Unsung Hero

 There are lists of prominent Christian people God has used in significant ways. There is no use recounting them here. They have been talked about and written about already. That is not the purpose of this post. Today, I'm thinking about all of those faithful Christians whom God used, but their names have faded from the pages of history. Obscure people who served in out of the way places. I'm thinking about one person specifically. Her name is Doris and she lives in Lufkin, TX where she has lived with her husband for over 50 years. 

Doris is quiet. I don't recall ever carrying on a lengthy conversation with her. She does not prefer the spotlight. She is content to minister behind the scenes. The impact she had on my life is incalculable. To tell a small part of her story I have to travel back in time. 54 years to be exact. 

Doris is married to Charles Roberts. He is better known to me as Brother Charles. He is my pastor. He baptized me as a teenager and guided me through the early days of my ministry. That is only part of the story. Doris played a crucial role in my life before she even met me. 

The Roberts lived in the same neighborhood I grew up in. I used to play football as a kid in the yard next to theirs. A popular teenage girl lived across the street from them. She was the best friend of a girl I dated through high school. I spent a lot of late nights over there hanging out. Sometimes we sat in the yard talking way past bedtime. One day  Doris looked out at me through  the window and told her husband, "I'm praying for that young man." She didn't know me. We had never met. Why would she pray for me? God was up to something and chose to include her. She repeatedly told Brother Charles that she was praying for me. I don't know how long that continued. 

Fast forward a couple of years. Denman Avenue Baptist Church, where Brother Charles served as pastor, called a new youth pastor on staff. He was a fiery courageous guy from North Carolina. He hit the ground running. Eli Bernard is the man who shared Jesus with me in a football stadium where Jesus saved me. I've shared that story many times. What I have not shared nearly enough is the unsung hero of Doris Roberts tenaciously praying for a lost teenage boy she did not know. She could not know how the story would turn out. 

Jesus did save me through Eli's witness. I ended up in that church and I bet nobody rejoiced more in that room than Doris Roberts the day Brother Charles baptized me. It was the culmination of years of praying. A year and half later, I bet she rejoiced again when I walked forward on a Sunday morning to tell Brother Charles and the whole church God called me to preach. That was 42 years ago. 

God gave Doris the assignment to pray for a sullen, insecure, wounded, and lost teenage boy. She accepted that assignment and took it seriously. God had a plan neither of us knew at the time. By faith she believed that I would get saved one day. I bet she never thought I would preach God's word. She never considered the fact that God would call me to write multiple books and nearly 1,700 posts read by over 750,000 people. 

She is the unsung hero. She deserves to be recognized for her investment in my ministry. God used her powerfully in my life. I'm thankful for her and humbled by the love of God to go to such extremes to reveal salvation through His Son Jesus to me. Like Paul Harvey used to say, "Now you know the rest of the story."