By Chanel Bingham

Growing up, Mitchell Fields had very little to do with the church.

As a young boy and into adulthood, faith was never a priority. Mitchell just wasn’t convinced there was a God, and he certainly wasn’t convinced that he was in desperate need of a savior. In fact, the closest he ever got to a church was to ride his motorcycle up to a pretty lady standing outside the church doors to ask her on a date.

That pretty lady said yes to the date and eventually accepted his marriage proposal.

As Janet and Mitchell Fields began their life together in West Virginia, Janet would attend church off and on without Mitchell. This went on for years, and it wasn’t until they moved to Jemison nearly 18 years ago that Janet began to attend church regularly at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church.

Still, Mitchell refused to attend church with his wife.

“She would always ask me to go to church, and I told her that I didn’t want anything to do with her religion,” Fields said.

Even when Janet accepted Christ as Savior, Mitchell refused to attend her baptism.

“I didn’t care if she was a Christian, but I didn’t want anything to do with it,” he said. “I didn’t even go to my granddaughter’s baptism.”

Then, on Easter Sunday of 2014, Mitchell had a change of heart.

“Janet kept on asking me to go to church, and I figured that if I went with her, then she would quit bugging me,” Fields said. “So I went, and the people made me feel as if I had been going to church there all my life. I kind of enjoyed it, so she didn’t have to ask me to go to church anymore. I kept going; but, I still wasn’t convinced.

Although still unsure of matters of faith, Fields consistently attended church with his wife over the next couple of years. However, he admits that the more he went the more he began to believe in it.

“It all came to a head for me one Friday morning when my wife told me she had a wonderful dream about me. She said that she had dreamed that I got saved and found God,” Fields said. “I never said anything and turned away, but I thought about it all day Friday and all day Saturday. When I got up Sunday morning for church, I had an odd feeling, but I still didn’t know what was going to happen.”

As it turned out, that Sunday morning was the first day of revival at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church, and both Pastor Billy Wyatt and special guest speaker Jared Pilkerton shared a special message that day. Fields said God used the combination of their messages to bring him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

“After they got through preaching, I went to the altar. Janet went with me, and a really good friend that we passed in the aisle got up and came down with me. Bro. Billy led me in the prayer of salvation, and I was saved that day, and then I was baptized.”

Along with the messages shared by Wyatt and Pilkerton, Fields thanks God for people who prayed for him long before he became a Christian.

“There were lots of people who were praying for me that I had no idea were praying,” he said. “Many people came up to me after I was saved and hugged me and said they had been praying all this time. And I had friends back home that I grew up with and who I worked with in the coal mines who had been praying for me, and I didn’t know it.”

Mitchell’s wife Janet said she can see changes in his life since his salvation.

“He has more patience, he doesn’t worry as much and he has joy,” she said.

“I’m a completely different person,” Fields said. “I’m 68 years old, and I’ve come to realize that it doesn’t matter how old you are; whether you are a week old or 100 years old, God will find you. I never dreamed that I would be a Christian, but I’m sure glad I’ve changed.”

“Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’” Luke 9:60

Chanel Bingham is a freelance writer, blogger and public speaker. She resides in Thorsby with her husband and four children. You can visit Chanel at www.thepolishedcanvas.com or on Facebook at “The Polished Canvas.” Her column publishes each week.