Before I became a Christian, the concept of a heavenly Father was less than appealing due to my own experience with fathers. An inattentive and mostly absent father, and then a controlling, unkind stepfather made certain of that.
But a friend? I could use a friend...
I think the journey began in a small-town Methodist church with wooden pews, simple colored glass windows and a paper fan in front of each hymnal. It was one of those rare Sundays (soon to become obsolete) spent with my grandparents in the tiny town of Diller, Nebraska, population 394. They had sent my two brothers and me to Sunday School at the church a few blocks from their home. Shyly, I asked if I could stay for church. This was a huge thing. I had to have been less than 8 years old and excruciatingly shy. I didn't know anyone there and had no idea of what to expect, yet the desire of my heart was to go to church.
Sitting by myself, I drank it all in--the sunlight streaming through the windows, wooden floors that creaked as people walked by and an indescribable smell of oldness. I don't remember the sermon at all; it was probably full of mile-long words that had no meaning for me. But the music spoke to me! The lovely, old timey Gospel hymns told me of a Friend and thus began my journey.
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