Chosen!

The year was 1949 and Detroit, Michigan was teeming with post war industry. War years gas rationing had ended and the demand for American built cars had never been greater. Brands now forgotten, DeSoto, Plymouth, Pontiac, Willys, Nash, Packard and Hudson rolled off assembly lines. People from the deep South came to work in the auto industry. As young veterans of the war returned home the housing boom kept skilled construction workers well employed. New subdivisions, networks of streets, and cookie cutter houses sprang up creating an urban sprawl and a new word, “suburban.” Schools were soon overcrowded, and a new network of super highways now called the “Interstate” was a futuristic dream.

In 1949 a five-year-old boy was sound asleep in an attic bedroom at 18112 Riopelle Street. The house was nondescript, like thousands of others in the city, Cape Cod in design, asbestos shingles, small front stoop, modest yard. The boy was as ordinary as thousands living of others within walking distance. Like most others in the neighborhood, his parents were the children of European immigrants. The Holy Spirit awakened the boy with an acute conviction that he needed to be saved from his sins. He was guilty of several grievous misdeeds. He had sassed his parents, fought jealously with his year-younger brother, lied a few times, and had given his older sister a difficult time when she was his baby sitter, the usual infractions for a five-year-old. I was the boy.

The presence of the Spirit and the reality of my sin was real. I was not familiar with nightmares nor was I a restless sleeper. No traumatic event triggered the experience. The Spirit simply awakened me! I cried out for my parents who rushed to my bedside, probably thinking I had had a bad dream. After telling them I needed to be saved, they prayed with me and Jesus has been my Savior for 62 years!

Bible stories learned at home and Sunday School reinforced my faith. I distinctly remember attending a Sunday evening worship service at our family’s church near the corner of Nevada and Van Dyke Streets in Detroit, c.1950. We sat in the balcony that evening. My father’s sister, Alma, was visiting from Northern Michigan. The congregation sang an old Gospel song and I can still hear my Aunt Alma’s slightly off-key voice singing
“Tis’ the grandest theme thro’ the ages rung; Tis the grandest theme for a mortal tongue;
Tis’ the grandest theme that the world e’er sung, ‘Our God is able to deliver thee.’”

“He is able to deliver thee, He is able to deliver thee, Tho’ by sin oppressed,
Go to Him for rest; Our God is able to deliver thee.”

“Tis the grandest theme, let the tidings roll, to the guilty heart, to the sinful soul;
Look to God in faith, He will make thee whole, ‘Our God is able to deliver thee.’”
The large church building swelled with the statement of faith sung by hundreds of voices. I loved it then, I can hear it now!

This morning I awoke with another Gospel tune streaming through my spirit.
“For it’s real, it’s real; O, I know it’s real.
Thank God, the doubts are settled, and I know, I know it’s real!”
Seasons of doubt have come and gone. I have had to confront challenges to faith. But, I know, I really know that Jesus saved me! He chose me, a most ordinary child living in a city teeming with over a million people. The Holy Spirit could have visited children living less than 100 yards away from my bedroom, but He chose me!