A Life Worth Living

By Andy Timblin

Several years ago while teaching an adult Sunday school class, a woman in the class said, Brother Timblin, you should write a book. I was sort of amused and said, Who would read a book that I would write? A man in the class answered, I would! That spoken word moved in my heart that day. Then just a couple of weeks ago after I had preached and was leaving the church shaking hands, a woman said to me, Brother Timblin, I love to hear you relating stories of your past ministry. When I told this to my daughter, she said, Why dont you write a book? At her word, the Holy Spirit moved my heart to write and I put the word foreword at the top of the first page. Realizing the fact that I am not a young man anymore, seventy-nine and having had some physical problems and along with taking care of my invalid wife who had a stroke three years ago, the devil said, Andy, youre too old to do that, too sick to do that, and too busy taking care of your wife to do that. But every time the devil brings negative thoughts, I know that those words are not from God, who is always positive and would not speak negatively to my spirit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503544970

Andy Timblin

Pastor Timblin was raised in the north end of Columbus, Ohio. Shirley Sexton Timblin was raised in Jenkins, Kentucky. They met in Columbus when she had come up to visit relatives and she got a job where Pastor Timblin worked. When they were married in Detroit, Michigan, in February of 1954, she was eighteen and he was nineteen. After a wonderful salvation experience, they would live the rest of their lives moving from place to place, pastoring and starting churches for their Lord. From the factories of Columbus to the wheat fields of Kansas to the coal fields of southeastern Kentucky, there is a story of joy and disappointment, but their only thoughts were to please God. And it turned out to be A Life worth Living.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

CONVERTED TO SERVE

I, Andy Timblin, cannot write this unless I take along my partner in life, my wife, Shirley Timblin. We were just kids when we married. The first time I saw her walking across the street, I fell in love with her. We were working in a textile factory, The Columbus Coated Fabrics in Columbus, Ohio where I had lived the first 33 years of my life. She was 18, born and raised in Jenkins, Kentucky. I was 19. Shirley worked in the payroll department and I was making the most money of any hourly worker in the plant of 600 people. Was this an influence?

The first time I shook Shirley’s hand I knew she and I would spend our lives together. I shook all over. Several days later, I asked her if she would like to take a walk with me and have a burger. She said, Yes. That would be the first yes in our many years together. We passed a record shop. Music has always been a major part of my life and ministry. I love to sing God’s praises. Then it was hillbilly music even though I was a city boy. I bought her a 45 RPM record player, paying $39.00 for it. Now you might think that is not much but it was in 1953. I told her my mom had lots of money and stocks, that she rented out a big fancy house in Upper Arlington, a suburb of Columbus where the rich people lived. Oh how I lied. When buying the record player I had an ulterior motive. I knew we would use it together. We did! Many, many times.

Shirley soon found out the truth about my mother’s finances. I had a good job. Mom got a little social security check of $ 37. Shirley had found me out, but she loved me anyway and the love and feelings we had then have grown over the years. She is the greatest gift God could ever give to me outside of the Holy Spirit which will be explained later.

On the 30th of January in 2011 Mom, that is what I call my Shirley now, had a stroke. She was in a nursing home for a while, but I had to bring her home to me where I could care for her. Though our life together is some different now, we are still deeply in love. I kiss her every morning and night and every time I do something relating to her care. She has to have me near at all times so she knows I’m all right.

On our first real date, about a week after our trip to the record shop, we went to Circleville, Ohio where they were having a pumpkin show. It was a yearly event and still is. On the way home that night she was sitting over next to me and naturally I had my arm around her. All of a sudden blue lights were flashing right behind me. It was the Highway Patrol. The first thing I did was look at the speedometer and I was not speeding. I stopped and the patrolman came up to my window and we went through the deal with showing the driver’s license. I asked him what I was doing wrong and he told me I was going to need a special license to drive with one hand. He said if we were going to neck to take her home and park out front. Our kids got a big kick out of that when we shared my first brush with the law. Over the years there would be other times I would see those blue lights and I just pull over and wait to hand the officer my driver’s license.

That was in October of 1953. A month later we would sneak off with my mother’s car and drive to Richmond Indiana which was about 110 miles away, west of Columbus. They said it was easy to get married there. It wasn’t. We got cold feet and drove back home. No one had even missed us. That cooled off our hot love affair for a while.

In late February, we took a bus to Detroit, Michigan to tie the knot. In Michigan, there was a three day waiting period, but if you had your blood tests, all you needed was a hardship writ from a lawyer to get married. We had checked in to a hotel. We had two separate rooms and a bell boy that was very helpful with the information and the plan. We were married on the 23rd, the day after Washington’s Birthday. The court house was closed. We had to wait another day. A judge married us the next day. We started home. The boy from Ohio and the girl from Kentucky all legal and in love. The year was 1954.

Our first child was born in December of 1955. A boy who weighed in at 8 pounds and 3 ounces. We were so proud of him. We had started our family. The marriage that most people said wouldn’t last six months was going strong.

In 1957, Shirley had given her heart to the Lord on a trip we had made to Jenkins at a service in the Wrights Hollow Freewill Baptist Church. Her brother was preaching. That small church would be my first pastorate in 1971. At the time of Shirley’s conversion I was still a heathen. It took her four years, but she never gave up and prayed and prayed. On Easter Sunday morning of 1961 I became a born-again Christian. The kids, we now had three, had a new daddy. Tim was 5 1/2 years, Drake, 3 1/2 being our second boy born on November, 1957, and Melanie was a little scamp at 2. While the boys were fairly sedate in their years, Melanie was anything but. She was born on March 21, 1959 and into everything. She sure kept Shirley hopping. What a great blessing she is to me today. She helps me care for her mother. They have had a special relationship over the years.

Melanie would lose her husband to cancer two years ago. Now the most important things in her life are Mom and Dad, her dogs and cats.

After I was saved, we went to church as a family. I had heard Billy Graham, a great man of God say, It has not yet been proved what a man, fully committed and in God’s will could accomplish. At that time I thought, I am going to be that man. Certainly not knowing all the temptations and trials the devil would bring up against me. I tried hard but failed, God forgive me.

After I had given my heart to God, anything they would ask me to do in church, I would do my best to be faithful to my commitment, to God’s service.

The church, just getting started, was small. The preacher, a great one by the name of Curt Beculhimer, had started it as a brand new work. He did not stay long and turned the church over to another great preacher, Brother Henry Litteral who had never been a pastor before. We all grew up together, about 20 of us. Growth was gradual but constant. Brother Henry would call on me many times over the next five years. The church grew and I had grown a hundred fold.

The first thing they asked me to do, because they knew I liked to sing was to be the song leader. I said I would do my best. I did not say no. At that time I didn’t have a tooth in my head, but I would not let my vanity stand in the way of trying to do whatever was asked of me for the Lord’s service.

Before I move on I want to relate a little problem we had with Melanie, who as I have already said sure was a hand full. While the singing was going on, she was good, but when the time came for the preaching, she would start to wiggle around and talk out making a big disturbance. Six weeks in a row, she would do this. Six weeks I took her back to the restroom and took my belt off to scare her. Maybe flipping her a little bit with the end of the belt. Each week I would get more and more angry. The sixth week I didn’t say anything to her when she started, I just picked her up, threw her over my shoulder and headed for the restroom. She knew I had reached the end of my patience. As we headed back, she turned and cried over my shoulder to the congregation, Pray for me! that day, the sight and feel of the belt would make a great impression on Melanie. That would be the last of the trips to the restroom. Needless to say, I don’t believe we should allow our children to be a problem in church, especially when God the Holy Spirit is reaching out to the lost for salvation.

CHAPTER 2

NEW FRIENDS

One day, several months after I gave my heart to the Lord, my mother asked me what had happened to all the old gang that I used to run with from work. My mother saw the change in my life, my talk and the people I was fellowshipping with. I tried to get her to go to church with us but she would say she was a Methodist and did not believe like us Baptists. I never knew of my mom ever going to church. My father died when he was 45 years old. I was just fifteen. When I needed him most God had taken him with a massive heart attack. I can only hope and pray in those awful hours of pain before his death that he called out to God to forgive him and save his soul. My dad loved anything with a ball. Golf, bowling, softball, baseball. Those were good things I could pass on to my children. I’m so thankful for the lifestyle God had blessed me to share with my children. We always took the kids to church. As long as I was clothing and feeding them they knew when church time came, they were ready and except for a time or two when they got older and their friends would go somewhere else, they liked to go to church. We sang specials as a family and what wonderful services we would have. That was in my first pastorate in the 70’s in Jenkins, Kentucky. I am getting ahead of myself so let me go back to when God gave Shirley and I new friends. I had always heard if you want to be a good Christian, follow another good Christian around and share your experiences. I met Fred (I’ll just use first names) in a barber shop sometime in my first year as a Christian. He was from Galax, Virginia. He was a big, 6' 3" guy with lots of hair. I was already starting to go bald. We hit it off right from the start. He was one of those guys that would help me grow in God’s work. He had been looking for someone to help him with his vision and that was God’s way of helping me begin to grow. All of the Lord’s work wasn’t to be done in the church. We secured an opening on a small radio station in Delaware, Ohio on Route 23 just North of Columbus. We had a contract for a year. We could have gone longer but we got into other areas of ministry. He would preach one Sunday and I would preach the next. Fred, Shirley and I had started to sing some together. We recorded it on Saturday night at our house to use at 8:00 o’clock the next morning.

Fred bought a used tent, chairs and an old bus to carry it in. We decided we would use the radio program to promote a tent revival. That was in 1963. Our fifth child, Kevin, was born on June 10th. We would start having a tent revival around the 1st of July. We placed the tent on a large vacant lot on one of the main roads in North Columbus. It would hold easily a hundred and fifty people. It wasn’t always full but we had some large crowds. A preacher whom Fred knew from around Athens, Ohio was the preacher. His name was Merlin Teets. He was a great one with a real burden for the lost.

The revival would last at this location three weeks with lots of success. Two of these folks were Frank and Mary Hawley. They were about the same age as Shirley and me. We would become close friends and they would join the North Freewill Baptist Church where we attended. They became great workers in the church. They would help us do anything to help the church grow. Brother Teets was a fun guy. He told us he would take up a big offering on Friday night all by himself. He said he had a special way and to come prepared to watch and give. When the time came to receive the offering he went behind the tent and brought in a wheel barrow. Needless to say no one had ever seen that before.

Brother Teets stayed in our home the whole time he was doing the tent meeting. The meeting went on three weeks there, then we moved the tent to the Hillard, Ohio campground for two weeks. Everywhere we would be in service with Brother Teets after that he would always single Shirley out as an example of having no excuse for not going to church.

Larry Messer and his wife, Minnie and their two kids began to call our church home. Larry was a great soul winner; a personal worker who could and did talk to anyone about their souls. Larry was a great influence on me. I knew how to keep the church moving along but wasn’t good in the area of Larry’s calling. I believed God had put him there for me. We would become close and share many blessings and some troubles together.

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