“There goes an angry, lonely old man to die in his bitterness.”

 The thought tore me up, but every sign pointed in that direction. I couldn’t see any hope of change in his life.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Closed Up Tight

I met Mr. Benning (not his real name) when my son, Jonathan, and I went out in the neighborhood handing out free copies of the Jesus film. We were living in Orlando at the time. Jonathan couldn’t have been more than five years old. We enjoyed being together, anyway.

None of us in the family had ever seen the Bennings — not in their yard, not on the street, not anywhere. Their home was closed up tight at every door and every window.

So we were surprised when they invited us in to sit down and talk. It was midday, but the only light in there was artificial. The curtains at their windows must have been an inch thick. As far as I know they never opened them. Not ever.

There wasn’t much light in their lives, either. Mr. Benning was a musician — he and I had that in common — but both of them were angry, and not afraid to say so. They were mad at the neighbors — not us; we were too new there, but the ones who had “taken their daughter away.”

Their young girl had spent hours and hours with Mr. and Mrs. Samuels, our own next-door neighbors at the time. The Samuels were Christians; the Bennings weren’t. The daughter, attracted to the Samuels’ life and message, decided to follow Jesus Christ. The Samuels “stole” her, said the Bennings. They made no effort to hide how much it upset them — even though she was in her thirties by then.

Jonathan and I went back a few weeks later to ask how they’d liked the Jesus Film. They hadn’t viewed it, but they invited us in again anyway. We went back there often after that, just trying to be friends. They never did view the film, but still they always welcomed us. They never seemed any happier, though.

That Lonely, Bitter Old Man

It was maybe three years later that Mrs. Benning died of COPD, and her husband decided to move back to his childhood home in Georgia. He arranged to sell his home to his son, Mark. I knew I’d never see him again. That was when I thought, There goes an angry, lonely old man to die in his bitterness.

It was maybe a year later when Mark and I were sitting with another neighbor on that neighbor’s stoop. It came completely out of the blue: “My old man’s got religion,” he said.

I shook my head. I must have heard him wrong. “What did you say?” I asked.

“My dad has found Jesus,” he said, almost matter-of-factly.

“Really?! Are you serious?”

“Sure enough. Some old ladies up in Georgia started bringing him homemade bread and cakes they’d made. They convinced him to go to church. He found Jesus there.”

I sat there stunned. But it was Mark’s next words that got to me — and still get to me as I write this. He said, “I’ve never seen him so happy in my life.”

I had to cross over the Samuels’ yard to get home after that conversation. I don’t think my feet touched the ground the whole way. I’m not sure when I’ve ever been that happy myself.