"The Old Haybarn"

Charles was about 13 years old when he began playing music and by the age of 14, he soon found himself playing in the night clubs. By his 20’s he was trying to hold down his day job at the foundry making engine parts, as well as continue the nightclub scene playing music. He found he was unable to do both, and keep up, so he looked to find a better way to do so. Although an occasional drinker, Charles was now beginning to drink the hard stuff, pop some pills, and smoke marijuana. He had seemed to find others along the way doing the same things, it seemed to make it easier to join along, it seemed to provide relief.

Charles said, “ It got to where I couldn’t hold down my job…. I ended up losing it, and  I was asked not to come back. It got to where I couldn’t even play music anymore I had gotten so messed up. I started working odd end jobs trying to make money.”

By now he had come to a place where every day he needed to have a drink. Things seemed to be getting worse. There came a night when he was leaving a bar, very drunk. As he was walking across the street to his vehicle a car came out of nowhere and almost hit him.

Charles said at the time, “ I wished it had hit me. I hated what I was doing, but I couldn’t seem to let it go, it had such a hold on me.”

One morning he had gotten up, got him a good ol’ drink, smoked marijuana, and decided to get in his vehicle; not knowing where he was going.

He ended up in Muskogee, Oklahoma near a lumber yard that headed toward the old fairgrounds. There he saw a sign that read, “Cabinet Shop ”; he thought, “Shoot, I know how to do that!” Years earlier at one time, he had done some cabinet building and he felt confident he could do this job.

He met a man there by the name of James Amos. After talking with him a bit, James offered him a  job and asked when he could start. Charles was now living with his parents in Porum, Oklahoma. James suggested that since he came through there himself, he would just stop by and pick him up. They agreed that Charles’ first day would be that following Monday morning.

Charles said, “ That Monday morning I didn’t drink or smoke. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t have anything, or if I just chose not to.”

When Charles got there that morning he saw a man that he knew from years ago, who was a preacher. And he introduced him to some of his friends. Charles said,
“ All around me were a group of men who were all born again. I didn’t have a chance.”

He had made it known he wasn’t interested in the Lord, and didn’t want to hear about him. He wasn’t even real to him, and he didn’t need to hear about any of it. But God had not forgotten about Charles. And as time began to pass, things began to change.

Every morning when Charles would go to work, he would watch this group of men from afar. They would often have doughnuts and their coffee in the mornings while settling in, and would begin discussing the things of the Lord.

Charles said, “ I would set and watch these men. They looked so happy. My world was like night; so dark and dim. They seemed to have so much going for them.” “ They would just set and talk about the Lord, things I didn’t even understand, and every day I started moving a little closer to hear what they were saying.”

Those men kept their word and never bothered Charles with the things of the Lord, but they didn’t let his unbelief stop them from talking about the Lord Jesus they knew. One day, Charles decided he was going to ask a question. He asked, “How do you get saved? How do you do that?” They shared with him that he needed to ask Jesus to come into his heart, and how he will have to turn his life over to the Lord Jesus.

Well, that didn’t make Charles jump up and do it right away, he had to consider what all that might mean. He set on those statements for 4 or 5 months. He was still making some rounds at the nightclubs with the guys; but one evening he came home, and decided maybe he should try what those men he worked with were talking about, maybe he should try the Lord.

Charles said, “I went out by the haybarn my dad had. I asked Jesus to come into my life.  As soon as I did, it was like warm water began at my toes, up through my legs, all through my body to the top of my head. There was no one that could tell me after that, that I wasn’t saved, and that the Lord wasn’t real.”

Charles said it was one of the biggest experiences he ever had in his life. He knew not everyone’s experience was like that, and didn’t have to be; but he knew the Lord had done what he needed to do to get him to believe him.

But as soon as Charles had given his life to the Lord, the devil soon showed up!

A group of his buddies pulled up, and wanted him to jump in with them, so they could go do what they did best. “ I told them I couldn’t go, I got saved.” They said to me, “ Who’d you get saved from?” I went on to tell them, “ I asked Jesus to come live in my heart.”

They began to laugh at him, while continuing to tell him to get in and go with them. Charles got in, set down, and they took off with him in the vehicle. It wasn’t long before they ended up at a nightclub. Charles found himself in an all too familiar situation. “I could keep hearing a voice saying, you don’t have to do this; you don’t have to do this. But I gave in, and begin to drink; it didn’t do a thing to me though, it didn’t seem to have the same effect on me it had before.

A fight soon began to break out, and again Charles was hearing a voice continuing to talk to him, he finally decided this voice he kept hearing must be the Lord. The voice was telling him to leave. He trusted that voice, and left.

“ I was never told you could get saved, you could be born again anywhere. It didn’t have to be in a church, or at an altar; and I was saved that day at the back of my dad’s haybarn.”

This man Charles is someone who I came to know many years ago by the name of Charley, when I became his daughter in law. He has shared this testimony with me on a few occasions, and one evening a few months back I asked him if I could share it with the world. He gave me his permission, and that evening I sat down taking notes while visiting with him. He could still vividly retell his life and what the Lord had done for him as if it had just happened the day before.

And Charley was right, you didn’t have to be born again in a church or at an alter. The Lord Jesus will meet us all wherever we are at, he met Saul one day on the road to Damascus; and that day, he met Charley Reece at the back of a hay barn.

Romans 10:9 tells us:

That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

You, will be, born again.

Charley went on to walk with the Lord and at one time began singing with that same man he went to work for back in the cabinet shop, Mr. Amos. They along with some others recorded a record called, “ Songs We Sing For His Glory”.

Here is one of those songs sung here by Charley Reece  that I would like to share with you off their record, The Disciples called, “Too Many Times”.

 

God Bless You,
Misty                                      Click on picture to hear "Too Many Times"

Click on photo to hear song