James R. Augustine
my personal story....
I. In the Gospel of Luke (24:13-35) is the story of two men traveling the road to Emmaus. As they were walking and talking, Jesus himself approached and began traveling with them. “But their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.”
During most of my life as a young person, college student, and in the early years of marriage, I believe that Jesus approached me and was traveling with me – but my eyes were prevented from recognizing Him. I knew about Him but I did not know Him or have a personal relationship with Him.
I was not raised in a Christian home but did attend church, was involved in the youth group, sang in the choir, and even preached from the pulpit on “Youth Sunday”. I participated in confirmation classes and as a 13-year-old seventh grader made what I thought was a sincere public profession of faith.
The next year, when I was 14, my father died of a heart attack. My mother was left to raise my two brothers and I. Unable to work because she had to care for my physically disabled older brother, my mother somehow raised us on my father meager pension. Looking back on this period in my life, it is clear that God’s hand was on me.
Although my mother and my father had limited formal education, the Lord surrounded me with several high school teachers who encouraged me to go to college. At the suggestion of one of them, I wrote a very short letter to 76 colleges telling them of my scores and desire to go to college if only I could be given a loan, scholarship or job to pay for such an education, as we had no money. The Lord paid for me to attend an excellent small college in Illinois (Millikin University). To the end of her life my mother had no idea how my college education was paid for nor how I made it through.
The Lord continued to have his hand upon me as I graduated from Millikin and entered St. Louis University to earn a Master of Science (Research) degree in anatomy. During my graduate studies at SLU the Lord guided me to a beautiful nursing student named Mary who I fell in love with and married. Mary finished her last semester at SLU and then joined me at the University of Alabama in Birmingham where we lived and worked as I finished my PhD degree and then served on the faculty there. During this time our first child, Amie, was born.
In 1976 the three of us came to Columbia, South Carolina to participate in the establishment of a new medical school that opened its doors for the first time in the fall of 1977 and graduated its first class in 1981. A year after coming to Columbia our second child, Kate was born (1977) and in 1982 our son Patrick was born.
My personal encounter with Jesus Christ came as a result of my wife Mary’s attendance at a “Faith at Work” conference in Gatlinburg, TN in the Spring of 1981. Mary brought home a set of tapes by an Episcopal priest, Rev. Terry Fullam and in May of 1981 gave me a book by him entitled “Living the Lord’s Prayer.” She wrote in the front of the book “let us always live together in the will of God and give Him thanks and praise in everything."
To live in the will of God, Terry Fullam wrote, one had to “surrender yourself to Him and come under His sovereignty where His will is done on earth as it is in heaven."
A year later, I heard Terry Fullam give a series of twelve radio talks broadcast as the Episcopal Series (March to June, 1982). I found a book based on those twelve talks and read it carefully – it was called Facets of the Faith.
I purchased and listened to many of Terry Fullam’s tapes and was especially blessed by his tapes on prayer and how to study the Bible. Putting these tapes into practice, I prayed and read God’s word. This brought me to understand who I was (a sinner) and what Christ had done to save sinners like me (suffer, die on the cross, and enter into His glory).
Like the men on the road to Emmaus it was in and through the Scriptures that my eyes were opened and I recognized Him! I received Him, believed in His name and was born anew into the family of God. (John’s gospel, Chapter 3).
II. At this same time that God was working in my life, He was also working in the life of my wife Mary and in that of our daughter Amie. Mary comes from a devout Roman Catholic family. After each of our three children was born, they were baptized, faithfully attended mass with their mother, Sunday school, and sang in the choir. We were an “ecumenical” family. The children and Mary attended a Roman Catholic church and I attended several Presbyterian churches in Columbia.
In 1983, due to the influence of our wonderful Christian friends (Glen and Kathy Rice), our oldest daughter, Amie, started attending The Cove Camp in Asheville, NC. The Cove Camp is a part of the Billy Graham ministries.
In 1986, I joined First Presbyterian Church. That same year Mary and I were asked by our Christian neighbors, Breezy and Lois Brasington, members of North Trenholm Baptist church, to join them in praying for the upcoming Billy Graham Crusade to be held in Columbia in 1987 and to take part in one of the pre-Crusade activities called Operation Andrew. This involved praying for friends and neighbors to attend the upcoming crusade and accept Christ. My wife Mary, our daughter Kate, as well as our son Patrick, all went forward at the Billy Graham crusade in 1987.
Our godly neighbors continued to pray with us and for us and continued to welcome us and love us. Through this and our weekly prayer times together, our faith was strengthened.
In 1990 after returning from our summer beach trip, I was unloading our van. As I stepped down from inside the van I slipped backward and severely sprained my ankle. On crutches and unable to drive, I was completely dependent on Mary to get me to First Presbyterian Church and to the Timothy Sunday school class that I occasionally taught. Mary began to come with me to First Presbyterian Church as did Amie, Kate and Patrick during the rest of that summer.
By this time Amie had attended the Cove Camp for the eighth year in a row and was being drawn to the Lord. While my ankle slowly healed (it took almost 6 months), Amie’s heart was being filled with the truth of God's Word through the bible teaching of our youth pastor, Rev. Jimmy Turner, and my wife was being showered with love and kindness by the members of the Timothy Sunday school class. The Holy Spirit was patiently working in the hearts of all of us.
At the end of that summer, Mary decided to attend the Inquirer’s class at First Presbyterian Church and the whole family continued to attend First Presbyterian church together! In October, 1990 Mary joined First Presbyterian Church by a public profession of faith.
God is faithful and His faithfulness extends at times to entire families. While Mary and I became one flesh as husband and wife in 1970, it was some 20 years later that we became one family in Christ – oneness in heart and soul – by his blood and through his grace.
To God alone be the glory!
III. Well, what about you?
Are you walking and talking on that road to Emmaus?
Has Christ come near and been with you?
Do you know of Him but perhaps not know Him personally?
Do you have a personal acquaintance and eternal relationship with Jesus Christ?
My prayer is that the love of Christ will urge you on. That you will seek him while He may be found. That you will call on Him while He is near. And that you will then love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind!
May it ever be so!
