Mom’s Sunday School Class 1954

(Author’s Note: This is the very first of my “Moments—Divine.” Preacher’s often say that we must have a memory of our salvation experience, that blessed time when we first asked the Lord into our hearts.  I count this experience as my salvation.  As the story unfolds you will see why. Stephen Phifer)

Mom’s Sunday School Class 1954

On Mother’s Day, 1954, my mother, Ruth Jackson Phifer, walked the aisle at First Assembly of God, West Helena, Arkansas to publicly confess her commitment to the lordship of Jesus Christ.  She had been hospitalized at the Helena Hospital, high on a ridge marking the otherwise unseen line between Helena and West Helena.  She was suffering from a nervous condition when Pastor Evance visited her and led her to the Lord.  She was the product of tough times growing up in Northern Mississippi, losing her father to a stroke when she was just a little girl.  The Jackson family was not known to be a church-going family but she had a loving mother, several sisters and two older brothers.

Times were hard in those depression days and they all did the best they could.  The unmarried family members moved to Helena-West Helena because there was work there for Mom’s older brother, Rube. Since he was not married he had to provide for Mom, her mother, and her unmarried sister.  In the prewar years, she came to know one of the founders of West Helena’s Assemblies of God church, Rev. John D. Phifer, but she had never given her heart to the Lord.  Bother Phifer’s wife had died tragically in 1938 and care of Brother Phifer became the responsibility of his middle son, J. D., who was to become my father.  Pastor Phifer died in my father’s care in August of 1942 and my father joined the Navy since his exemption was no longer in effect.

Dad served honorably for his two years and then was granted a medical discharge because he had developed ulsers serving as the sonar operator on a Destroyer Escort, the USS Solar. He helped escort two convoys across the middle Atlantic.  He came home in early 1945 and met Mom.  I know she knew who his father was but I don’t think they knew each other. They quickly fell in love and married in March of 1945. My brother James was born in early December.

As a young man, my father has supplied music for his father in the ministry and had developed a high level of skill.  He was delighted to discover that not only was mother a lovely woman, she could really sing!  He started writing country songs for her and became a part of the post-war music scene in Helena.  He worked with people like Harold Jenkins, the singer you know as Conway Twitty.  Somehow he taught himself to read and write music and he learned an amazingly high level of the songwriting craft.  There were two huge problems:

1. Mom did not want to be in show business. She wanted a normal homelife since she had never had one.  I came along through a very difficult labor and delivery in 1949.  Dad worked two jobs, driving a city bus while learning to be a mechanic for West Horner Motor Co. in Helena.
2. While in the Navy, Dad had backslid. (That’s the term we used when someone lost his/her relationship with the Lord!) He was now doing the whole routine, smoking, drinking, gambling, etc. and he was rough on Mom because she didn’t want to sing his songs in public.

In short, Mother had never known the Lord and Dad had lost his faith in God.  Both of them suffered deep wounds from the blows their difficult upbringings had dealt them. They needed Jesus but were not serving Him. So when I was 4 years old, Mom’s nerves were shot and she was in the hospital when Brother Evance visited her and led her to the Lord.  A lady in the church, Bonnie Travis, took Mom under her wing, led her to her Spirit-baptism and taught her how to grow in her faith. Meanwhile, Dad put Mom through hell.  I have only one memory of that time but my brother had so many more. Many years later the Lord granted my brother and my father precious time to deal with those difficult days.

When Mom made her public profession of faith things got even worse until one Sunday night, Dad finally gave in and came weeping back to the Lord.  Brother Evance told me that as Dad wept at the altar two little boys in blue jeans were kneeling behind him watching what was happening—James and me!

In those days, as soon as someone got saved, they were given work to do in the church.  So Mom started teaching a children’s Sunday School class. I was in that class.  One Sunday morning the very first of all my “Moments—Divine” happened.

Mom was leading us with her beautiful alto voice as we sang, “Oh How I Love Jesus!” Over her shoulder was a framed picture of Jesus holding the wounded little lamb on his broad shoulders.  Suddenly I knew that I was that little lamb and Jesus was my Savior!  Also, I sensed the Lord’s holy presence deep in my spirit.  I knew He was not just in that picture or in the song. He was in my heart!—I could feel Him there.  Through all the years since that Sunday morning, I have always felt the Lord’s presence in my heart.  I’ll tell of just one instance.

Years later when I was away from home studying music at Arkansas A&M college, I had encountered smart, talented people who did not believe in the Lord, much less seek to follow Him.  As I was walking across campus in the early evening, I was asking myself this: “If God exists, where is He?”  I looked to the wooded campus, and no–I needed more than that. I looked up at the sky, and no–that was not enough either.  Before I could begin to despair, I looked into my heart—and there He was! Just like in the picture. Just like in my Mom’s voice.  His manifest presence was peacefully pacing my own heartbeat. It was like I was in my Mom’s class again!

And so it remains almost 70 years later, through times of testing, years of study, moments of doubt, and certainly in sickness and in health.  Remember what we were singing?

Oh How I love Jesus! Oh How I love Jesus!
Oh How I love Jesus, because He first loved me.

As the writer to the Hebrews quotes the Lord Jesus, “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. (Hebrews 13:5 KJV)

Semper Reformanda!

Stephen Phifer