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength and see where He takes you!
Written by
Terri Baker
