I once read an inspirational story about an older man, in frail health, who was physically sick and very afraid
that he might die. A formerly strong and vigorous man who had been the CEO of a major corporation, he was
used to being “in control,” a role that he relished. But now those days were behind him, and he faced the
great uncertainty of death with abject fear. He had not been a religious man, but knowing nothing else to do,
he finally called for a pastor to visit his bedside.

“What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).

This verse, a favorite of mine, is at first glance, a puzzle. We might want to consider that we can have anything we want if we imagine ourselves believing in it enough. And this might translate into obsessions and deep, deep praying. We might, indeed, fool ourselves into believing that what we are praying for is in God’s will for us. We might so want something that we get ourselves tangled up.

Much of the greatest happiness of my childhood and early adulthood took place in Ayden, North Carolina, at the home of my great-grandmother, Celia Garris, and my grandparents, Ed and Anna Hill. Their house, then 307 (later 572) East Second Street, was just around the block from the Ayden Free Will Baptist Church. The proximity was a reminder that Christianity was the center of my family’s joy, and that center resided in the Original Free Will Baptist faith.

When I am upset or angry about something, I have learned over the years that I am misperceiving. The awful thing that I think I see is not really there. Nothing, when I am feeling rage, is really as it seems. My emotions, my dark emotions, are coloring my world black.

Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:13).

This is a column for worriers. This is a column for me.

I was 11 years old when I got serious about being “saved.” I had long attended Sunday School and church, and I knew that Jesus was 12—one year older—when he conversed with the elders in the temple. Twelve seemed to my mind the age of “reckoning,” the age of accountability. If I weren’t saved by then, maybe I would go to Hell if I died.

This month I depart from remembering the past in memoir of people and places to remembering the past in a thought that has teased me out of thought, somewhere just below the surface of my conscious mind. Now this thought has come to the surface of my mind and asks me for resolution.

My great-grandmother, Celia Hart Garris, learned how to live well. There was an oasis of calm that surrounded her in her later years, and she lived to be 96. She had “her” specially designed, ergonomically correct, chair in the corner of the family room, and from there she greeted the many relatives and friends who came to bask in her love. Many were from the Ayden Free Will Baptist Church.

One of (just about) everybody’s favorite passages from the New Testament is the fragment of a verse that constitutes the title of this column, above. The words are Jesus at His best, in my opinion—comforting, reassuring, loving, and, above all, a reminder that He is still with His followers. There is no room for doubt in these words. Even an agnostic would recognize the profound feeling expressed therein.

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).