I was born in Malvern, one of the poorer suburbs of Johannesburg, where I also received my primary and secondary school education. I wasn't a particularly happy kid. However, my forlorn and cheerless disposition was something I never could or would attribute to an unhappy family upbringing. On the contrary, my sister and I grew up in an environment where love, much laughter and singing (my father had a beautiful tenor voice) flourished in our household. My father, although very strict, was a man who worked very hard and left no stone unturned to provide for his family as best he could. My mother was a very frail, tender and compassionate woman who loved her husband and children very dearly. She was a very kind and good woman who was always ready to help others in their need. She often made soup for our neighbors during their convalescence after an operation.
Despite all the love, laughter, tenderness and fine family upbringing none of us were saved. Although my parents were determined that my sister and I regularly attend Sunday school and church services they never accompanied us. I couldn't understand why they made no effort to go to church with us and once I even tried to encourage my father to lead our family in regular Bible study and prayer. He was sitting in the lounge when I approached him with my Bible in hand, saying, "Father, perhaps we should start reading the Bible and pray together as a family. I read somewhere in my Bible that God is capable of helping us to overcome our problems." At that stage we had some financial difficulties that caused a lot of nervous tension in our home. What followed next shocked me very deeply, because I saw something in my father I'd never noticed before. He roughly dismissed my proposal, saying, "Take your Bible and get out! I am not interested!" My effort to encourage our family to set up a prayer and Bible altar at home wasn't prompted by a hunger for God. In fact, I wasn't even saved then. My enthusiasm was propelled by a religious complacency which my regular church attendances established in my heart. I really began to think that my religion put me in a right relationship with God. I heard the Gospel preached every Sunday and yet no one in our church, neither the pastor and elders nor the deacons, told me that I needed to repent in order to be saved. The pastor preached to his congregation as if everyone was already saved.
My religious complacency was shaken when I attended a film show at our church one evening. I cannot recall what it was all about, but remember that it made such an impact on me that I cried uncontrollably while walking the ±5 km back home. My parents had already retired to their room when I arrived and called out to them down the corridor, "night dad, night mom" and immediately went to bed because I didn't want them to see I had been crying. But I couldn't sleep. I kept on repeating over and over through my tears, "God is with me . . . God is with me." Days, weeks and months passed without any change in my life. I remained an unhappy and cheerless child who had not yet received a solid assurance of salvation. At the age of sixteen during the foregoing preparation for my confirmation at our church, every aspirant member was taken into a private room and asked, "Are you saved?" When my turn came I recorded my experience during the night of the film show and maintained that I believed that I was saved then, but deep down inside of me I knew that I was not. I was too afraid they might refuse me membership of my church and rigidly stuck to my testimony.
Two years later, at the age of eighteen, I wrote my matric and was fortunate enough to be granted a bursary for further studies at an higher institution. My new found freedom, as I interpreted it then, became the stepping stone for all kinds of foolish things that most students do when they go to college or university. Although I was an ardent student, my life began to spiral deeper into a pit of miserable discontent. I finally managed to obtain my degree, retuned to Johannesburg and got a job. I also got married during that time.
I was about twenty-five years of age when news reached me one day that my sister had cancer of the uterus. She had become pregnant and fainted during a check-up in her doctor's consulting room. Emergency surgery was performed on her but she was given only a few months to live. We were all devastated, but my mother was the one most affected. She began to drink valiums to steady her nerves but eventually contracted Parkinson's disease.
God had been working in my heart all along but it was during that time that I began to respond to Him. During a conversation with a dear neighbor friend of mine he must have seen how downhearted I was and said, "I know a man who can help you whenever you have problems." At first I thought he was joking because I doubted very strongly whether anyone would have been able to help me with my sister's or my family's problems. Nevertheless, he jotted down the man's address and only after about two weeks or so I decided to pay him a visit. I didn't even phone him to make an appointment and went to him one Sunday morning after church. A tall and friendly man opened the door and to my surprise I immediately felt at ease when he invited me to sit down. He asked me what the reason was for my visit, to which I answered that I would like him to pray for my sick sister. At first I thought he hadn't heard me because he ignored my question altogether. In stead, and to my utter surprise, he asked me, "How sure are you that you will go to heaven if you should die today?" I was dumbfounded and couldn't answer him immediately. I knew that if I said, yes I was sure, it would be a lie and he seemed to be someone who was able to detect a lie a mile away. I timidly answered that I had had no assurance of salvation. Then he began to open the Gospel of Jesus Christ for me in a way I had never heard before. I had heard the Gospel many times before, but it was never presented to me in such a personal and direct way, so much so that for the very first time in my life I understood that Jesus Christ died for me personally - for Tom Lessing. "What must I do to be saved?" I asked him. I put this question to him because I began to understand that it was not enough just to know that Jesus Christ died on the cross for me; I knew that my life had to change and I was completely at a loss in doing it myself. He handed me a tract called a "Sin List" and explained to me that it did not contain all the sins a person can possibly do, but only mentioned those that are most common amongst all people. He told me to seek out a quiet place where I could be alone with God and to confess my sins to Him one by one openly and honestly. I left with some kind of relief in my heart and yet still felt very despondent because he didn't pray for my sister (I later heard that he and his wife started praying for my sister's salvation soon after my visit).
A week passed without me seeking out a quiet place to be alone with the Lord, possibly because I was too busy during the week at my workplace, or because my sister's illness lay so heavily upon my heart. It was the following Sunday when my wife and two kids visited one of our neighbors that I took the "Sin List" and started reading it in earnest. While going through it the Holy Spirit convicted me that I was not only guilty of transgressing all God's laws through my sins but that I was lost and that I had no hope of entering His Kingdom unless I was born from above. He showed me that I needed to become a new creature. I realized that it was not only my sins that barred me from heaven but also God's incomprehensible and magnanimous holiness. I knelt down before our bed and began to plead for forgiveness for my sins, mentioning those that I was aware of one by one. I believed that He would forgive me, because He promised to do so if I asked Him. I prayed that He would fill my life with Himself and make me a new creature for His name's sake. I didn't pray very long and stood up after thanking Him for His great salvation on the cross of Calvary and for His precious blood He shed for me on the cross. A peace I cannot describe filled my heart and mind to overflowing. The overwhelming joy I experienced made me bubble over so much that I wanted to tell everyone what Jesus had done for me. I wrote a long letter to my parents who were in Cape Town at the time during my sister's operation, telling them of the great salvation God granted me in His great mercy and kindness. I also wrote my sister a letter. It was some time later that I was given an opportunity to fly over and visit my sister in hospital. I was in very high spirits then, thinking that I would use the opportunity to give her my testimony. I was deeply disappointed when she stopped me before I had even begun, saying," Don't tell me about God's love for me. My pain is unbearable." It broke me up inside and I never tried to speak to her about Jesus again until I saw her two years later on her deathbed. But God is never slack in His promises. He sent a young nurse who won my sister's confidence. She played the ukulele as an accompaniment for the beautiful religious songs she sang for my sister and used it as a testimony of God's great love and salvation He wrought for us on Calvary. I returned home trusting God to save my sister.
After her operation she was very brave and determined to fight her disease. Despite the excruciating pain she tried very hard to remain bright and vibrant for our sakes and especially my mother. She had a great sense of humor and was a real practical joker who liked to tease others. About two years later in December 1976, my parents phoned me very urgently asking me to book a flight as soon as possible because my sister was dying. I prayed that God would keep her alive until I had time to say goodbye. When I arrived in the hospital I was shocked to see her emaciated face and the frail frame of her body underneath the blankets. I asked to be left alone with her for a little while. Oh, how I wished and prayed that she would give me some testimony that God had saved her, but I didn't expect much because she was frequently injected with morphine. Then she started speaking and drew my attention to a picture hanging on the wall opposite her bed. It was a picture of a lane of beautiful tall trees. "Do you see that vineyard?" she asked me. I wanted to correct her but realized that it might spoil what she was about to tell me, "Yes, I do," I answered. At first I thought she was hallucinating because of the morphine shots she received, but she was fully conscious. She continued, "Do you see the low-hanging little branch" "Yes" I replied, "I can see it." "That's me . . . I am one of the lowest branches who has only recently been grafted in but I have already started to grow. I asked Jesus to spare my life a little longer so that I may tell others of His glory." I was overjoyed and thanked God for His wonderful mercies and loving-kindness. He didn't spare her life much longer and took her home on January 4th 1977.
Later I heard from someone else how she was saved. It was very late one evening when the hospital pastor said to his wife; "I don't know what to make of it, but I feel restless and compelled to visit Elise in hospital." He quickly got dressed and left for the hospital. When he arrived, she was sitting in her bed, wide awake and alert despite the heavy doses of morphine and pills the nurses gave her to keep her under sedation and to alleviate her pain. When the pastor entered her room she asked him, "How did you know that you had to come to me tonight" That night she had an Isaiah 1: 18 experience, coming to the Lord to receive by faith His wonderful salvation.
I can never thank God enough for His loving-kindness and unfathomable mercies, because He did not only save me and my sister. Both my parents were subsequently saved. They have since passed away and are now in heaven with Jesus.
To God be the glory and the honor for ever and ever.
Tom
PS. I am well aware that many do not take death-bed repentances very seriously. Although God is so wonderfully merciful and may sometimes grant sinners His salvation even on their death-beds (much like one of the scoundrels who were crucified with Jesus), no one should ever wager their lives on that possibility. Though I loathe any kind of sickness and the pain that often goes with it, I have seen how God can use it to reach sinners and save them for all eternity.
"For our light momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory - beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease! Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting." (1 Corinthians 4: 17, 18 from the Amplified Bible).
Written in December 2003