Life-Changing Decision: My Salvation Experience at Eleven

It was a hot July day in Alabama in 1966 and my mother made me wear a shirt I hated. It was one of those shirts that was square bottomed with buttons for adjustment on the two sides. We were headed to our church just up the road, the little caravan was my Mama, my brother Steve, and me.

Summer revival meetings were in full swing with morning and night services. Our country church building was larger than usual. It was built with concrete blocks covered with plaster. It had a tall ceiling. There was no air conditioning at church or home so sweat was the normal life of a Southerner.

My Daddy was at work. Mother never learned to drive, so we walked the short distance to church. I was miserable. The short walk was not my problem, the July heat was just life, the awful shirt was only a secondary torment, because I had been wrestling with God. In our church jargon, we called it conviction. I was under conviction of sin.

I was only eleven. How bad of a sinner could I have been? Having older brothers, I had been introduced to the unfolded centerfold of a Playboy magazine but at ten it looked more like the National Geographic. I could inhale a Marlboro cigarette at six and say, “Hello boys!” and then blow the smoke out to the cheers of the country ruffians who I grew up with. I enjoyed the cheers more than the cigarettes.

The little sinner tramped up the road behind his Mama. I had developed into a good little liar. My brothers trusted me with their dark secrets because I could cover them well. I could look my Mama or Daddy in the eye and lie like a Mississippi gambler. Having two brothers just six and seven years older along with the other teenage terrors accompanying them, they had predicted I would be a scoundrel in the first degree. The seed of their wayward prophesies never took root in my soul for some reason, but I still recall them. My mother’s prayers surely thwarted the blue-jean clad prophets with fuzz above their upper lips.

Back to my wrestling with God. One year before, in the same church but a different time, Jesus called me to follow Him. I resisted. I was not necessarily opposed to Jesus; my resistance was more delay than a denial. Bargaining with God became my ploy, so I kicked the can down the road and promised Him the next year I would surrender. It was a miserable year.

Next year was now, and this was not Monday morning, but Friday morning with only two services to go. I felt like I was on the precipice of all out Hell. Would I surrender or plunge straight into the abyss of the lost? The miserable little scoundrel with the square-tailed shirt with buttons on the side was reluctantly trudging to church as if to an execution.

I do not remember much about the service. We had a gigantic industrial size fan in the back window of the church that roared through the singing and mother would nod to me as the preacher took the pulpit to unplug it.

So now it began, the preacher preached until Hell was hot and he was soaked. At least, our present condition would be cooler than Hell.

Then the dreaded invitation time when the good folks sang a funeral dirge while the preacher begged sinners to repent. I had lived through many of these ordeals, so I knew the preacher would finally relent with tears and cease. The little sinner could sleek away home for some reprieve while watching Huckleberry Hound on television.

I knew my Mama was concerned about me. She had recently asked me if the Lord had ever knocked at my heart. As we say in the South, “I lied like a dog!” I kept drying the dishes and never blinked while my heart was about to jump out of my chest, “No Mama,” I had answered. I had been ‘had’ by a holy woman who knew me, but also knew God.

While the preacher was begging sinners to repent, my mother was standing next one—me! She leaned over with tears in her eyes and said, “Harry, do you feel like you need to get saved?” The preacher stopped begging for sinners because there was one headed his way who had on a weird shirt with buttons on the sides. I had been skating on the edge of Hell with Heaven just out of reach. My mother nudged me toward the Heaven side.

I knelt at the old altar bench which was a wooden pew turned around backwards. I can still feel the curved wood on the seat portion that came up to meet the bony forehead of this eleven-year-old seeker.

When I began to pray, the first words from my mouth were, “Lord, I don’t want to go to Hell!” I could feel that stupid shirt coming half-way up my boney back. Everything was almost a blur from that point on. I remember thinking, “When will I know, that I have really been saved?” At some point, I felt peace. In later years, I would learn that it is more about commitment and faith than about a feeling. Yet, it feels good to be saved from Hell. God knew I needed a handle to hang onto, so He gave me peace.

I prayed for Jesus to save me from my sins. I gave Him my life and He gave me His. There were some Godly women along with my mother “praying me through”. When I raised my head, then to my feet; my mother engulfed me in an embrace I will never forget. She began to cry even more and shouted the praises of God for saving little Harry. I didn’t care for the attention, but I loved the fact I was finally saved. It is a cliché, but very true, “MY LIFE HAS NEVER BEEN THE SAME!!”

NOTE: This week, it has been 58 years ago since this little boy with the goofy shirt put his faith in Jesus!

Yours on the Journey,

Harry L. Whitt