A Late-in-Life Conversion

When “Sam” found out a few months ago that he had throat cancer, he called for “the preacher” and accepted Christ; his body was “laid to rest” last Tuesday; he was 59.

I often worked during recent years with “Sam,” which is not his real name, at a carpet dye house and sometimes sensed his struggle with “eternal matters.”

As far as I know, he grew up attending a Baptist church in central North Carolina and never accepted the Lord until he, so to speak, “stared Death in the face.”

He’d sometimes attend the church he grew up in and leave if he “got convicted too bad,” someone said. Sam had one daughter by his first marriage, and he once indicated to me that if he “got right,” he was confused about what to do about a woman – let’s call her “Sandy” – he’d been living with for a long time. He wondered if he “made things right with the Lord,” if he’d be expected to go back to his first wife.

I forget if his first wife was re-married or not, but I told him that someone said, “You can’t unscramble an egg.” I advised him to go from where he was in life and respond to Christ.

Sam put off deciding.

Somewhere along the way, Sandy “got saved,” and, as one person put it, told Sam they’d have to get married or quit living together.

They married.

Sam and Sandy come from the Lumbee Tribe. The Lumbees have existed in and around Robeson County, N.C., since the early part of the eighteenth century. In 1885, the State of North Carolina recognized the tribe as “Indian,” but the U.S. government has yet to grant full federal recognition. Some Lumbees attended “Indian schools” until desegregation began in the South. Many Lumbees grew up on small farms that raised tobacco. Some folk who “worked in ’baccer” learned to use it. Sam was one of those people. Perhaps no one can prove Sam’s tobacco chewing caused his throat cancer, but lots of his friends figure it did.

After his talk with “the preacher,” Sam told a friend that he felt he’d wasted a lot of time during his life by not serving Christ. Word got around about Sam accepting Jesus. He gave out a good “witness” as his life came to a close. Sam suffered, underwent chemotherapy and died last Saturday.

I drove 30 miles last Monday night to a “funeral home” in Red Springs, N.C. I entered the crowded building, saw many of Sam’s former co-workers, shook some hands and walked to the casket.

Sam appeared to be resting, taking a nap. “He looks the same,” I thought. “It’s almost as if he could open his eyes and speak.” But Sam was gone, and only his body remained. The “life of the flesh is in the blood,” according to the Bible, and Sam’s blood had stopped flowing. His “flesh” had ceased living, but I believed his spirit had not.

I met Sam’s wife, expressed sympathy and told her of hearing about Sam’s salvation. We'll see him, again,” I said. She seemed appreciative of my words.

After talking with some co-workers, I left Red Springs and drove the long, flat road toward home, thinking about Sam’s late-in-life conversion.

It’s eternally dangerous to wait until “midnight” to “get right.” I recall hearing ministers mention this verse: “And the LORD said, ‘My spirit shall not always strive with man…’” (Genesis 6:3). Those preachers indicated a person could wait until he has no sense of God “drawing” him to accept Christ.

A friend told me about a man who repeatedly resisted the Gospel message. That man grew old and had a heart attack. A preacher visited the hospitalized man and pressed him about accepting Christ. The man said, “Why, if I was to get saved now, people would think I was just getting scared.” The man died a few years later, and my friend doesn’t know if that man ever accepted Jesus Christ or not.

I’m glad Sam wasn’t too proud to finally accept God’s gift of salvation. Sam came to the Lord late in life, but he came.

We have no promise of tomorrow. Come to Jesus while the voice of the Lord still speaks to your heart, while you still hear God calling you.

“…Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).