The Bridge Christian Fellowship
Steve Farnworth
The Pastor’s Pen
My grandpa was a hard and tough man. He was raised one of eight boys in a family with ten children. His family were farmers, so from a very young age he was working long hours in the fields, and knew how to handle chickens, hogs, horses, cows, and sheep. His parents were very religious people who strictly adhered to their faith, which, unfortunately, they invested in one of the largest cults in the world. They were good and kind people, married 63 years when my great-grandpa died.
My grandpa was the black sheep of the family. By the time he was a young teenager, he had his fill of the inherent legalism that defined his parent’s faith. He liked to party. He liked to drink. He liked the young ladies. One in particular took his fancy. This young lady, one of five sisters who also had two brothers, was a petite ball of fire. Her combination of Irish and Blackfoot Indian blood combined to create a dark-haired, rough-and-tumble hurricane that stood 5 feet, 1 inch tall. What she lacked in height was more than compensated for in her spirit.
During their whirl-wind romance, my grandparents became pregnant. So, they stood at the alter and exchanged wedding vows. He was eighteen; she was sixteen. His devotion to his bride alienated him from his family. She was not of their faith, and they did not approve of the marriage. It was a blight on their religious tapestry.
The rigid stand taken by my great-grandparents only exacerbated my grandfather’s rebellion towards, not only the faith of his parents, but to God and all things spiritual. My grandpa and grandma worked hard and partied even harder. Their home offered love, but it also often erupted in fits of rage and anger, usually fueled by the liquor that both of my grandparents were fond of.
The son my grandmother bore in her womb would become my daddy. The oldest of five children, he was raised by two extremely young parents in the home described above. Because it was expected, my grandfather insisted that grandma take the children to the church in which he was raised. It was a weekly exercise that had little, if any, effect on the home. It was just what they did on Sunday morning, providing they were sober enough to get out of bed.
My dad, being the oldest of the children, often stood between his younger siblings and my grandpa’s rage. He took many a licking in order to protect and provide for his younger brother and three sisters. Like his dad, my father was a very hard worker. Growing up on the farm, he was up early and doing his chores from the time he was a little tyke. And, like his dad, my father liked to party. He was fun-loving and reckless, and he caught the eyes of the young ladies.
At the ripe old age of sixteen, my dad fell madly in love with a wild redhead from a neighboring town. Having been kicked out of school at the beginning of his junior year, my dad was working full time as a carpenter. As soon as my mom graduated high school, the two seventeen-year-olds were married on June 1st, 1947.
Like his parents, my dad was not a believer, yet, like his dad, he wanted to find a church to which my mom could take my two older sisters. In their quest to find the right church, my mom and dad ran into a clear presentation of the gospel. For the first time, they became acutely aware of their own sin, as well as their desperate need for the Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Their immediate reaction was one of anger. “How dare anyone call us sinners,” they raged. And yet, the more they considered the words they had heard, the deeper the conviction became that they needed Jesus in their lives; that the grace He offered was what they needed. In simple faith, they asked Jesus to forgive them of their sin and make them the people He desired them to become. The year was 1952, just months before I was born, the first Farnworth in six generations to be born into a Christian home.
Within a few years, my grandparents followed my parents into faith in Jesus Christ. The grandparents I remember were kind, loving, and gentle. The old life was gone; they were new in Jesus Christ.
Why did I share this story? To illustrate the truth of God’s Word: “For by grace are you saved through faith.” Grace does not care where you have been or what you have done. Grace wipes our past clean, redeems us completely from our sin, and then sets us free to live lives that please our Savior.
Have you placed your faith in Jesus Christ? Like my parents, are you ready to acknowledge your sinful heart and receive God’s gift of eternal life through faith in His grace?
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