As a teenager, sadly, I had no time for God, but I believed that there was a Creator. In the early 1950s I left Sheffield, having been called up for national service and I was stationed at RAF Chivenor in North Devon.
One day when off-duty and visiting Rock Park in Barnstaple I noticed how beautiful the flowers were. A local man approached me and engaged me in conversation. He recognised that I was from Chivenor and kindly invited me that day to have tea with himself and his wife in their home. They were Christians and they also invited me to attend a service at Grosvenor Street Chapel in Barnstaple.
It was there that I heard the gospel of God’s love for me, in sending Jesus Christ to be my Saviour. There was much that I did not understand. Back at RAF Chivenor there was a Bible study group for servicemen. Now being interested, I started to attend this group and another Bernard doing his national service explained the gospel to me and answered my many questions.
There in North Devon I came to know Christ as my personal Saviour from God’s judgment which I so richly deserved. A key verse from the Bible that helped me at the time was John chapter 1, verse 12, ‘But as many as believed Him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name’.
My whole life and outlook changed. I had found a wonderful peace that I had never known before, which has been with me ever since.
When I returned to Sheffield I attended a Christian young people’s meeting, at the memorial hall in the city. It was there that I met my wife Doreen, who was a nurse and also a believer. We had two sons and a daughter and we now have five grandchildren. For a number of years, I worked in the retail business, before working for 28 years until I retired as a porter at the University of Sheffield.
For many years Doreen and I have been members at a local evangelical church, where the Bible, God’s Word, is faithfully preached and the good news about our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, is shared with others who need him, just like ourselves.
Bernard Wilkinson
