If I Ever Wander

Owen Kincaid hadn’t been to the small town where he grew up in over thirty years. As he drove through his old stomping grounds, memories flooded his mind—things he had not thought of in a long time. One of the first places he visited was the church he attended as a child. He was only thirteen when he walked the aisle to accept Jesus. A lot had changed since then.

He walked through the old sanctuary, which had now been converted into classrooms and offices. Though the layout was different, he stood in the exact spot and recalled his thirteen-year-old self kneeling at the front of the church, accepting Christ as his Savior. It was now a storage closet.

They say there are no sacred places since all the earth belongs to the Lord, but this spot still felt special.

A flood of emotions ran through him as his spiritual life over the past decades flashed before him. That young boy kneeling at the altar could never have known what lay ahead—the joys, the failures, the quiet compromises. He wondered what that boy would have thought if he could see him now, standing in that exact spot forty-four years later, hoping to recover something he could no longer quite name.

Then he saw it.

On the shelf of an old bookcase labeled “DO NOT DISCARD,” sat a stack of letters. Owen recognized them immediately. The pastor of the church used to ask each person to write a short statement about their new life in Christ and seal it in an envelope to be opened later. That pastor had died not long after.

He began flipping through the yellowed envelopes and saw it—his name, written in his own thirteen-year-old hand. He removed the letter and sat in an old children’s chair. The letter read:

“There is no way I could ever forget what Jesus has done for me today. My sins are gone—even the sky appears bluer than ever, and I want my whole life to be dedicated to serving Him. I might even want to be a pastor someday.”

Owen felt a lump in his throat. He had forgotten. Not all at once, but slowly—over the years. He had wandered and faltered, and he had not even pursued his career for the glory of God. Ambition had taken the place of devotion. Even the sky had lost its luster. He felt he had failed his younger self—worse yet, he felt he had failed God.

He paused, looked to the spot where he was saved, then back at the letter, and saw one final line in his young handwriting:

“Today I experienced Acts 3:19. If I ever wander, I pray God will keep His promise never to leave me and find a way to remind me of this passage so that I can experience it again.”

Owen picked up a worn pocket Gideon’s Bible sitting on the shelf and opened it to Acts. It read:

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”

—D. Eaton