The radio announcer

Gerald Thorne was a young radio announcer. Only lately he had been given the task of announcing for the Gospel Trio which broadcasted over that station each morning.

"Great stuff -- a fellow like me announcing for a Gospel trio," he mused to himself, when the task was assigned. He thought of his mother. She'd like it She was a wonderful Christian woman and had been praying for years for her son. But religion wasn't for him, he had often told himself. It was all right for women and softies, and perhaps, too, for poor, uneducated men who could not support themselves and their families and had to depend on the Lord to do it for them. But he had greater ambitions and could not handicap himself with religion.

He knew the boys in the trio only slightly. Their programs were a comparatively new feature from that Station. But they seemed like fine, manly fellows and he couldn't help wondering why they should be content to spend their lives just singing Gospel songs and preaching. Often they were in evangelistic work -- singing from the station in the morning and holding services in surrounding churches in the evenings. Well, he supposed it was all right if that was what they wanted to do, but he thought he could find other ways to spend his evenings. He would announce their programs, but it would end there.

He found upon closer acquaintance with the young men of the trio that they were indeed fine fellows -- nothing softie about them, he had to admit. As their work brought them into more of a fellowship, he found his admiration for them steadily growing; and as he listened to their songs each morning he found himself wondering a little. Maybe -- just maybe -- there was really something to this Christianity business after all. Maybe that was why his mother had always been so in earnest about it all; why she had always been so anxious for him to become a Christian; why he had heard her praying in her room nights when he had been at home. He had known that those prayers were for him, but somehow he hadn't really seen the need of it. He was a clean, moral, honest young man. He wouldn't harm any one. But as he heard the trio day after day singing "The Old Account Was Settled Long Ago" or "Take up Thy Cross and Follow Me," he became aware of a vague uneasiness.

He tried to pass it off by analyzing it as homesickness. Hearing all the old songs his mother used to sing around the home made him homesick to see her, he reasoned, so he wrote long letters to her; and when that failed to satisfy, he decided that he hadn't been going about enough. He was getting restive from lack of recreation. So then every evening found him at the movies, the dance, or some other place of amusement. That, too, failed to ease his growing unrest. It was not exactly soothing to come to the studio after a night spent in such places and listen to Gospel songs. At last he came to the conclusion that it must be some physical condition. Some unknown ailment must be affecting his nerves. So he went to see a doctor.

The doctor shrugged after having given him a thorough examination. "Nothing wrong that I can see," he said, "except that it's evident you've been smoking too much and not getting enough rest. Better cut out the smokes and get more sleep."

Gerald left the doctor's office in more of a quandary than before. Get more sleep -- if the doctor only knew that every time he closed his eyes he could see his mother, and that even the blare of a jazz orchestra at a dance couldn't drown out the sound in his ears of her voice lifted in prayer for "Jerry." "Cut out the smokes" -- when it was the only thing that steadied his nerves for a moment.

If he could only get away somewhere. But that was impossible. He had his job here and couldn't go. He thought about asking to be released from announcing for the trio. But if he did the manager would want to know why. And he couldn't tell him that he was getting all nervous and upset from listening to the trio sing their hymns. No, he could not do that; but what could he do?

That evening the boys asked him to go with them to their meeting. They had asked him at other times but he had always refused. However this time he consented to go. It couldn't make him feel any worse he was sure, and it would please his mother if she knew it. She had been so pleased when he had written her that he was announcing on the Gospel program and wrote that she always listened in. Gerald read between the lines and thought it probable that she sat there praying for him as she listened.

He had never heard the boys preach before but as Tom, the youngest of the trio, brought the message that evening he realized that here was a fellow who knew what he was talking about. Although the Gospel message was simple, it was delivered with a fire and fervor that burned its way into his heart as he sat listening. And, listening, he at last acknowledged what had been the matter with him. It hadn't been homesickness, though he would like to see his mother. It hadn't been lack of recreation, it hadn't been nerves. It had been old-time, Holy Ghost conviction for sin. And when the invitation hymn was sung he made his way to the altar.

The next morning -- which chanced to be Sunday and Mother's Day -- Gerald's mother sat down before the radio to hear her son's voice as he announced the old hymns. She turned the dial and sat back with a smile of anticipation on her lips and a prayer in her heart for her boy. She heard his voice announcing that this was Station KLDR and that It was the program of the Gospel Trio. Then --

"The boys have a number of dedications to make for the first song and along with these I want to dedicate it to my mother, who is listening in this morning. The boys are going to sing 'Mother's Prayers Have Followed Me' and -- well," he hesitated a bit, then continued with a rush, "last night I found the Lord and I know that it was because my mother's prayers have followed me."

No greater joy could come to a mother than that which came to the heart of this mother as she heard from the lips of her boy, though a few hundred miles lay between, that he had found Christ as his Savior and that God had answered her earnest prayers. -- Mrs. Audre Pitts.

From: THRILLING STORIES For Young And Old By Julia A. Shelhamer, God's Bible School and College, Cincinnati, Ohio. No Date

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