Frieda Hardin (98) and Charlie Johnson (98) on November 13, 1994. Livermore Veterans Nursing Home, Livermore, California.

Frieda, Steven, and Charlie.

I am very thankful to the Lord for the blessing that was mine in meeting Frieda and Charlie. I would visit the Livermore Veterans Nursing Home in Livermore, California, between morning and evening church services almost every Sunday during my years in college and before I was married to my dear wife Alison. Of particular blessing was meeting Christians in the later part of their lives. They were hidden away precious stones. A real treasure to find, that lives with me to this day.

Frieda Mae Green Hardin

I knew her as Frieda Hardin. She was so active at the nursing home. I met her when she was 98 and she was very ambulatory, visiting many of her fellow residents. She would frequently say that we need one another and the passage of Scripture that she would frequently quote was Isaiah 55:10-11 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bear and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”

It was her favorite text of Scripture and every time I read that passage I hear her voice! Do not underestimate your own witness when you are in your latter years or in some depressing place. Write the Word of God on your heart and give testimony to the truth of God’s Word, as Frieda Hardin did!

Frieda was also a person of history. Here is her page at Wikipedia. At one time she was “oldest female veteran in the U.S.” To me she was a dear sister in the Lord and we had many times of blessed fellowship together. After being away for about a year, due to marriage and being relocated to Sacramento, I brought my wife Alison to meet her. I never saw her again as we moved to Australia in 1998. Frieda Hardin passed away on August 9, 2000 (aged 103). Years earlier Frieda introduced me to one of most influential people in my life and I am so thankful that she did.

In my visits to the nursing home, Frieda would often mention to me of another World War One veteran that I should meet. For whatever reason it was a few Sundays before I met him. His name was Charlie Johnson and I only met him a few months before he died, but the impact on my life has been one of the most amazing of all. One day she took me upstairs to meet a truly dear brother in the Lord. He was hidden away where no one saw him.

Charlie Johnson

I followed Frieda into Charlie’s room and by all outward appearances things did not look too encouraging. It was dark in the room as the lights were off and the curtains were closed. Charlie lay flat on his back with his mouth open and a wash cloth on his brow. He did not look alive.

To Frieda this was a familiar scene. Undeterred, she promptly woke him up. As I sat down beside Charlie’s bed he sat up without using his arms, demonstrating a strong core. It was now me who was found with a mouth open. Charlie Johnson was full of God’s Word. The number one impression upon me in meeting Charlie Johnson was that I wanted to be like him in my old age, at the end of my days.

Like Frieda, he also was 98 years old and a World War One veteran. There was a single photo at his bedside of the Navy ship that he was on during the war. The ship was really surprising because it was a Sail-and-Steam Ship. The photo showed the ship stuck in ice in the Bering Strait, which also left an impression of the difficulties Charlie had known in his youth. Charlie worked down in the boiler room and after the war he worked at an oil refinery.

He had the look of a man who had been very strong in body during his youth and his character impressed me of a lost generation of great men of the faith. His wife had died 30 years earlier and his only child, a boy, died at the age of 7. He knew pain and suffering and he would repeatedly say to me, “Oh, Steven, why does the Lord delay in keeping me here?” He was a man of sorrow, but at the same time, displaying the brilliant light of the Holy Scriptures. I really believe it was for my benefit, for he lived only a few more months and he left such an impression on me.

He would quote the Scriptures to me at length. I never saw his bible, now that I think of it! I loved it when he would quote Psalm 71:18 ‘And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to all who are to come.’

Wow! It was something more than just saying a text of Scripture – it was his. He spoke the Word of God from a source within his own soul. His soul and the Word of God were inexorably intertwined.

Charlie demonstrated to me, like no other person I have ever met, of the most important of all necessities of implanting the Word of God within us. He was full of the Scriptures. His depth of character, his life-long trail of trials, joined with a rich knowledge of God’s Word, was presented before me as a powerful testimony of what life was all about. Though he was bedridden his testimony reached beyond the confines of his room. I would share my experiences of him with the Christians at my church and his earnestness was so invasive, though they only had my testimony of it.

My pastor mentioned him in a Sunday morning message, again, though he had not personally met him, but was so moved by the testimony of the man’s love and faithfulness to the Word. It was Sunday, December 25, 1994. Both a Christmas morning and a Sunday morning. While my pastor was testifying of Charlie’s faith in Jesus, to the encouragement of God’s people, the angels of the Lord took Charlie into glory, that very morning. God amplifies our testimony. For Charlie, it was the testimony of being a man of God’s Word amplified in a testimony to a congregation of the Lord on earth as he went to meet his Lord and Savior in heaven.

Do not underestimate your own witness, especially when things are not looking very encouraging. I am convinced that numerous generations of faithful Christians, like Frieda and Charlie, have impacted those around them. Be full of God’s Word and give your own testimony. Write God’s Word upon your heart and testify of God’s strength to your generation, His power to all who are to come!