Epilogue
Emerson wrote that men are what their mothers made them, and undoubtedly Ruth Lane Osborn was for many years the strongest influence in Michael's life. To him she was a beautiful woman who was doing her best in an unfair and unequal world. He loved her dearly, appreciated her, and felt sorry for her. Every time he or his brother took part in a high school wrestling match or track meet or football game, she was there. How she got off work he never knew. "She worked so hard," he says. "She sacrificed and sacrificed. She did all she could to be a mother and a father and a provider. I could see it. And sometimes Kent and I would try to clean up the house and do the dishes and put a cup of coffee on. Even as a little boy I would walk a mile to the bus stop to meet her with an umbrella. We were very close. We three were all we had in life. It was as if we joined hands together and said, 'No matter what, we're going to make it through.' "
But Michael also saw that his mother hindered herself because of a lack of self-confidence. He hated being poor. It seemed the rent was too high for her income, and the
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bill collectors were always coming around. In later years life became easier for Ruth. She became the "girl Friday" in the office of the Associated General Contractors in Eugene and was prominent in the "Women In Construction" organization, serving first as regional and then as national director. When colleges in the Pacific Northwest held "career days" for their students, Ruth would be invited to speak on the woman's role in construction. When the contractors association held a banquet, they would have Ruth address them. They liked her knowledge of the industry and they liked her humor.
Ruth was living near her mother in Eugene in the spring of 1970 when a letter arrived from Michael, addressed to his grandmother. He knew that Grandmother Ella had heartily disapproved of his earlier behavior and had blocked his effort to enroll at the University of Oregon by refusing a loan. This, however, was a missive of peace. He told her that he loved Jesus and had become a Christian, and he had to clear up his relationship with her. He also told her that, as her grandson, he was going to become the minister she had always wanted one of her own sons to be. He said that he loved her very much. Ruth and Kent sat listening to Ella as she read the letter to them, and they couldn't believe it. When Ella finished and remarked, "Isn't that beautiful?" they thought otherwise.
"It's just another thing," said Ruth. "He's gone crazy on some new subject."
"She's right," agreed Kent. "It's another cult."
"I think it's disgusting," added Ruth. "I liked him better when he was into the flying saucers. That was exciting."
What bothered Ruth most were the memories Michael's letter aroused in her. Twenty times she must have gone to the altar as a child, attending Nazarene revivals in the Dakotas. "My guilty conscience sent me up. Even if I didn't have anything to be guilty about, I still went," she explained
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to Michael. She knew that for more than half a century her mother had been praying for her, and she resented it.
In the early spring of 1971, Ruth was astonished to receive an engraved invitation to the second wedding of Sandra and Michael. She couldn't believe it. Again the reaction: "Mike is crazy!" She couldn't imagine why he would make a second run at it when the first one had failed. It was certainly something she would never have attempted. So it was one of those things, and the ceremony in Costa Mesa's Calvary Chapel went off without the mother of the bridegroom being present.
Two months later Michael tried again and invited his mother to take her first look at her grandson, who was now two years old. The little boy was named not only after her firstborn, Michael's half-brother David, but also after her own father. This time she couldn't resist, and took a week's vacation from work and flew south. While she was visiting the family, Michael invited her to Calvary Chapel to hear Chuck Smith at the Sunday morning service. She expected Chuck to appear wearing an iridescent, shiny suit and pointy-toed shoes. Standard gear, she thought, for ripping off a bunch of kids. When she took her seat, she found him in shiny clothes all right — a blue serge suit he had been wearing, it seemed, for about twenty-five years. He also seemed to have humility, and another quality she could not define. She listened to him.
The next day Michael asked her to accompany him to a Christian commune where he was to conduct a Bible study. But when she observed him going out the door barefoot, in jeans and T-shirt and carrying a Bible, she decided the evening would not be too illuminating. This boy has a few things to learn about public speaking, she thought. I'll have a word with him afterward. Then the music began, and they sang songs that they knew
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and she didn't. After a while Michael began to teach. His lesson was from Paul's letter to the Philippians. She looked around at the rapt expressions on the faces of the young men and women. Then she watched her son and was amazed to see a kind of glow on his face as he talked about the love of Jesus. She didn't think he knew the Bible at all, but he did. He clearly knew what he was talking about, and he held her spellbound. She looked at him, looked around at those kids, and whispered a prayer, "Lord, I don't know what he's got, but that's what I want!"
It was the turning point in her life. She was fifty-eight years old, and spiritually she had been her mother's despair most of that time, but now her hour had struck. She knew thoroughly what she had to do — she had gone through it enough times as a child. Before she retired that night, Michael came into her room and asked if he could pray with her. "That's neat," she said. But for the first time in a long while she cried. And after her son left, she made her peace with God and turned her life over to Jesus. It was a firm and permanent commitment.
But she didn't tell her mother, and she didn't tell Michael. As she later told Michael, "The old, wretched, phony pride that was always getting in the way of what I really wanted to do and be was hard to break." Only after she returned to Oregon did she call Michael on the telephone and tell him that she had taken Christ into her heart forever and now wanted to live a truly Christian life.
Michael's reply stayed with her: "Mom, I knew it all the time!"
Eventually Ella learned what had happened to her daughter, not verbally, but by her actions. Ruth began to pray with her. And when Ella ended her pilgrimage in 1972 at the age of eighty-two, Michael flew north to conduct her funeral, it being his first. He also found a church
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where he felt his mother would be welcomed and feel at home. She united with the church and worshiped there until she retired and moved to San Diego, where she became active in organizing women's intercessory prayer groups and helping in the office at Horizon Christian Fellowship.
Ruth Osborn's hair is white now, but her vitality is undiminished and her chuckle is as catching as ever. As for her Christian testimony, it remains virtually what it was back in 1971: "As soon as I saw what the Lord did for Mike, that was for me." But her spirit has been taken over by a greater Spirit, and God has made the difference. "When I sit in church and listen to Mike's preaching," she says, "he is not my son; he is my pastor. I don't take any credit for that. It belongs to the Lord."
