The Jack Miller Archive

Iva, Page 188

AFWS, Kindle Location 751

Here on Eddy Street I had my first experiences with sharing my faith. I had become a Christian only two months before, while working as a flagman and laborer on a highway maintenance crew in southwest Oregon.

Before that I had been a college student in San Francisco. But I had dropped out. I had too many questions that college wasn’t answering.

I also think that a difficult childhood had caught up with me. My father had died when I was two years old. My mother remarried and my stepfather made life hard for all of us.

I left home at sixteen and went to live with my sister in San Francisco. While working at the Navy Yard, I earned a high school diploma.

About that time, we heard that my older brother Leo, who had protected and befriended me after my father died, had been killed in the war.

This news left me confused and searching for answers. I made my way back to my hometown in Oregon, and I got a job working on the highway and spent my spare time reading the Bible.

Although I had been an atheist for many years, I couldn’t stop studying the Bible. Eventually God met me while I was wrestling with Ephesians, a small book in the New Testament.

Reading it turned my world upside down. I had come to the end of the road, where there is nothing left but God. But he was all I needed.

Miller, C. John (1999-09-01). A Faith Worth Sharing: a lifetime of conversations about Christ (Kindle Locations 109-115). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Then several weeks before World War II ended, we got word that my oldest brother Leo had been killed in Italy. Leo had thought that he might not return. Before he left he gave away all his personal possessions, including his prized gun. But to me, his death came as a tremendous shock. We had been very close. When my father died, Leo had taken me under his wing. After his death I was very alone. This is when I decided that my life wasn’t working. I dropped out of college and returned to Oregon.

Miller, C. John (1999-09-01). A Faith Worth Sharing: a lifetime of conversations about Christ (Kindle Locations 755-758). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition.