Some of us remember distinctly the moment of our conversion to Christ, or rebirth, even down to the exact date and time. And some, like I, do not. I remember mine as a season, seeming more like a process. A man once said to me, “Well, yes, I am a Christian, but I did not have a Damascus Road experience like that of the Apostle Paul (Acts 9:1-22).”
I’ve often wondered if I will be united with any family members in Heaven, and I seriously doubted it. While growing up the only thing I remember being told about Jesus Christ was not to use His name in vain or as a curse; it was never explained why, and the holiness of the name eluded me. I received my answer with great joy in an unexpected gem that arrived last year inside a birthday card.
This envelope was sent by an aunt, who, sadly, has not yet been converted. It contained a copy of a letter written by an ancestor of ours who was involved in a shipwreck at the age of 22 in 1865, an article regarding which is linked here. This letter was addressed to his pastor, and he referred to what he wrote as, “My conversion … I was one of a crew of 36 on a steamship S.S. Constitution of the Morgan Line plying between New York and Savannah, Georgia.” He began by stating, “I recall just previous to sailing south in a letter to my mother I said regarding matters spiritual, I was like the man who knew his duty but did it not.”
He detailed how the ship entered into a thick fog, running aground on Cape Look Out Shoal off the coast of North Carolina when, “The fore part of the ship was hard and fast on the bar, the after part afloat and the breakers pounding on her port quarter, the engine — partially crippled — soon gave out, the fire room flooded, the ship was doomed.” The following is copied directly from the letter:
“In view of the extremely critical situation I recalled what I had written my mother as to duty and from then on I felt the urge. As I looked into that storm of waters, it seemed as if life and death were in the balance. If I yielded to the promptings of duty I was prepared for either. As for the challenge of death beyond the borderline of this life, to me all was blank and darkness. Having one and not properly equipped for the other. In either case a failure, weighed in the balance and found wanting. I was very much alone and could not pray. The heavens were as brass to me. Why not yield? You wonder — so do I.
Well, for the present we will leave it there. No, it was persistently with me. I will pass over much that was pathetic, tragic and otherwise.
On the morning of the 26th (December 1865) at 3 o’clock one of the lifeboats was launched but immediately swamped, broke adrift unmanned. Between 5 and 6 o’clock after 28 hours of incessant battle with the breakers the ship broke in two amidship and the after part was swept away. In an attempt at launching all lifeboats were crushed. The seas swept into the hole tearing up the hurricane deck, portions of the main deck and the pilot house. What the death toll was in the darkness and deluge I could only imagine. The ship, what was still intact, lay well over on her starboard side, the lee rail near the water level. I found myself on the main deck, at that point intact, close to the bulwarks or rail and near breast deep in water.
After 3 seas had gone over me I was getting pretty well chilled. A body floated to me which I found to have been crushed to death. The horror of the situation startled me. On the impulse of the moment I mounted the rail and sprang into the sea and swam away for anywhere but there. I soon came to a raft awaiting me with accommodations for one. My equipment was shirt sleeved, stocking footed, vest and cap, life preserver, belt, knife and sheathing and lashing — provision one orange. I adjusted the lashing and then we, my raft and I, were shipmates for weal or woe and on our voyage. We were carried across the ship’s bow and headed for the breakers. As we neared them I gripped the sides of my raft, leaning well forward for the contact. We came through right side up, also the second one with like results, but the third and last one old Neptune evidently changed his tactics for he got a strangle hold on our little raft and rolled us over. Thanks to the lashing we held together. We came through the situation reversed — I was under, the raft over.
Say there must have been contagion in that overturn. Something happened. Somehow the shock to my mental apathy had released all the pent-up vital forces until then held in abeyance. As soon as I got my chin over the edge of the raft I think body, soul and spirit merged in that spontaneous dynamic outburst, “I will.” And then the transit from darkness to light — from bondage to liberty — and with it the assurance positive that I would be saved, but over and above all I realized I was no longer alone but conscious of the presence of one mightier than the voice of many waters, come life or death I was committed to His keeping and I proposed then and there that I would ‘pay the vow my lips had uttered and my mouth had spoken when I was in trouble.’“
While not all of our conversions to Christ are quite as profound or exciting as the Apostle Paul’s rebirth on the Damascus Road, every story of conversion richly relays the amazing grace, mercy, and providence of God, to whom goes all the glory forever and ever.
I am evermore excited to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land with the great expectation of meeting my beloved ancestor and brother in Christ, Mr. Chessman Wright.
