Jim & Jan Conway

• Blessed are those who understand my faltering step and weakened hand.
• Blessed are those who know that my ears today must strain to catch the things they say.
• Blessed are those with a friendly smile who just stop by to visit a while.
• Blessed are those who never say "You have already told that story twice today."
• Blessed are those who make it known that I am loved, respected, and not alone.
• Blessed are those who through love and care ease the days of my journey home in so many ways.

Passage: Matthew 5:3-12; Luke 6:20-23

Author: Author unknown

Taken from the Zondervan's Senior's Devotional Bible, page 1218.

Father, thank You for the free gift of eternal life. I know I am a sinner and need Your forgiveness. I am sorry for my past sins, and I ask You to forgive me. Jesus, I believe You died on the cross for my sins and arose from the dead. I now open the door of my heart and invite You to come into my life. I realize there is nothing I can do to earn my salvation, and I place my complete trust in You alone for eternal life. I choose to follow You as my Lord. Please make me the person You want me to be.

A Letter to Jim's Children and Grandchildren

I feel very close to you today, and to God. It is 5 a.m. and I am soon to leave for Mexico for a week. But I wanted to share with you a very momentous event which took place in my life in 1951 on this date, also a Sunday.

During the night and early hours of that Sunday I wrestled with God about going into ministry. I argued that I was afraid of people, couldn’t speak, was a poor student on probation at college, and I didn’t respect the pastors who had served at my local church. So why was God calling me to be a pastor?

I was sure that there were many more qualified young men who should be asked to be pastors - "God, are you sure that you have the correct phone number?"

I was on a college choir trip. We were in Topeka, Kansas to sing that Sunday morning April 1st when God had arranged an earache which kept me awake in great pain. Along with the trauma of this physical pain, I had been bothered for several weeks with a ministry question - should I be a pastor, or not? But I was determined not to go into the ministry - since I had seen so many "phonies" in my local church.

The next morning I wasn't sure if I had just dreamed this or what, but the week-long ear ache was gone.

So in the night, with great pain, I agonized over what to do as God kept nagging me. Finally I got out of bed and on my knees said "Yes" to God - if He would give me a sign that Pastoring was really His will for me. The sign I asked for was that God would take away my ear ache and let me sleep.

Well, I don’t even remember getting back into bed, I was asleep so quickly.

The next morning I wasn’t sure if I had just dreamed this, or what - but the week-long ear ache was gone. I tried to tell other people on the choir trip about what had happened, but they all seemed too busy. So we sang that morning - and I never told anyone - yet God was nagging me to speak up about my decision.

That afternoon we ate a pot luck lunch with the church people and all of their teens. After the lunch the pastor asked us each to share where we grew up, what year we were in college, and what God had called us to do.

This was the only time on this two week trip that we had been asked to tell what God was preparing us to do for our life’s work. God had trapped me into speaking out. When my turn came I told of my earache””which all of the choir members knew about, and my wrestling with God during the last weeks. Then I shared my prayer time in the night culminating with my yielding to God to serve Him as a Pastor.

God took an inner city kid who had very little academic ability and led me into Pastoring, academic teaching, writing books, radio and TV ministries, and a world-wide ministry to people. But for all these years I have worried if I would be able to do what God had called me to do. Now, here I am years later””and God has been faithful. He promised me during college that "He would never leave me nor forsake me" - and He hasn’t!!

God also promised that He would continue the process of growth in me until the day Jesus returns - and He still is causing me to grow - maybe more in these years than ever before in my life.

So my counsel to you - my daughters, sons-in-laws, grandchildren, and friends - is, "Trust God with all you heart, and don’t lean on your own understanding" in all of life’s situations. God is alive and well and will never leave any of you””or give up working in all of your lives.

Trust Him for the unbelievable - He is able!!

I love you all - and just wanted you to know about this date in my history - and in your history also. Later that same fall I would meet Sally Christon who would become your mother and grandmother.

(An interesting sidenote is that the very night of my wrestling with God, my Grandmother Mary and a woman friend of hers prayed all night that I would make the right decision.)

by Jim Conway, Ph.D.  ©2011

• Conway / LateLife Hope Articles ~ Reprint by permission only,  ©2011
• Jim and Jan Conway are co-founders of LateLife Hope; they are international speakers and popular authors.
• LateLife Hope Ministries ~www.LateLifeHope.com
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1. Romans 3:23 ~ "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
2. Romans 6:23 ~ "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."
3. John 3:3 ~ "No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."
4. John 14:6 ~ "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."
5. Romans 10:9-11 ~ "If you confess with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. As the Scripture says, 'Anyone who trusts in Him will never be put to shame.'"
6. Revelation 3:20 ~ "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me."