Was there a turning point in your life? Can you pinpoint it?
Sunday, August 23rd, 2020. That was mine, and here is my testimony.
My name is Rod Crosby and I am just an ordinary Texan fella who was brought up around Christian influence, primarily driven by my exposure in school or at summer camp, but not so much in the household. It’s not that my parents were atheist or even agnostic, but going to church wasn’t anything we did on the regular. It would be fair to say we were more of a Chreaster (Christmas and Easter only) kinda family, but never attending Sunday school or anything like that. So, I knew of Jesus but can honestly say I didn’t understand what He did for us. Despite daily church service in school my entire childhood and adolescence, the prescribed coursework, or even Christian mentors around me, the Gospel never took hold of me. If you asked me to name the 10 Commandments, I might be able to rattle off a few at best; and at best, I’d be sending up a dozen flimsy prayers a year, if that. The Lordship of my life wasn’t where it belonged.
Many years later, in my early 30s, I would suggest to my parents that we try to attend a nearby church, Second Baptist, more frequently. It would happen, but we would usually sleep in, skip the early service (9:30am), and roll in right as the opening worship music would end for the 11:11am service. Even though we really enjoyed the pastor’s sermons, when it came time for the altar call, it would come and go, again and again, without summoning me and/or my parents. As difficult as this is to admit, I think I was always waiting for my parents to stand up so we could walk together as a family and become members of the Body of Christ. This isn’t to say that I didn’t feel anything whatsoever in my heart stirring me to get up and walk forward. At least I thought I did, but the second guessing was crippling.
I wondered if what I felt was an authentic pull by the Holy Spirit or merely my own convincing or conviction. I wondered how many services I could possibly attend, watching one person after another put up their flag for Christ, before I would take that stand. I wondered if going to church alone would make me any more inclined to follow my heart without feeling the (thousand pound) lead weight of my own parents’ feet at the time of the altar call. I questioned if I really even needed to be a member of the church since I was already attending on a more regular basis. I wondered if I was even baptized because neither one of my parents could give me an honest answer better than, “we think so!” If I couldn’t even get myself to the altar during service, how on earth was a baptism ever going to take place? Bible study and baptism felt about as close to happening as me landing on Mars.
I distinctly remember services where the pastor would stop and say to the congregation something like, “You may have gotten up this morning without even the faintest clue that you would be getting baptized…but if you feel the Holy Spirit calling you, today is your day. All you have to do is put your hand up and we will make it happen!” I witnessed people getting baptized on the spot, which had me amazed, but I wasn’t about to just go through the motions. So there I was, a paralyzed wannabe “Christian” (whatever that even meant to me at the time, hence the quotes), who wasn’t a church member, wasn’t following Christ any more than the occasional Sunday service, and was ensuring that my very own copy of God’s Word (given to me for attending 6 years of Christian summer camp) collected dust at home. The gold leaf-embossed “1997” on the front jacket cover with my very name on it was taunting me, so much so that each year my new years resolution would be to get closer to God. But that effort remained as cold as ice, year after year.
A very important undercurrent worth mentioning here was that I continued to be a slave to my vices and demons. I made the decision to go out of state to Florida for college and ended up at a prestigious school, but one where students knew how to burn the candle at both ends. To follow in my father’s footsteps and in efforts to shrink a school that had 50,000+ undergrads (of which I knew only one, a rising Senior who wouldn’t be there much longer), I joined a fraternity right off. Although it was good for some reasons, it was quite bad in terms of bee lining me into a life of sin. That stronghold got worse and worse for years to come and never really let up. It led to a few accidents that would have made most anybody change automatically. But yet I remained. And although I might have been behaving a little more cautiously when it came to drinking, I was still a ship taking on water.
At the age of 34, a business idea came to mind that merely wouldn’t go away, so the pursuit began. It took many years of due diligence and persistence to bring it to market, but eventually that day came. In a nearly 50′ custom designed trailer, I launched a restaurant & retail hybrid concept that aimed to help “mom and pop” small batch saucemakers gain more exposure through our interactive tasting bar. There were an intoxicating amount of challenges and despite trying everything I knew to do, in the most wholehearted effort of my entire life, I wound up shuttering it just before Covid arose. Within a period of about 60 days, I single handedly closed and liquidated most all of my business, my romantic relationship of several years ended, and I was fixing to leave the town I’d called home for the past 7 years. It was undoubtedly the lowest point in my life and I needed to return home to regroup, recharge, and reconnect with my family. Being all out of sorts, and knowing I would now be back home indefinitely, I decided it would be beneficial to spend the latter months of the year doing some traveling in solitude to try and clear my mind and get some new perspective. It ended up being relatively good for me, but I found myself barreling into a new relationship much sooner than was reasonable. I’m mentioning this because it is relevant to the story which is about to unfold.
Now that the stage is set, let’s fast forward to August 23rd, 2020. This day for me was no different than those people who had a shotgun baptism, except this time it was me who was going to come to intimate terms with how those very people felt. It began in Houston as my folks, my new girlfriend and I dropped my sister off at the airport and then headed down to the coast. Not one, but two, hurricanes were making their way toward us. We only had a few days to get our house boarded up before getting out of dodge. That first evening, my girlfriend and I went out to our favorite little fishing spot on a secluded pier after dinner. Being the “calm before the storm”, the conditions seemed ripe for a great catch. Although we were using live bait, we couldn’t buy a bite. However, we also couldn’t help but marvel at the night sky as it was a quarter moon (waxing crescent) and remarkably red in hue; a dark red, like the color of blood almost. The sky was eery and rather red from what I remember. The moon just kept dropping lower and lower until it hit the horizon and then vanished. Being after midnight, it was at this point that we cut our losses and began packing up to make our way home.
With the car nearly loaded, I took one last trip to the dock to check for anything left behind. Right as I was walking off the pier, I noticed a string that was pulled taut, which I guessed might have a crab trap attached to the opposite end. While reeling it up with my hands, I realized how unusually heavy it felt. Then, when it got shallow enough to see what it was, I was totally caught off guard as it was one of those string crab traps that aren’t intended to be left unsupervised. The reason for its unusual weight was that a particularly large catfish had gotten entangled and must have been fighting with all his might for days, if not a week or more, to be set free. By some miracle, he was still alive despite all his fins being on the verge of ripping away from his body. This catfish was so weak, but still hanging on. I asked my girlfriend to bring me my best clippers so I could release this poor fish from his worst nightmare. She and I triaged the situation and watched him swim away calmly, under his own power. Although we were incredibly mad at the lack of responsibility of those who caused this to happen, we were more thrilled that this catfish got to live on and see another day!
After returning home and getting cleaned up, we decided to watch some Netflix before going to bed. We randomly landed upon the series called (Un)Well, which takes a deep dive into the lucrative wellness industry that touts health and healing but misleads so many. We began watching Episode 1, all about essential oils and the multilevel marketing companies who sell them as remedies for anxiety. Having almost been lured into this trap before, as a seller rather than a buyer, everything I was hearing and watching started to really resonate with my belief system with regard to its extremely damaging effects to people and their financial situation(s). It’s like my understanding of the truth had helped me see right through the lies and the evil behind it. The best way to describe this occurrence would be to compare it to having a key that unlocks a door nobody had managed to open. A revelation began to take place, and although this might not seem like that big a deal to you, it must be mentioned as it led to what came next.
All of a sudden, out of the blue, something came across me that, to this day, I still can’t put to words…but I will do my best. It was unlike any feeling or experience I had ever had. It was pure and freeing and totally peaceful. It was like I was a tuning fork catching on to my very own frequency, or an antenna that had caught an intellectual and loving source so powerful and sure that it all began streaming into my mind and spirit, clear as day. I remember thinking that no matter what else I did in my lifetime…my wedding day, inventing the most revolutionary technology ever known to man, the day children of my own were born, (insert anything you would deem INCREDIBLE-LIFE CHANGING-UNFORGETTABLE)….NOTHING, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING, would EVER COME CLOSE to the moment I was experiencing right then.
So many things that had troubled me mentally were being answered and I knew deep down in my soul it was all going to be ok. It was going to be ok because this Source was telling me it was going to be OK and I believed it with every microscopic fiber of my being. Information about my family was being fed to me, information about their individual and respective place with God. It was everything I already believed but now it was being confirmed. I was being told that I had to protect my girlfriend, and something caused me to put my arm across her chest. While I was doing this, I was telling her what all was coming to me. I kept saying “WOW”, “OH MY GOD!”, “WOW!”, “OH MY GOD!” what must have been a few hundred times. I was asking my girlfriend if she, too, was experiencing the same thing happening to me; and although she seemed way too passive for it to be the case with her also, somehow I could feel that she was very much on the same page anyway. None of it was frightening to her in the slightest and she was assuring me that I would now begin to see even more signs. I also remember her saying that she was so happy for me that my eyes had been opened. I knew right then and there that this was what being BORN AGAIN of the Spirit was all about!! There was no other way, no other Person, who could get my attention the way I was responding.
I felt as free as that catfish must have felt, swimming away knowing he was going to LIVE. All that entanglement was HISTORY and he would never return to that trap. With respect to my life, that trap was SIN and I knew that God was calling me back home. There was a sense of purpose placed on my heart and I could feel how there were absolutely no words for how AWESOME His plan was for me. Although it wasn’t revealed to me exactly what that was, the back end of that same message assured me that so long as I trusted and followed Him, everything was going to be ok and that I would never be able to write a script for my life like He already has. I exclaimed out loud what a great (and important) responsibility it would be, but that I was up for the task.
My heart and my life turned to the Father, the Son and The Holy Ghost during the wee hours of August 24th, 2020…without question, the most important date of my life. I didn’t want the night to end and remember telling my girlfriend that I didn’t want to fall asleep for fear that it would leave me. Somehow I managed to fall asleep that early morning, but I woke up a convicted man. A man of God. A man after Jesus’ own heart. I felt more at home than I had ever felt before- relieved, loved, at peace, alive, encouraged, enthusiastic, and zealous for LIFE! There was no question in my mind that I was now on a different path, His path!
All those years of struggling to pick up a Bible were over. I began reading His Word daily from that point forward and it was making perfect sense now. There was nothing holding me back from what before seemed so difficult to get around to. Before my next birthday, on Easter Sunday of 2021, I was baptized by Curt Taylor at Second Baptist Church in Houston, TX. Not only did I go to the sunrise service, but I got baptized at the 9:30am service. I knew that I was transplanted from a life being lived only for me to a life everlasting, a life under His care and provision. And even though I was on mile marker 1, I was on the right road, the road to goodness and righteousness and sanctification. This eventually led to testimonies given to both my parents about this occurrence and it did a number on them both. Now they have become members at the church, are attending Bible study with me, and I’m teaching them God’s Word one night of the week. At the age of 86 (dad) and 82 (mom), this is marvelous and miraculous.
five words- ALL. THE. GLORY. TO. GOD. !!!!!!!!!!
It has now been a little over 2 years since that beloved night and I could write a book about spiritual transformation. {If God leads me to, I surely will!} When we say The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory, I have felt that Power surge through my being like lightning in a bottle. The relationships He has brought into my life bring tears to my eyes and the transformation on my heart is continuous and steady. The last 4+ years are richer and more meaningful than any I have ever lived, which is a testimony to His goodness! Why it took me several years to reduce this experience to writing I’ll never know, but it is finished. I will live every day for Jesus Christ in trust and obedience the rest of my life! AMEN.
