Sister Lana Samson

I am a member of Fairview Missionary Baptist Church at Woodburn, KY, but as a child, I always attended Mt. Zion Church.  I can’t remember not being in church on Sunday, as Daddy and Mama always took us to Sunday school and Church.  Thank God for that, and I am thankful to my parents for taking my sister and me.  I also attended Mt. Zion Grade School from 1st through 8^th grade, and each year, our revival was held during August after school had started.  Our classes were dismissed, and the teacher walked with us to the day services of the revival.  That is such a great memory of walking with my friends and teacher to church.

On Wednesday night August 18^th 1954, I sat next to the front seat. Brother Levy Smith was preaching that night, and I felt like I was all alone at that service.  I can’t remember any one around me, and I began to have a really bad feeling in my heart.  I felt like my heart would burst, it hurt so badly.  I was so afraid.  I knew what it was, I wanted to cry, but I did not want anyone to see me cry.  Yet, I thought, what am I going to do?  No one knows this and I couldn’t, or so I thought, just jump up and say I was lost. I wondered if someone might come to me.  I can’t remember anything Brother Levy said in his sermon, because I was so miserable, scared and all alone.

Well, when Brother Levy ended his sermon, I don’t remember if he gave an altar call or not. I just remember the song service started, and I saw Brother Levy coming down from the pulpit.  I wondered if he would come to me, yet I really felt he would.  Sure enough, he came straight to me.  I can just feel his hand now, as he laid it on my shoulder and said young lady do you feel like you are lost?  I just took off to the front seat.  We used the front row of seats as mourner’s benches.  There I began to seek the Lord.

Revival went on until sometime the next week and broke.  I was so sad, because I did not get saved.  But, I just did not do all that I should have done.  I was afraid that something would happen to me, get killed or something bad, and I would die and go to hell.  What a miserable year I spent, but the devil would tell me I had plenty of time to be saved.  I was almost 9 years old and everything would be ok.  But I was still scared and afraid of dying.  We went to other revivals, but I would say “no I’m not lost”.

Well, it was revival time again in August 1955.  Daddy and Mama had been talking about it, and I just pretended to not hear them.  School had also started. I wasn’t too anxious to walk to church from school that year.  I didn’t want my friends to know I was lost, and I knew those “old” women at church would be coming to me to get me to come to the altar.  So, I decided I had to figure out a way to get by all of that.  As we walked to church on Monday, I got my plan all worked out.  I decided I would sit as far back as I could, in the middle of the seat where there would be people sitting on both sides of me, in front of me and behind me, and it would be hard for any “old” lady to get to me.  Maybe they would just not try to get to me.  Well, I felt good that I had a plan, and yet, I was scared and broken hearted.  I was miserable, but I thought I was hidden.

Well, not so, after the sermon was finished, Brother Levy stepped down in the altar and said he felt like asking if there was anyone there lost that wanted the church to pray for them.  If so, come up and shake his hand and show that we were lost and the church would pray for us.  Oh me, I thought, what am I going to do now?  I had it all planned, but not too well planned, because I didn’t even notice who I was setting beside me during the service.  Geraldine Swindle was saved in August 1954, the year before, and she was the one setting by me.  We stood up as the song began.  I was holding to the back of the seat so tight that I thought I couldn’t turn loose for anything or anyone until Geraldine laid her hand on my hand and said “you know you want to church to pray for you to be saved”.  My heart was just crushed.   I let go of that seat, and somehow, I got past all the people sitting on that seat.  I can’t remember that, but when I came to myself, I was half way down the aisle, next to the wall on the left side of the church going to shake Brother Levy’s hand.

After that, I knew I had to get serious about being saved, but I wanted to shout.  I decided that if I would shout when I got saved, it would impress people and show them I really was saved.  We were always reminded to go somewhere and pray between services, so I tried that.  I remember praying at home out behind the garage and at other places.  But I thought I’d lie down on Mama and Daddy’s bed and pray.  Maybe I’d even get saved there, but I was still planning on shouting.  Well, I just quit praying, and I thought I’d practice shouting in front of a mirror that was in their bedroom.  It was a full view mirror so I could really see how I was going to look when I shouted.  Well, when I raised my arms in the air to act like I was shouting, that was when I realized you don’t plan shouting, and it was like a voice said “you’re not going to get it that way.  I felt ashamed for pretending to shout or practice shouting, because being raised in the church, I had seen lots of people saved, and I had heard testimonies of people being saved.  I knew you did not plan the way to be saved.  So, that’s when I gave that all up and began to pray seriously.

On Tuesday night, August 23, 1955, a little nine year old girl was saved.  It came so peacefully.  I just lost out on what was going on until it seemed like I woke up, and I thought what happened.  God said you’re saved.  I then heard others rejoicing and wondered what was going on.  I realized someone else had told of being saved.  The devil said, “don’t tell anyone you’re saved, no one will believe you, they’ll think you’re just telling you’re saved because someone else is saved”.  Well, I sure had a sunken feeling in my heart after that, but Brother Levy said, let’s have another prayer.  So I thought ok, I am going to pray and ask God to save me, if I wasn’t saved.  If I get the answer that I am saved, I will stand and tell it after this prayer.  So, I started to pray.  I just couldn’t ask God to save me, because I didn’t have that fear and heavy heart any more.  It was all gone, I couldn’t say anything except Lord let this prayer end, and I’ll tell it.  When the prayer was over, I looked up, and the first person I saw was Brother Levy.  I went to him and told him I was saved.  It felt so wonderful to not be lost any more.  I joined the church on Friday August 26, 1955, and Brother Levy Smith baptized me Sunday September 18, 1955 in Long Creek at Holland, Kentucky.

I don’t remember, as a nine year old, if I thanked Brother Levy for coming to me that night or Geraldine for what she said to me that day.  Geraldine was saved in 1954 and was killed in a car wreck a few years ago.  Brother Levy has also gone on to his heavenly home.  I just thank God they followed what God led them to do, or I might still be lost in sin.  Years later, I found a diary I kept as a little girl, and on one page for special events, I had written “I got saved august 23, 1955, I am so happy!!  I said in my diary “Thank the Lord God for that, I am so HAPPY”