Those Console TV's and Opportunities to Share Your Faith

Vanessa, the Camper Van was an important part of Tandy Balson’s past. Yet Tandy was astonished to be kicked out of her van by a couple of young girls. Do you have a camper van story?

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Those Console TV’s

“Those TV sets are driving me crazy!” I told my ninety-year old mother that I lived with. She had three in the house, two in the basement and one in the garage. One in the basement was especially large with a radio and record player on each side. Every time it seemed someone planned to haul them to the local town recycling center, the timing was off.

Until one day my mom came home from her daycare center and said her van driver saw the TV set in our garage and wanted it.

“I told you,” she said, “just be patient, someone would want it.”

Patient, I thought I had been patient. It had been months since we started remodeling the house. I must admit patience has never been a strong area for me. I’m a bit impulsive at times, and other times waiting much too long.

“What does the van driver want it for?” I asked.

“I think to make it into a set of drawers for his daughter.”

“Sure,” I said, “that’s great.”

TV Pickup

Chris, my mom’s van driver, picked up the TV in the garage a few days later, managing to pull it up onto the bed of his pickup truck. He said he hated to see TV’s go to a dump, so he would knock the inside out and put the cabinet to good use.

“We have two other TV’s in the basement. One’s really big.”

He walked down the basement steps and looked at them.

“I want both of them. I’ll make the largest one into an aquarium.”

“Finally,” I thought, “Yes! They’d be gone.” It would make more room in the already overcrowded basement which I had gradually been cleaning out. My parents built the house sixty-seven years ago. My father passed away over twenty years ago and my mom lived alone until I moved in to help her. I lived on my own for years accumulating a lot of my own stuff, so we needed more space.

A Personality Test on Beliefs

I ran into the house and handed Chris, one of my tracts (pamphlets on Jesus) before he left.

“What’s this?” he asked?

“A personality test on beliefs. Take it if you would like and read it.”

He took the pamphlet and told me to call him when he could get the two other TV’s.

A few weeks later Chris and his friend, introduced to me as Randy, drove into the driveway in the same red pickup.

Randy, had a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, long hair and several missing teeth. He was a bit callous at times towards Chris, cursing as they moved the heavy TV’s.

“Watch your back,” I told them both, “you don’t want a back injury.”

Randy lifted up the back of his T-shirt exposing a long healed vertical scar. “I’ve had a couple back surgeries. Nothing can make it worse.”

“Actually you can make it worse,” I said. “Believe me, as a physical therapist I’ve had my own back injuries and treated many. You have to watch how and what you lift.”

“Ah, nothing can change it,” he repeated.

And he’s lifting this heavy thing, going up the basement stairs? Maybe that’s part of his issues, I thought.

No Stranger to Back Injuries

I myself was no stranger to back injuries. Sometimes things happen to you, and sometimes you have to be smarter, not to get involved in certain activities, probably like this lifting job for him.

We talked in the driveway after the TV’s had been secured on the bed of Chris’s truck.

“Hey Chris,” I asked, “did you ever read the pamphlet I gave you?”

“Yeah, I read it.”

I extended my hand and gave one of my Christian tracts to Randy. He too, asked what it was and I explained, it’s about Jesus.”

“Are you Christian?” I asked,

“No, I’m an atheist.”

“Really, you don’t think God created all of this?” looking around at the surroundings—the sky, trees, flowers.

“No,” he said,” it can all be explained scientifically.”

“Did you know, I said, that the Bible has some science in it? It even says in Psalms that the earth is round. God spoke with world into existence.”

“Do you have internet,” I asked “a computer?”

“No, but my son does.”

I offered Randy a card that has free Christian movies from livingwaters.com.

“Do you have a Bible?”

“No,” he said

“I would be happy to give you one,” I told him.

“Na, that’s Ok. But I’ll watch the movies on here.”

“Ok, please do that. You know Jesus said He was God, so either He’s a liar, a lunatic or He’s Lord. I know He changed my life when I trusted in Him and I’m so thankful.”

Seek the Lord

The conversation ended, but I pray both Chris and Randy seek the Lord. I know the Lord knows who will trust in Him and ultimately He is the one who draws people to Himself. “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day,” John 6:44. I hope that the conversations and the tracts help to plant seeds of faith, so that one day I may see them in Heaven.

with very happy campers.

Tandy Balson

Tandy Balson is a wife, mother, grandmother, friend, volunteer and observer of life. She is also a also a contributor to our Christian internet radio station, HopeStreamRadio. Contact us if you are a truth seeker and need some answers. Read and hear more from Tandy Balson on the contributor’s page or on her website, www.timewithtandy.com

Tandy’s show, “Time With Tandy” airs on HopeStreamRadio. In her program she reflects on spiritual lessons from her observations of life, to encourage and strengthen us in our faith.