For Marvin

I was seventeen the first time I walked in. It was to see a movie about the "great tribulation" mentioned in the book of Revelation. My second time through the door was two years later.

At nineteen, I was conflicted. The movie had frightened me, and I had prayed with the pastor to ask Jesus into my heart. There was something defining in that moment for me that was more than a reaction to a fear of hell or of death. I chose Jesus. But, I walked out not knowing what that meant. For two years, I lived in fear that Jesus would return and that I wouldn't be ready for him.

My sister and her boyfriend wanted to get married. They decided to ask the pastor of that little church to marry them, thinking it would be quick and simple. The pastor agreed to marry them if they counseled with him, and if they attended church. They did, and soon my sister gave her life to Jesus. The engagement didn't last, but Jesus did.

Living for Jesus and going to church as much as possible became my sister's life. I was annoyed at her and jealous of her all at once. I knew she was living what I should be living. I didn't want to admit I wasn't living what I believed. At nineteen, my jealousy sent me to church with her.

I don't know when it happened. Some people can name the moment they turn from sinner to saint. My path to Jesus was not so plain. But somewhere along the way, I morphed from sinner to seeker to runner to lover. And I landed in that little church.

The pastor was bigger than life. He was from the south, and answered God's call to plant a church in northern Michigan. Unlikely, but what God story isn't? I remember him telling how he had looked out the window of the plane as it hovered over the town he left home for. As he looked at our town from the sky, he said he felt like he'd swallowed a hair brush. His special way of saying that the Lord had gripped his heart.

He was a big man, with small bright eyes, a beard, snakeskin boots and a Stetson. He looked like Boxcar Willy. I'm not kidding, he did! He could twang as well as any bible belt preacher I ever heard, but he also had an elegance in his voice. I could never describe it; you'd only know it if you heard him.

He was my first example of a person annointed by the Holy Spirit. When he preached, it was more than words, more than emotion. There was something bigger than him that carried his words to my heart . Something new, yet at the same time familiar. Fearful, yet so full of love. He fanned the flame in me that already knew that to live for God was to be different. He taught me to be more afraid of what God thought of me than what anyone else did. He drew a line between the world and me that was solid. Because of him, I made choices for God that deeply forged the path of my life.

He admitted he had been a womanizer when he was young. He watched over the young girls of the congregation as if we were his own daughters, protecting us from men that were like he had been. He told off color jokes. He had some easy answers to complex questions that I cringe at now. He was a bit legalistic. He loved his wife. He liked big cars. He told me not to marry my first husband.

God called him away from our little church a year before he left. It was a hard year. When you know you should go and you don't, you try to make it okay to stay. He hurt us, and we hurt him. But, he hurt us because he loved us so much he didn't want to leave.

I saw him in 1996, after I had remarried. I hadn't seen him since the divorce. He made it a point to see me before he returned to Russia. I explained to him why I married my first husband. He told me he understood. He told me he wasn't the same as he had been, that he had changed. It made me happy and sad at the same time. I didn't want him to think he had to be different, to apologize. But, I was happy he understood. We hugged and cried. That was the last time I saw him.

My sister, the same sister I followed to church, called on Sunday to tell me Pastor Turner died of cancer on April 15. He would have joked about dying on tax day. It made me happy and sad at the same time. He lived an action packed life. I wish he was still here, somewhere in the world; the unlikely southern mentor God placed in my midwestern life. But, I'm happy he's with the Savior he so boldly preached and loved.

I wonder if Jesus thinks he looks like Boxcar Willy. I'll bet He does.