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A Knock on the Door Changed Her Family's Life
WASHINGTON (December 8, 2004) - Editor's note: the following story was
written by Sharon Read, who as a child lived in the state of Washington.
It speaks of the often overlooked acts of love and kindness that have
far greater impact on a life than one might realize at the time. It is
particularly appropriate as we celebrate the birth of the Christ child
who is the source of inspiration for this kind of love.
By Sharon Read
Recently, while putting together some genealogy material and stories for
my adult children, I found myself writing about my parents' lives and
the limited exposure we had to God as kids during the fifties. From my
earliest memories, our family didn't attend church. The extent of my
knowledge about God was the "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" prayer my
grandmother taught me when I was small.
It was in 1955 that the pastor of a local church entered our lives – and
changed our lives forever. Pastor Alfred Ulner was the pastor of a
church located a few miles from where we lived. At that time, our little
town was nothing more than a small grocery store and gas station with a
feed store by the railroad tracks that ran from Renton to Bellevue. We
lived next door to my grandparents on land that my great-grandparents
bought in the early 1900's – it was considered out in the country. We
didn't get a lot of drop-in visitors. The only people I can remember
coming up our driveway during those years was the Fuller Brush man or
the Avon Lady.
One day, Pastor Ulner came knocking on our door. He was out visiting
door to door, which as anyone knows who has ever done that kind of
outreach can be challenging. You never know what kind of reception you
might receive. He introduced himself, spent some time talking with my
mother and invited our family to church. After that visit, the Sunday
school bus, sometimes driven by Pastor Ulner, began stopping in front of
our house and picking up my brother, sister and me on Sunday mornings.
My mother went to church occasionally for awhile, but my father never
did attend with us. Pastor Ulner continued talking with my mother about
God and generally encouraging her. She was studying the Bible during
this time and I can remember her reading her Bible every day. She and
dad began to watch Billy Graham Crusades on television.
In a conversation with my mother a few years before her death in 1999,
she told me the story about that first time Pastor Ulner came to our
door. She was several weeks pregnant with her fourth child. She didn't
want any more children and a friend had directed her to a doctor in a
town who did abortions. She made the appointment to abort the baby, but
the day before the appointment, Pastor Ulner came to visit. She said she
felt his visit was a direct intervention from God and she did not go
through with the abortion. My baby brother, Mark, was born in 1956.
For the next few years the three of us older children attended Pastor
Ulner's church. In our Sunday school class my sister, brother and I
learned about Jesus. I remember loving the singing part of church. My
brother, Steve, who was about six years old, remembers that at some
point he said the sinner's prayer with his Sunday school teacher. When I
was about 11 years old, I had my first experience really knowing that
God was real while attending a local bible camp with my Covenant church
Sunday school class. The wind of the Holy Spirit was blowing on our family.
In 1958 my grandfather died, and by 1959 our family had moved from the
area. We no longer attended church. I wish I could say that our life was
wonderful after our short exposure to God, but that wouldn't be reality.
There were many hard times for my parents and for us kids in the
following years. But God is faithful.
As he grew older, my father became more open about his childhood. He
shared with me about his Baptist background, how he was saved as a boy
in a church he attended with his parents. Shortly before his death in
1982, he recommitted his life to God. My mother's faith continued to
grow during the last two decades of her life. In 1974, I accepted Jesus
Christ as my Savior. Soon after, my husband also became a Christian. All
four of my children are Christians as are my six grandchildren. My
brother, Steve, continues to serve God, recently traveling to Mexico on
an outreach trip.
Through my eyes as a child, the church seemed kind of formal . . . the
grownups seemed intimidating. Maybe I felt that way because it was the
1950s and we were the little kids that came on the bus without our
parents. But my memory of Pastor Ulner will always be of his kindness to
us, how his faithfulness in reaching out to my mother changed the course
of her life, as well as saved the life of my brother.
To my knowledge Pastor Ulner never knew about the day he just "happened"
to come to our house to invite us to church – and how his visit had a
bigger purpose. I decided to do an Internet search to see if I could
find him, to tell him and to thank him. When I typed in his name, a
Covenant news story came up telling of his memorial service in August
2002 (he had died at Mt. Miguel Covenant Village, a retirement facility
in California). I was sorry to hear of his passing, but I saw from the
article that he had five daughters. I contacted Covenant Communications
and asked if someone would forward my note to Pastor Ulner's family, if
possible. A few days later (thanks to the assistance of the Department
of the Ordered Ministry), I received a reply from one of Pastor Ulner's
daughters.
I enjoyed reading her note about her memories of her family's time
living in Washington while her dad was a pastor and where he had
ministered later on. (After leaving Washington, Ulner was called to
churches in Berkeley, California; Phoenix, Arizona; northern Michigan,
and Mason City, Iowa.) She noted that she and her husband also entered
the ministry as missionaries to Africa. The daughter said she was young
when the Ulner family lived in Washington – from the third grade to
about the sixth grade – before the family moved to California. "I
remember often riding on the bus on Sundays or during Vacation Bible
School," the daughter wrote. "So probably I met you many years ago."
I'm happy that I was able to share my family's story with Pastor Ulner's
daughters. I think that all too often, men and women like him go through
their lives being faithful in the small things, but never really knowing
or understanding the incredible impact that they had for God and
eternity. And I guess to some degree, all of us go through life not
knowing or understanding - this side of heaven anyway - about the seeds
that were sown or the harvests reaped for the Kingdom of God by our
everyday "knocking on doors, driving the bus, kind words, a smile,
reaching out, sharing the love of Jesus" kind of faithfulness.
Copyright © 2008 The Evangelical Covenant Church. |
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