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A Mountain Railroad
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A Mountain Railroad
I was only planning to drive about 100 miles into New Mexico. I had spent quite a bit of time in the West but had missed this state.
My Uncle Bobby has been faithfully praying for me throughout this trip. We talk several times a week. He follows my travels and has made suggestions about my route and about my writings. All of his suggestions have been fabulous.
He strongly suggested a trip to Chama and the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad. It meant about 300 extra miles of driving but I love railroads and I love my uncle.
My father is a retired railroad man and as a child, I loved to go with him on his trips. I would stand between the cars watching the wildflowers go by and feel the presence of God. I was not hard to convince.
In honor of the trip, I listened to my CD of “Life Is Like a Mountain Railroad.” I played the old hymn over and over and now think I have it memorized. Please do not tell any of my music teacher friends that I have that CD.
On the website, there are pictures of the train yard and the trip up the mountain. It was everything that was promised. I arrived early and spent time walking the rails and looking at the amazing collection of train cars. Walking balanced on the tracks was as much fun as I remembered.
The day was incredible. It was a day of sightseeing, prayer, worship, and witnessing. Everywhere I went, people wanted to talk about God and trains. As I looked around me at the beauty of the nature and the nostalgia of the old trains, I could understand why. I realized God had placed me and other Christians in a field ready for harvest.
Matthew 9:37-38
The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.
(from New International Version)
God’s splendor was everywhere. I wanted to sing “Life Is Like A Mountain Railroad” but figured my neighbors would not appreciate it. Instead, I quietly stood between the cars and worshipped in my heart. I remember worshiping this same way as a child. I felt the familiar calm and peace of God rush through me. I wondered if the composer of that old hymn had stood in a spot just like this.
I looked around at the results of volcanic actions and thought about how the earth trembles before God. I saw the rocks that were thousands of years old and thought about how firmly the world is established. I asked the Lord to reign in my heart. I could feel the trees singing their joy before the Lord and knew His love truly endured forever. Praise be to the Lord God from everlasting to everlasting!
1 Chronicles 16:29-36
Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness.
Tremble before him, all the earth!
The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
Let them say among the nations, "The LORD reigns!"
Let the sea resound, and all that is in it;
Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them!
Then the trees of the forest will sing,
They will sing for joy before the LORD,
For he comes to judge the earth.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good;
His love endures forever.
Cry out, "Save us, O God our Savior;
Gather us and deliver us from the nations,
That we may give thanks to your holy name,
That we may glory in your praise."
Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel,
From everlasting to everlasting.
(from New International Version)
While I was worshipping, Cora came out. We talked. She is as Christian who worships in a Catholic church. She and her husband worship together every Sunday. She loves her church and says her church is one of the more liberal Catholic churches. She also was enjoying God’s beauty. I enjoyed talking and playing with her two young sons.
I watched a young mother sit holding her son. She made up stories to tell him and sang to him. I remembered my mother sitting with my younger brother on a train car just like that.
I met Tom and Beverly. Tom is retired from the military and has a knack for making people laugh. He spent time stationed in Jacksonville during World War II. He is a retired computer programmer and manager of computer systems. He retired just as I was entering the field 17 years ago and we enjoyed discussing the changes. Tom is 76 has been married to Beverly for 44 years.
Tom was a Catholic when he married Beverly. Beverly was Baptist. The Catholic Church refused to marry them and that made Tom mad. They were married outside the church and Tom has not been active in a church since.
He does not miss church. He explained about the hypocrites in the church. He does definitely believe in the “Man Upstairs” and is pretty sure he is a Christian. He does not believe he needs church worship. He said he guessed his Christianity depended on how you defined being a Christian.
I laughed and told him that the one thing this trip had taught me was that all of the Christian churches pretty much had the same definition. 95% of the message I have been hearing in the various churches has been the same.
I had a tract on being a Christian and gave it to him. Using that definition, he was not sure if he was a Christian. He said that he did talk to God and found him most easily in places like we were today. The train trip had him in a mood to ponder.
Beverly is a Christian and listens to Charles Stanley every Sunday morning. She is a faithful student of the Bible. She has not been active in a church since she married. One of her daughters just became Catholic in order to worship with her husband. Beverly is concerned about that. I tried to encourage her by describing the incredible worship experiences I had in Catholic churches. Her concern explained why she had never joined the church of Tom’s childhood.
Beverly does miss church. She is reading the Left Behind series and seems concerned about Tom. She eagerly supported this discussion with her husband.
Jokingly, I told Tom that he should go to church because Beverly would go if he went. He said that he would go if Beverly went. They were both serious.
Startled, I looked at both of them. I asked if they had heard what each other had just said. They both were willing to go to church and yet they had spent 44 years of their married life not in church.
I issued the first challenge to them. The challenge was to go to church on Sunday. I promised them that God would bless them. As long as it is a Christian Church, I do not care which church they attend together.
I looked over at the man sitting next to us. In the beginning of the conversation, he had participated. He had been very quiet for the last few minutes. I was concerned that we had left him out.
His name is David. He is a retired schoolteacher. Trains are his hobby. With a little prompting, David told how much he loved his church. He is a Christian and Presbyterian. He sings in the choir. He has made a commitment to read the entire Bible through in one year. He talked about how meaningful that has been. He has been faithful to that commitment since January. The word of God was clearly a lamp for David’s feet as he participated in our conversation.
Psalms 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet
And a light for my path.
(from New International Version)
I looked at Tom and grinned. I teased that he probably had never really read the Bible. He joked back and said, “Of course not. I was Catholic.”
Wanting him to know that he was not alone, I told him that I heard that joke often in my travels. Not wanting him to use it as an excuse, I also assured him that I had met many fine Catholic Christians that have decided to change that image.
I shared my love of the Bible and how it helped me. He gave the line that is so popular in today’s society.
“That works for you but does not necessarily work for me.”
He implied that there are no absolutes. The Bible is the Word of God. If God cannot create an absolute, who can? For some reason, our society seems to think there are no absolutes.
Not believing in absolutes has always baffled me. It gets dark every night. People die from AIDS every day. We go to jail if we do not pay taxes. Education has an impact on our careers. Our parents have an impact on our lives. We can die from starvation, cold, or heat. We need to look both ways before we cross a street. Walking train rails and blowing bubbles is fun.
Ok Ok, maybe I got carried away on that last sentence.
The list of absolutes is endless. Our world is a world filled with absolutes. We try to ignore them and we suffer. Satan strongly supports the lack of belief in absolutes because it serves his purposes.
God’s truth is the most important absolute of all. We suffer terribly when we ignore it.
Tom’s sense of humor made it easy to challenge him. I wondered aloud how he knew what his experience would be since he had never tried reading the Bible. He smiled and admitted that my point had merit. His honesty and open-mindedness impressed me.
My second challenge to him was that if he would try reading the Bible daily for six weeks, he would love the Bible so much that he would never stop reading it. I asked him to e-mail me if I was wrong. I also suggested that he use Henry Blackaby’s workbook on Experiencing God to assist his study. He looked intrigued.
Please, get on your knees right now and pray for Tom and Beverly. Beg God for them.
They love each other and have enjoyed their life. As good as their life as been, there is a sweeter one ahead for them.
Tom needs to know Jesus Christ personally. Beverly needs a church home. They need to experience the love of God together. Pray that they will go to church on Sunday. Pray that Tom will begin reading the Bible. Ask God to pour his blessings out on them and to send other people with the same message.
Thank God for David’s faithfulness and his witness. Thank God for sending David at exactly the right moment.
I met a delightful 14-year-old boy from California. He was taking pictures of the train to enter in a train contest. He loves trains ever more than I. He only goes to church on Christmas. He thinks he is probably a Christian but was not familiar with how to become one.
I suggested that going to a Christian church on Christmas does not necessarily make us a Christian. I told him that if he had not specifically asked Jesus into his life, he was not yet a Christian. He did not want to talk about God anymore. He had been serious longer than anyone could expect from a 14-year-old. He wanted to talk about trains. The seed has been planted. Pray for him.
Romans 10:10-13
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." For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile-the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
(from New International Version)
I met a family traveling with 3 generations. We were eating lunch and I was reading. I did not notice who had sat down across from me until I overheard a mother saying, “Heidi, she does not want to talk to us right now because she is reading.”
I looked up and realized God had sent me a five year old. It does not get much better than that. I explained to Heidi that she was more interesting than any book could ever be. I found my bubbles in about two seconds.
Heidi goes to church on Sundays. She thinks church is long and she gets bored. She likes to sing Jesus Loves Me. She was in a family talent show but said she lost to her cousin. She understands that she will probably like church when she is older.
Heidi’s mother, Jana, is a Christian who walks very closely with God. Also traveling with Heidi was her grandmother, Lodono, and her grandfather, Merrideth.
They were very interested in my travels. Jana said that their family is a family of miracles.
Jana told of how God had protected and delivered her from an abusive situation. She talked about how he healed her scars. From that moment forward, she has depended on God for everything. She trusts her leadings and believes God speaks to her constantly.
She talked about being healed of multiple sclerosis. She was diagnosed by symptoms and a brain scan. She was numb from the waist down and could not care for her one-year-old daughter. Friends came in, laid hands on her, anointed her with oil, and prayed. God healed her. Doctors can find no sign of this in her brain and she is symptom free. That was four years ago.
She told the story of God’s protection from a potential car accident. She had a vivid dream of herself being killed in an auto accident. It was storming the next day. While driving in the storm, she passed the exact spot that she dreamed about. Following God’s leanings, she stopped the car immediately. She had stopped six inches from a tree that had fallen across the road. The weather conditions had made seeing the tree impossible. Trusting God’s leadings saved her life.
She talked about meeting a white German Shepard. The dog was large and not very friendly. She felt God leading her to feed the dog. She was nervous but has committed to follow through when she feels the hand of God. She invited the dog in and fed him. She let him out.
That night someone tried to break into her apartment. She woke up to sounds of someone coming in her window. She then heard the loud sounds of a dog attacking a human. The intruder fled. She called the police. They found a torn screen and much white dog hair outside her window. She has never seen the dog since.
Jana said her list could go on and on.
Lodona spoke up. She told a story that happened forty years ago. She was delivering her second baby. The baby was breech and at that time they did not perform C-sections. Lodona’s heart stopped and she died on the table before the baby was born.
Lodona saw a beautiful white light. She moved toward it. She saw a black outline of a man in robes with his hands stretched out to her. She felt love and knew this was Jesus. She also knew she had died. She walked toward Him and looked up. She never saw a face but she spoke to the figure and felt His love. She begged to go back. She said she was not ready to go yet and still had babies to raise.
At that instant, the baby turned into the correct position and her heart started beating again. She delivered a healthy daughter. She had two more children after that, including Jana.
She has never doubted the afterlife, Jesus, or her faith since that experience. She is very faithful to prayer, Bible Study, and her church. She said God directs her steps.
Merridith accepted Christ as an adult. He attends church but says his faith is not as deep as that of his wife. He was very humble. When I asked what he did, he explained that he was currently an author. He writes Christian books about cults and non-Christian religions. His faith is sure enough to enable him to write about it.
This family was such a witness. How easily they spoke of their faith.
I met a woman who grew up Catholic. She occasionally goes to an Assembly of God Church. She also goes to Baptist Churches. We started talking because she liked my Angel necklace. She confessed the need for more regular church attendance. Pray that she will follow through. I gave her an Angel as I left.
John and Linda are committed Christians. They are Southern Baptist and are active in their church. Linda spends an hour a day in prayer and Bible Study and yet she confesses that she could do more.
The love of God was on her face. She says she believes that many Christians pray and even read the Bible but do not take the time to listen to what God is saying. She says that without listening to God, we are useless to Him.
In her morning quiet time, after praying and reading the Bible, she gets quiet and lets the voice the Holy Spirit talk to her. He answers and gives her clear instructions for the day. She tries to follow directions. If she skips a day with quiet time, she finds herself distressed, frustrated, or confused most of the day. I could identify.
John uses group Bible studies for his study of the scripture. He has a prayer list and is faithful about praying for it daily. God answers his prayers.
As these sweet people talked, they wanted me to know that their lives are not perfect. They are concerned for two of their daughters. Their daughters, Vicky and Shelly, grew up in church. They are currently not walking with God and are participating in alarming activities. They are rebelling against the values John and Linda hold and deeply resent John and Linda.
John and Linda are estranged from Vicky and have not seen Vicky or their beloved granddaughter for a year. They raised this granddaughter for her first six years so this separation is very painful for them and the child.
Linda prays for them regularly. She does her best to help both daughters. At first, she blamed herself. A loving pastor reminded her that Adam and Eve rebelled against God and certainly God was not guilty. This brought her such relief. She claims the promise of God that her children will return to God.
Proverbs 22:6
Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.
(from New International Version)
Linda asked us to pray for her daughters. Please add them to your prayer list. Pray that Vicky will miss the love of her mother. Pray that God will convict her and the anger will melt from heart. Pray that Shelly will return to a relationship with God.
God was on that train car. Praise Him for loving us so much that he would ride a train with us. How inventive it was to use the combination of people’s natural nostalgia for old trains and the glory of His creation to help people be open enough to talk about Him.
If today was example of life on a mountain railroad, I can only hope that life is indeed like a mountain railroad.
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