His heart was beating faster than his frail legs were carrying him. Of course, there were mixed emotions. He kissed his mother goodbye … and crawling up into the ice truck that was giving him a ride, he wondered about his future. Leaving his past behind, he knew there must be something better, somewhere. Sometimes survival is stronger than sentiment. His deep love for his mother tugged strongly at his emotions, but reason prevailed; he had finally made the decision. He could live with loneliness better than gnawing hunger. Lucky, Louisiana had not proven to be “lucky” for him! In 1920 when he was born, his father worked in a one chair Barbershop in walking distance from their share cropper house. You see, his father an alcoholic, very seldom made it home from his job with money. When he would come home with money, more times than not a big fight was sure to happen.
Rejection because of poverty seemed to increase with age. Alcohol had produced its usual results. The straw that finally broke the camel’s back happened at school one day when hunger pangs drove this proud teenager to the garbage can. Hoping no one saw him, he bit into a castaway sandwich. It wasn’t bad enough to have cardboard for shoe soles; oh, humiliation hurts, but pride can only push or restrain so long before it surrenders.
If only I had known that he was hungry … or where he lived, or …. But I didn’t even know his name. Although yet a child, I would have crawled out of my secure cocoon of loving parents and grandparents and we would have found him and fed him! But God knew … and led us together.
Fortunately, (God’s design) Corlis had a grandmother who visited them maybe once a year. He remembered that when she prayed, chills would run up and down his spine. In the evening, he would ask, “Grandmother, are you going to pray tonight?” And when she slipped quietly away to pray, he would steal as close as possible to her side. Somehow the peaceful serenity brought a fleeting ray of sunshine. As he pondered these memories, desperation opened a window of hope. If he could only get to her house, she would make room for him! But it was a long Way from Lucky, Louisiana to New London, Texas. Thoughts of her calmed his loneliness and bolstered his courage. God’s will (unknown to him at that time), spurred him on.
That frustrated, embittered fifteen-year-old lad could hardly wait. Catching a bus for the final leg of his journey, he could at least dream of prosperity and success. Who knows … if he worked hard enough, he just might someday become a lawyer!
It wasn’t too long that his mother and younger brother followed. And it wasn’t too long after that a revival was begun at his grandmother’s church. His mother received the baptism of the Holy Spirit and was baptized in Jesus’ name. She started praying for him and fasted three days (working in a school cafeteria every day) for God to ‘bring him in.’ When he arrived at church one night, someone asked him when he was coming to God. His reply was, “It will be a cold day in August when you see me in that altar.” That evening, at the conclusion of the message, he felt a strong conviction. He said, “God, if this is You, let that minister come back here to me.” He had scarcely uttered those words, when Brother L. J. Hosch, the evangelist, came straight to him! He did a lot of repenting … (he had so much bitterness from childhood experiences plus a recent encounter with a school teacher who had taken advantage of him as “who he was not” in that rich oil field school … he had been earnestly ‘praying’ to get big enough to whip him!) God knocked Corlis down and when he attempted to get up, he was knocked down again. This happened three times, until he finally surrendered.
It is my sincere desire and prayer that your spirit will soar to higher heights, aspire to reach greater dimensions of greatness as we proceed to view a life-sized portrait of a man dearly beloved.
And now … for “the rest of the story”…
