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Historic Pentecostal Evangel Series: 1950s #2 (& 1998)
By Ken Horn | September 23, 2008
Courage: Doing the Right Thing
By Clifton L. Taulbert
Clifton L. Taulbert is an author/lecturer and is a frequent contributor to the Pentecostal Evangel. Although this story was published in the Aug. 9, 1998, issue of the Evangel, the courageous and life-changing visit of the white minister to the Mary Taulbert home happened in the 1950s.
In my book Eight Habits of the Heart, I define courage as a person standing up and doing the right thing, speaking out on behalf of others, and making a commitment to excellence in the face of adversity or the absence of support.
I saw courage when I was about 12 years of age, living in the Mississippi Delta. I saw courage in the action of a young Assemblies of God minister who decided it was better to obey God rather than man. This is not always easy when God requires us to act on His behalf and those actions defy the social order of the day. However, much of what I know about Jesus resulted from the actions of one young man who planted for God in a field not deemed significant by others.
It started with my mother, Mary Taulbert. In 1956 she was stricken with an unusual sickness that was further complicated by her pregnancy with my youngest sister. Although doctors applied all the medical knowledge available to them, there seemed little chance for her recovery. Mother had lost a lot of blood. She was completely blind. Her tongue had swollen twice the normal size and her vital signs did not exist. However, while this was going on in the medical world, my mother recalls her prayer during that ordeal, “God, if You let me live to raise my children, I will serve You until I die.”
While she talked to God, her doctors suddenly decided to infuse blood through her ankles. It was a success. Months would pass as my mother recovered. She felt pulled to the church, and as soon as she was able she decided to visit her home church, Eastern Star Baptist Church in Chatham, Mississippi.
Meanwhile, a young white Assemblies of God minister felt led to ask my great-grandfather if he could preach at Eastern Star Baptist Church. The Sunday he preached was also the Sunday my mother decided she was well enough to visit.
That Sunday changed our lives.
God had kept His word. Now He was equipping my mother to keep her word. The young minister, moved by the demonstration of God’s power, would come into our home and pray with us. This was not socially acceptable. However, we were told that social pressure—among other things—caused him to accept a church elsewhere, but not before he had lived out courage in our lives.
What is the outgrowth of courage? At the time my mother met the young white minister who decided to obey God, he could not see God’s future for our lives. And yet from that unlikely place came the award-winning stories that I write which now captivate hearts and minds around the world. I have no doubt that his courage was necessary in fulfilling God’s plan.
And my mother, the maid who fell in love with Jesus, went back to school, the University of Alabama, and became one of the nation’s most admired administrators during the early days of Headstart. Later, she laid down her briefcase and became a preacher throughout the United States and around the world. Mary, this shy woman, was now speaking to thousands, introducing them to the power of God’s healing love. Her six children and the lives of thousands around the world have been touched and blessed because of one young man’s courage, pastor Oscar Overstreet from the Glen Allen Assembly of God. He decided it was best to obey God rather than man.
It took courage then and it takes courage now to do the right things. And the rewards for doing so are beyond our imagination.
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