My Grandfather’s Conversion
Lt. Col. Joy Steadman-Allen writes about her grandfather:
Joy Steadman-Allen
I suppose that I am following in my ancestors’ footsteps because I have taken to growing my own beans, tomatoes, peppers and potatoes. My grandfather was a potato merchant and I must have his flair for horticulture. At the moment the beans are a disappointment, the small tomatoes are not reddening but the potatoes are coming up and need to be ‘heaped up’
I’m quite proud of my grandfather’s name because he became a Christian. He had been rolling drunk around the town centre when he heard a group of Methodists holding an open-air service. Someone said that ‘Jesus can make bad men into good men’ and in his befuddled state he thought ‘that’s for me’. So he followed the little group to their chapel. They prayed for him and he went home saved and cold-sober. And he remained a Methodist Christian to the day he died. When my mother became a Salvationist someone said to him ‘Are you going to join the Salvation Army?’ to which he replied ‘No, I’m staying with the bridge that carried me over’. His name was a byword in the town. So I’m proud of being his granddaughter.
In Ephesians 3 Paul says they have boldness through their faith in Christ Jesus (it is not the mark of true spirituality to come to Him cringing – we can have boldness and confidence), and for this reason I, (Paul), bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and in earth is named (not according to my poverty) but according to His riches in glory that He may grant you to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man (like my grandfather)–according to His wealth. Paul’s prayer is that you know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God’. Our SA Song Book says ‘Write Thy new name upon my heart, Thy new blest name of love’.
Joy Steadman-Allen