“I will NEVER go to a Baptist church!” he spat out, exasperated.

This was how many conversations between my father and mother, Mike and Eloise Vogel, seemed to end up. They had been married for almost 10 years, and with two young boys and a baby on the way, my mom was trying harder than ever to get through to him the importance of asking Jesus to come into his heart.

“I had given up,” she said. “I just prayed, ‘Please God, just let him be saved before he dies.’”

It was a desperate cry from her heart – that the man she loved and the father of her children would receive the gift of eternal life by asking Jesus to come into his heart and be the leader of his life.

But my father’s heart was hardened. For years, my mom toted my brothers, Bob and Jim, to church by herself while my dad stayed home and worked on the farm. He was fine with them going … but he had more important things to do. Church just wasn’t for him, and neither was God.

Fast forward to Aug. 6, 1990, the day I was born. My parents had been hoping for a girl, especially my dad, but those were the days before ultrasounds that could accurately detect gender. When my dad heard that he finally had a daughter, he leapt up in the hospital hallway and shouted, “It’s a girl!”

That was the beginning of the softening. God had given him something magnificent – a complete family, a devoted wife, two strong sons and a precious daughter. But it still wasn’t enough to crack the shell that still barricaded his heart.

That moment would come a few months later when Grandma Barbara Vogel’s heart nearly stopped beating. My mom was watching 2-month-old me when my dad burst in and told her, “Mom’s had a heart attack!” My mom was able to successfully give her CPR to keep her stable until the ambulance came. Miraculously, she would make a full recovery and go on to live another 30+ years.

“When my mom almost died … Pastor Gene and (his wife) Belinda came every day to see her,” my dad remembers, speaking of the pastor at my mom’s church. “They really helped me understand why I needed God in my life.”

After Grandma’s close call, my dad began to have vivid dreams about God. Although he can’t remember many details, the dreams left quite an impression on him. It was just one way that God was pursuing his heart. The change didn’t happen immediately, rather it took time to sink in.

Then, a few days before Palm Sunday 1991 – a breakthrough came. My mom recalls, “I was working in the office when he came in and said, ‘You know that thing you’ve been wanting me to do? I want to do that now.’”

At that moment, my mom and dad prayed together, and he finally asked the most important question anyone can ask – “Jesus, I’m sorry I’ve sinned. Will you please come into my heart?”

On Palm Sunday, my dad finally did what he vowed never to do – he went to church with his family. And when Pastor Gene gave an altar call, my dad came forward. The pastor put his hand on my dad’s shoulder and asked the congregation, “How many of you have been praying for this young man?”

Almost every hand went up.

One week later, on Easter Sunday, my dad made a public declaration of his newfound salvation when he was baptized at Hillsdale Southern Baptist Church. The moment my mom had given up on ever witnessing was happening right before her eyes – and on the celebration day of Jesus’ resurrection, no less!

“It really was a miracle,” my mom said years later. “If God can change Mike’s heart like he did, he can do it for anyone. It taught me to never give up and never stop praying for others.”

I hope this true story encourages you to keep praying for those who are lost in your inner circle. Today, my dad is one of the strongest Christian men I know, and although he’s not perfect, he is an excellent example of how a man should follow Jesus and care for his family. I’m so blessed to call him my dad. (And he calls me “Precious.”)

I know this wouldn’t have happened without all the prayers my mom sent up for him for so many years. Even though her head knew it was improbable, she kept on pleading that the Holy Spirit would break through in his hardened heart. He did all that and more than she ever imagined. What a miracle indeed.

Thank God for the ones who never give up on us, following the example of God himself, who will never give up on us either.

If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them wanders away, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others on the hills and go out to search for the one that is lost? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he will rejoice over it more than over the ninety-nine that didn’t wander away.
— Matthew 18:12