Billy Graham Center
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From Collection 501, T1
From Collection 501. Beverly (Pannell) Yates describes how, as a teenager growing up in Sturgis, Michigan, she gave her life to Christ.
ERICKSEN: Now, how did you come to know the Lord:
YATES: Well, it a process of having been taught the Word [the Bible] If you know anything about Plymouth Assemblies, you have to learn [stresses "learn] the Word. And we memorized Scripture. Our Sunday school teachers from time to time encouraged use to accept the Lord. Around about thirteen I got baptized with a group of kids because I thought that was the thing to do. But I realized later on that I really had not accepted Christ as my savior. One night (I think I was sixteen)...B. M. Nottage was a black minister from Detroit, came to Sturgis. He came about once or twice a year to our chapel. He spoke on Romans 8:28 that night and I was really convicted as I had never been before. I...one of my Sunday teachers turned to me (she was sitting in front of me) and she turned to me and asked me if I had ever accepted the Lord as my savior. And I told her yes, I had. But I knew in my heart I hadn't. And it kept bothering me, you know, just really convicting me. And my mother...that whole scenario of seeing her in the hospital, of knowing that she had accepted the Lord, Bill [her brother] had accepted the Lord and what was I going to do? Because I wanted to be a singer, I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to do all these things. And I didn't think I could do that and be saved because [laughs] all the saved people I knew were prim and proper and family people and I didn't just want to be stuck in a home in Sturgis. I didn't want to stay in Sturgis. And I thought if I accepted the Lord, maybe I'd have to serve the Lord there. You know, it was a very narrow vision of what I thought God was going to do with my life. But I just could not get out from under God's conviction and I remember getting down in my bedroom one night, just accepting the Lord. "Lord, okay Lord. I give up. Whatever you want. I need to know that I am saved." So I accepted the Lord.