Ministry Moments:
"One grant left"
by Lynn Ridenhour
God doesn’t look at who we are, but who we will
become.
Our Lord said to Simon, "...Thou art Simon the son of Jona; thou shalt
be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone..." (Jn.1:42)
Peter was anything but a stone when our Master spoke those words. But God
didn’t look at who Peter was; Peter became a rock when it counted. God saw
Peter before he was Peter.
And the Lord sees us no differently. He sees who we will become.
There was a time when I was full of the devil, and just down right mean.
But the Lord saw the day when I would be offered the last ministerial grant,
but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let it be known--I believe the greatest miracle is a changed heart. I’ve
seen blind eyes opened, the crippled walk, limbs lengthened, cancer disappear,
the paralyzed get out of their wheel chairs, and the deaf speak. I’ve seen
tumors disappear and crooked spines straightened. I’ve seen witches set
free. And the dead come back to life.
Let it be known--none of these compare to the miracle of grace. Paul, the
apostle, best describes the miracle this way: "...when it pleased God,
who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to
reveal his Son in me..." (Gal.1:15). There is no greater
experience. Looking back, there were times in my life when I was anything but
a preacher. I was filled with hatred, bitterness, and an intense dislike for
people and life. I came that close to committing murder.
Trouble came early for me.
It really began when my dad died. The day before he passed away, we
were enjoying a day together working up at our clubhouse—trimming weeds,
planting rose bushes, and cutting grass. Dad was healthy (or so we
thought), vibrant and young, and the two of us enjoyed getting our hands dirty
together. I was sixteen and dad was 43--a family man that loved & lived
for his wife and children and who was just now beginning to enjoy the fruits
of his labors. Dad and his brother, Dick, owned their own successful business.
They had worked hard to build it to where we were enjoying some of the nicer
things of life—a new home, a clubhouse, new cars, a speedboat.
It hadn’t always been that way. Dad was an alcoholic until a Baptist
preacher one day led him to the Lord, then he became the model town citizen—church
deacon, town board member, and high school basketball booster. Always giving.
Our family went from rags to riches with the blessings of the Lord. But dad
never left his roots. Never forgot where he came from.
Then it happened—that awful night. The very next evening after we had
come home from the clubhouse dad dropped dead with a heart attack.
My troubles had begun.
First of all, dad’s sudden death threw our family into a tailspin. Mom
was completely dependent upon dad; she didn’t even know how to fill out a
check to buy his coffin. I was the only son with three sisters and a mother to
take care of. It was too much. At sixteen, life had become a terrible
overload.
Dad died in February. In June I was severely burned over ninety-five
percent of my body—seventy-percent third degree. My mother’s father
(grandpa) suddenly passes away while I’m still unconscious in the hospital.
And my mother almost goes nuts.
Our family survives, but nothing’s the same. The heart had been cut out
of our family.
I recover from my burns and go home. Soon after I’m home, a stranger
shows up on our doorsteps. Ray Penny was his name, a southern gentleman from
Georgia. He courts my mom and she marries on the rebound. Dad hadn’t been
gone a year.
Come to find out, the man was a con, an ex-convict. While in a Georgia
state prison, somehow he had gotten a copy of the town newspaper, The Belle
Banner, which featured my father’s death on the front page. Headlines read
"Harry Ridenhour, Prominent Clay Minor Succumbs." Dad died in 1960
and was making $1,000 a day. In the 60s that was excellent money. Today that’s
excellent money.
The con man had a history of marrying wealthy widows. Of course, we didn’t
know that. He seemed so nice! Believe me when I say--a real con is a
real con. He was good. Had me fooled. Had us all fooled.
I wasn’t long, however, ‘till I didn’t like what I was seeing.
First of all, the man drank. As a family we had gone through the traumas of
alcohol once and saw my father conquer the disease. It sent cringes up my
spine to see fifths of whiskey again sitting on our kitchen table.
It took Mr. Penny about three years to go through my mother’s checking
account. He hung out in bars, bought rounds for everyone--using mother’s
check book, of course-- and dragged my mother from bar to bar.
I was a freshman in college at Memphis State University. My sisters
kept me informed with their letters. Dad & mom had Cynthia, my younger
sister, just three years ago. Cynthia was the apple of dad’s eye. The joy of
his heart. One weekend I drove home to Missouri from school and found Cynthia
locked in the closest. Penny had locked her in the closet while he took mom
bar hopping.
That broke my heart and sent anger running through my blood like I never,
ever experienced. Another time I went home, drove up to the house, but no one
was there. I drove on up to Uncle Lawrence’s Sinclair Station and asked
"where’s mom?"
"They moved to Carbondale, Illinois," said Uncle Lawrence.
Penny had taken my mom & little sister, sold our house, and had moved
to another state. I bought a pistol and headed to Carbondale. It had been two
and a half years since dad had died and this man had cleaned us out, spent the
money dad left mom, sold our house & club house, and now had taken my
family. I would kill him. That’s the only way I could get rid of him.
Besides, if I killed him maybe it would make the anger in my heart go
away.
Driving to Carbondale, I thought of how I would commit the murder. I
wrestled with my conscience all the way there. The gun lay half concealed in
the seat. A moral tornado was going through my head. Halfway there I pitched
the gun out the window. I was so angry at mother for letting this man destroy
our lives. We had a short visit and I left. I dropped out of college and
headed for Kansas City.
My cousins, Ronny and "Squeak" Owens, were bell captains at the
fanciest hotel in KC—the Muehlebach. The hotel covered a city block and was
where all the movie stars stayed. I got a job as a bellboy working the
graveyard shift. It wasn’t long ‘till I fit in with the rest of my
cousins. There were five of us working as bellboys—Squeak, Ronny, Buck,
Jack, and myself. It wasn’t long ‘till I was pimping and bootlegging
whiskey with the best of them. My heart had turned cold.
It wasn’t long until mother and this man moved to KC. Mom got a job at
the front desk while he lay around the house and drank whiskey.
One day Ronny, my cousin, approached me. "Lynn, they’re looking for
two bellhops at The Shangri La Lodge in Oklahoma on the Grand Lake of the
Cherokees. It’s a brand now hotel. You interested?"
"Sure." And off we went. My cousin, Jack, & I called
management and said we’d take the job. By this time I had become so bitter
that I threw all my belongings in the back seat of my ’57 Chevy convertible,
told my mother I never wanted to see her again, and drove off without telling
her where I was going.
Jack & I settled into our new jobs—pimping and bootlegging. We had
the entire hotel to ourselves. We had rented a small lake cabin just three
miles from the lodge and five miles from Miami, OK. Jack worked the day shift
and I worked the night shift. On our off hours we partied.
I remember one night the two of us were sitting in a bar listening to Roger
Miller sing "King of the Road" when the Lord spoke to me "I
haven’t left you." I was stunned. Caught off guard. I
hadn’t heard that voice in a long time. Now I really wanted to drink. I
ordered shot after shot that night, sitting on a bar stool trying my darndest
to get drunk. It was like drinking ice tea! The more I drank the
soberer I got. Finally, I told Jack, "I’m going to the cabin."
I went home and crashed. The next morning I awoke with a terrible hangover.
I was alone. Jack was working. While shaving I looked in the mirror and saw an
old man. That’s when it happened. His presence filled the room and
knocked me to the floor. I was lying on the floor, unable to get up
when the Lord began speaking.
"I love you just the way you are—scars and all."
That broke my heart, for as a teenager I was so conscious of my burn
scars. I no longer went swimming. I wore long sleeves. And never
showered with the guys. I began to cry.
"And about your mother. I love your mother."
A dam broke on the inside. I was pounding on the floor with my fist.
"And I love her too, Lord."
My heart was flooded with God's love. His Presence was like a white-hot
poker, burning the scars from my heart. All the bitterness was leaving.
The best way to describe it, you say? Waves of liquid love flowing over my
heart. Now I was sobbing. "Lord, I even love Ray Penny." I lay there
weeping uncontrollably. I don’t know how long I was under His power. I just
knew I couldn’t stand. Didn’t want to. I was too busy settling
things with God.
When Jack walked in the room I said, "Jack, I’m going to be a
preacher." He didn’t know what to think. But I got on the phone and
told my mother I was coming home. I went back and made things right with her,
and headed toward Liberty, Missouri, to enroll in William Jewell College.
I wanted to learn how to preach.
I arrived on campus with no money, just a sure knowledge that the Lord had
called me. I spent most of the morning registering for classes. Finally, my
counselor told me, "go stand over there in that line and pay your
bill."
You must understand, I'm terribly naïïve--a young man who's been
away from his small Ozark town--population 800--for just a little while. We
graduated 20 boys and 20 girls in my high school class. My folks always left
their keys in our car, never locked our house when going out of town, and for
the most part, my dad did business on a hand shake.
I didn't know if it took any money to attend this school or not. I didn't
have to pay when I went to high school. Anyway, Dr. Moore, head of the
religion department, told me to come on up. So here I was, on campus standing
in line with the rest of the students. I was watching them, each with their
checkbooks in hand. I noticed they each wrote out a check and handed it to the
lady. Finally, it came my turn. I stood there, awkward, not saying a word,
with no money and no checkbook. The lady eventually looked up, "young
man, may I help you?"
I had to say something. "Ma'am, I don't have any money, but I know the
Lord has called me to learn how to preach." I heard the snickers.
She excused herself, scooted her chair back, and pointed with her finger,
"come with me."
I followed her into a back room. She pulled out a piece of paper from a
filing drawer, handed it to me, and said "here, we had one left; you can
have it."
It was a ministerial grant. All my tuition fees and books were paid.
I stayed there at that Baptist College and applied my heart diligently. I
wanted to know God. That was thirty-four years ago.
I’ll say it again—the greatest of all miracles is the miracle of grace.
