I am the youngest of 4 children and was raised in a Roman Catholic family. Ever since I was old enough to remember, I was fascinated with the paintings in the enormous KJV Rembrandt Bible that was kept on our coffee table. I would look at the paintings of Jesus doing miracles, and eventually His crucifixion and wonder to myself, “Who are you, and what did you do that was so bad that they had to kill you?”
Early one particular morning at the age of 13, I couldn’t sleep, so I turned on my radio. I heard a man talking about Jesus and who He was and why He died on the cross and rose from the dead and how much He loved me and wanted me to have a relationship with Him and join Him in heaven. In between his messages he would play music. The man’s name was Mark James and the name of the radio show was “The Solid Rock”. At the end of the show, he gave a number to call if you had any questions or wanted to pray with someone to receive Christ and be born again. I jotted down the number and later called. They told me that the program I had listened to was a weekly show on Sunday AM and PM. I sat by my radio all day and waited for the program to come back on.
In the meantime, I took my sister’s Bible called “Good News for Modern Man”. Someone had given it to her and she just put it on a shelf and forgot about it. I thought I was doing something bad, so I would only read it at night after my family went to bed either in my closet or under my covers with a flashlight. It took me about 2 weeks to read the entire New Testament from cover to cover. It would take me another 2 weeks of listening to “The Solid Rock” until I felt I understood if enough and felt I was “ready” to be born again. Because I was only 13 and had been raised Catholic, I still was a little unclear about what being born again really meant.
On the morning of May 31, 1978 at 6:30AM after listening to the program, I slid out of bed and knelt beside it to join Mark James in prayer. The room became suddenly very still, there was a presence in the room for sure….I looked around actually expecting to see someone there. This did not frighten me at all. After praying the sinner’s prayer, I felt very light like a leaf floating on the surface of the water, and I didn’t want anything to break that moment. At the end of the program, Mr James gave a phone number to call so that I could tell someone what I had just done. I called Love Lines phone number and told the counselor my name and age and that I had just prayed the with man on the radio. The counselor whooped and hollered and said “Praise the Lord” and “Hallelujah” a lot. I asked the counselor if he had ever heard of the “Good News for Modern Man” book and he said that he had and that he would mail me my very own copy.�
I later got into the habit of recording the show on cassette so that I could listen to it again during the week. I even paid one of my friends $10 to record the program for me when my family went on a 2 week vacation. I also got into the habit of later giving these cassettes to my friends when their particular situation was something that was addressed on the show. Now, 30 years later, God has given me the opportunity to work with Love Lines where it all started!
Lisa W
