Norman Compton

My mother and dad came from Texas to bring us into this church. There were eight of us children. I was three-and-a-half years old when we moved to San Francisco, California, and I remember the night I saw my mother and dad go down to the altar and give their hearts to the Lord. We were in church three nights a week and three times on Sunday. I got to the place where I thought: church, church, and church! Is that all there is to life?

Mother was faithful to her eight children. She never drew back on her responsibilities of what she felt God demanded of her, but she taught us all from the time we could understand that one day we would have to meet God and give an answer for the way we lived. She put a fear in our young hearts of being left in this old world when the Lord returned.

I can remember being afraid to go to sleep many nights after she told us that Jesus might come in the night.

I can remember being afraid to go to sleep many nights after she told us that Jesus might come in the night. He would come when we did not expect Him and He was only going to come or those who were looking for Him and watching. It used to make me shake and tremble and I would be afraid to go to sleep. Sometimes the Lord would send a dream and I would see my mother go on up to meet the Lord and I would reach up clutching at her apron strings, something to hang onto! And she would turn back and say, “No, you can’t come that way, you have to pray for yourself.” The Lord was faithful to my young heart.

As I got older sin became attached to my life. I began to go out into the world of sin and seek for its pleasures. I could hear my mother’s warning in my ear. I never did find anything that would give lasting happiness and it always came back to me that I would not find it until I turned to God.

I was in high school and had an old 1928 Erskine blue automobile with black trim around the door. One time out driving I irritated a driver. I cut in front of him and he chased me and knocked me in the rear and got me over to the side of the curb, cursing and swearing. I rolled my window down and tried to face this man. He stuck his big fists right in and whacked me right in the head two or three times. I hurt and bled and then I remembered my mother’s prayers. God in His mercy spared me from getting killed by this husky, half drunk painter. A stevedore came along and pulled him off me. He got his license plate number and said, “Get your dad to look this up because he has no right to do that.” I got in my car and cried out, “Oh God, help me!” I didn’t realize that it was God’s mercy getting ahold of me.

I had been to Kearny Street Courthouse answering for that deed, and all the blame was put on me. The judge was talking about the punks in San Francisco. God talked to me and told me I did not belong there. I thought, No, I don’t Lord! I looked back in the audience and saw one of the pastors sitting with my dad. I said, “Oh God if you just get me out of here and get me back to church, I will give my life to you.”

“Oh God if you just get me out of here and get me back to church, I will give my life to you.”

I went to church and heard the sermon and knew God was talking to me. A brother asked me, “Are you saved?” He knew I wasn’t but I said, “No.” “Would you like to be saved?” he asked. I said, “Yes!” God had me where the resistance was gone and there on old Market Street, twenty-six steps up over a market where our church was, I knelt before God and surrendered my life and did all I knew to do. I got up an hour later, but didn’t have the faith to get saved. I was so despondent as I walked down the steps.

That day I walked out with my mother by my side, and I was broken hearted. She said, “Have you prayed honestly?” I said, “Yes, I have.” “Have you given up your sins?” “Yes, I have.” “Have you told God that you are not going to do them anymore?” I said, “Yes, I have. I don’t know what else to do, Mom.” She said, “Well, if you have done all you know to do, then just believe Him and you will find the witness in your heart.” As she said that I was just getting ready to walk up the concrete landing to wait for the streetcar. Just as my foot landed on there I said, “Lord I do believe,” and the glory of God fell into my heart. I will never forget that day in May 1938.

“Would you like to be saved?” he asked. I said, “Yes!”

In the army, God kept me living a Christian life. In the business world, God kept me living a Christian life. I have been in construction work most of my life and have learned to be careful in that type of work. One day I climbed up a defective ladder and unexpectedly fell over eleven feet onto the hard rocky ground, right on my feet, 250 pounds on a size 8 shoe. I should have cut my legs through my feet, but an x-ray showed there was not the slightest indication of any break in my feet. Had it not been for the Almighty hand of God, I would probably have been crippled for life. Two days later I was back on the job. As I walk around I look at my feet and say, “I thank you, God, that you have spared me that I might give my life to you.”