When our marriage was on the rocks back in 1971, my wife took care of another couple’s son during the day. We didn’t know much about this couple, but we found out later they were praying for us.
One of the many problems in our marriage stemmed from my desire to open a head shop in McLean, Virginia. In case you are too young to know or too old to remember, head shops sold drug paraphernalia — marajuana pipes, cigarette-rolling papers, psychedelic lights, posters, and other things for hippies.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my sweet wife saw the final minutes of a Billy Graham television program and got down on her knees and prayed. A few days later, after another blow up between us, she packed her bags and took my son to her parent’s home in Smithtown, Long Island, New York.
Even though I had a perfectly good, 9-to-5 job, I went ahead and partnered with a friend to open the head shop. When the VP at the company where I worked found out about the shop, he gave me an ultimatum: keep my job and close the shop, or be fired.
I chose the shop.
Within a few weeks I had a bunch of people living in my house. We were manufacturing bongs in the basement. (Bongs were waterpipes for smoking pot.)
One day, while I was working in my head shop, two young girls came in and walked up to the counter. They told me they were students at McLean High School, and their Young Life group was praying for me. (I didn’t have any idea what Young Life was, and I really didn’t care.)
Soon my head was so clouded from smoking pot while I was working that I couldn’t count change correctly for my customers. I knew I had to quit. And I made a vow to myself to stop smoking it. The next morning the phone woke me up. On my way across the room to answer it, one of the new people living in our home handed me a pipeful of pot. I completely forgot my vow and started getting high all over again.
My wife was on the phone, calling long distance from her parent’s home. She was checking to see how I was doing. She was obviously happy. I was perplexed. She told me about some Jesus people she was meeting with on the south shore of Long Island. She seemed so happy that I assumed she must have found someone she liked better than me, so I decided to drive up to talk with her and find out if we should start divorce proceedings.
I left that night and arrived about 5 a.m. at her parents’s home. To my grateful surprise, I found out her folks were away on vacation. (Her dad was a retired Naval commander, and we didn’t have much in common.) My wife took me upstairs where my three-year-old son was sleeping. I softly said, “Hey, Mr. Wike.” And he rolled over and asked, “Hi, dad, are we going home now?” What could I say? “Sure, son.”
That day my wife asked me if I wanted to go with her to see what the Jesus people were all about. “No, thanks. You go ahead. I’ll stay here with the boy.” Somehow she softened me up and I went.
The young Jesus people packed the old house where they met. I don’t remember a thing that was said that evening. I only know that the people there seemed very happy. During those troubling times of the late 60s and early 70s, I hadn’t met anyone with that kind of joy and contentment. And when I argued against whatever they were saying, they never lost their cool. They remained happy and never doubted what they believed.
I went outside alone to smoke a cigarette. I looked up at the sky and said, “I don’t know if you’re there, or if you hear me, but whatever those kids have, I’d like to have it.”
When I walked back inside a young girl tried to give me a
Good News New Testament Bible, but I told her I probably wouldn’t read it. She insisted and said, “
They give them to us to give away…” I took the book from her so she’d leave me alone. And I spent the next few days eating, sleeping and reading that Bible. That was almost 40 years ago. And I still read it almost everyday.
That was the first time in my life that God obviously answered prayer. But it hasn’t been the last.
