Mike Rushton, the youngest of three boys, grew up tough. His dad borrowed boxing gloves and taught his sons how to fight. \u201cWe were always told not to ever start a fight, but if we were involved in a fight we better not lose,\u201d he said. \u201cWe did not lose many fights.\u201d<\/p>\n
His father did not attend church, but Rushton\u2019s mother was a faithful Christian who made sure her sons went with her to worship on Sundays. When Rushton turned 13, he got a job working the late shift at a local caf\u00e9. His dad, who considered money to be more important, allowed his son to stop going to church.<\/p>\n
Rushton went to work at a cotton mill when he was 16. \u201cDuring those years I believed there was a God,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I didn\u2019t have any place in my life for Him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The teenager became disillusioned about Christianity when he had a heated exchange with his former fourth-grade Sunday school teacher, who worked at the cotton mill.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been cussed out before, but I don\u2019t believe any worse than she did,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThat had an impact on my life, and I remember it like it happened yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rushton began to believe there wasn\u2019t any difference in his life and that of someone who claimed to be a Christian.<\/p>\n
From there, his life began to spiral out of control. He was in jail several times, and \u201cevery time, alcohol was involved,\u201d he said. \u201cI have seen men shot, cut, beat and killed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rushton was in the Army when he and Vickie, whom he had dated for several years, decided to get married. After his discharge from the military, they moved to Newberry, S.C., where he again worked in a mill.<\/p>\n
Vickie had been raised in church but had stopped going. When the couple\u2019s twin daughters were born she started going again, but Rushton would not go with her. When their daughter Misty, then 4, was not healed of a skin condition, psoriasis, Rushton decided to become an atheist.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I heard people talk about Jesus Christ,\u201d he said, \u201cI would tell them they were crazy, that people who believe in God are weak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vickie would sometimes invite her pastor to the house on Sunday afternoons to visit Rushton. But this only angered her husband.<\/p>\n
\u201cI finally had enough and told the preacher that if he ever came to my house again, I would whip him,\u201d Rushton said. He told his wife not to take the children to church if they did not want to go. Eventually, Vickie stopped attending services.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Rushton began doing landscaping work — and business was booming. One evening, he covered the couple\u2019s bed with $100 bills.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told Vickie that she used to talk to me about God and Jesus, but this was what was important to me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The following week, Rushton was working in a Baptist preacher\u2019s yard when a tree rolled onto him and broke his back. The night before his surgery, Rushton prayed, \u201cGod, if You are real, I want You to come through this window and take me out of my misery. I don\u2019t want to live like this.\u201d<\/p>\n
At that moment, \u201cJesus Christ came into my heart, and I had a feeling of peace I had never had before,\u201d he said. \u201cI went from being a man who could do anything I wanted to someone who could not even take care of his basic needs. God had broken me, and He started rebuilding me into the person He wanted me to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next morning, Rushton shared with his wife what had happened, and they prayed together. The preacher whom Rushton had threatened to whip visited him in the hospital and later started teaching him how to study the Bible and to pray.<\/p>\n
After recovering from surgery, Rushton went back to work. \u201cI knew God did not want to handicap me,\u201d he says. \u201cHe just wanted to get my attention and change my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since then, Rushton has led an active lifestyle, going skydiving even running a marathon. He ran for city council in 1990 and won and later was appointed magistrate.<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine that,\u201d he said with a laugh, \u201csomeone who went from being put into jail to being able to put people in jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 2007 the couple retired and moved to Pickens, where they are faithful members of Pickens First Baptist Church.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people tell me that God did not break my back, that He would never do anything like that,\u201d Rushton said. \u201cI know God broke my back to save me from going to hell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am carrying a lot of scars from my former way of life. I have served Satan, and I have served God. Believe me, life is a lot better serving God.\u201d<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Rudy Gray is editor of The Baptist Courier, newsjournal of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, where this article first appeared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mike Rushton, the youngest of three boys, grew up tough. His dad borrowed boxing gloves and taught his sons how to fight. \u201cWe were always told not to ever start a fight, but if we were involved in a fight we better not lose,\u201d he said. \u201cWe did not lose many fights.\u201d His father did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[654,58,1134,3100,391,518,81,519,1082,446,1696,2535,776,4747,4748,520,191],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}