Faith That Carried Him Through

I sat down with one of our guest writers, Neil Allen. We were in my office, with cats vying for our undivided attention, talking about faith, loss, and the moments that shaped why he believes. 

I asked him to think back on his life. Was there something God had done in his life that was inexplicable, something that made him believe?

Stifling a grin.

He started by telling me how, as a kid, he hated church and Sunday school. I can honestly say I didn’t know that about him, but it is fitting. He told me, “But I read Bible storybooks all day, and my mom made me watch Billy Graham on TV, and I was the holiest kid out there listening to him.”

“I knew I wasn’t saved yet, but I knew I would be.”

When he got older, he told me about a moment when he decided at the last second to stay home, feeling sorry for his parents because they would not have been able to get all the work done on the family farm. Looking back, he could see God’s hand in that decision.

Spending time working alongside his mother every day, he began to notice something about her that was different. He told me one day a realization hit him.

“You’re a Christian.”

“But I never said that to her,” he admitted. “And I never told her that the reason I hated church as a kid was because God gave me a Bible verse when I was in grade school. ‘They worship me, but their lips are far from me.’ I was never to tell her that.”

Years later, he told me, he was listening to Kenneth Copeland on tape. (“he’s a heretic, by the way.”) Neil wanted to clarify to me, and he prayed Romans 10:8 and 10:9 with everything in his heart.

He said he suddenly felt a change, a giant whoosh from head to toe, and thought to himself, “What’s that?” “I’m saved!” 

He ran out to the machine shed to tell the tractors, then into the barn to tell the cows.

“I’m going to heaven when I die! I’m going to heaven when I die!”

The look on his face as he shared that moment was like watching the sun break through clouds and light up everything it touches.

We laughed, and I asked if it was something physical he felt. He gestured from his legs to his head. “You could actually feel it; it was an energizing wave.”

I asked him how old he was when this happened. He knew the exact date, even the day of the week. “I was 28. December 12th, 1979. A Wednesday.”

We talked about the ups and downs of faith, whether he had always grown or if he struggled. Looking back, he said his faith had always grown, and two lessons shaped that growth: never brag and always tithe. Those two lessons heavily cemented why he believes.

Then he went quiet.

I could tell he was thinking about something heavier, something I knew all too well. Neil is my father, and neither of us knew this part of the conversation would come up while talking about why he believes.

“When my wife was killed, it settled the question of whether I was saved or not between us.” (God and him) And it took her death to know that I was saved.”

He paused to collect himself.

“She had me convinced that I was a fraud and a fake, and that's the absolute truth.”

I had to pause before responding. This was something I didn’t know he had gone through. I asked if that was because of the years of abuse, what he, and all of us, had endured.

“Yes”

A few moments later, he continued.

He told me, “November 1st, 1995, my friend George and I finished roofing a big mansion west of Mosinee. On my way home, I said to God, ‘I can’t take this anymore.’”

He told me that the following spring, God revealed to him that she would be killed in a car accident. He didn’t believe it at first; he said honestly that he just “poo-pooed it.”

Then he talked about the week of July 4th, 1996. Nothing he did was right in her eyes. Everything was wrong according to her. 

He was trying to stop her from making a huge mistake. “It was like the grocery store we owned down in Arkansas all over again,” he said. “Monstrous mistake.” But she would not listen, and then she threatened him twice.

So he went back to God and asked, “How long is this going to last, Lord?”

He said he was given an exact answer: “three months and three weeks,” (seventeen weeks.) There are more details of what he was told that day that he chose not to share, and I did not press him for them. But he did say this.

“Everything God told me about it worked out right.”

We sat there in silence for a moment, just looking at each other. I knew what he had been through, the abuse, the fear, the pain. She put all of us through it. I do not blame my father. I have always made sure he knows that.

We often talk about what happened; it’s something he needs. There are just some things that only he and I can ever understand. I have spent years praying and supporting him as he processes the trauma, and I could not be prouder of the man and father he has become.

When we continued, he told me two things that left me speechless.

When the accident happened, he said the presence of God was so strong that the hair on his arms stood on end. He knew before I even had the chance to call him and tell him we had been in an accident.

And then he gestured to his ribs and chest. “I could feel it was empty, hollow in here.” 

He explained that in Genesis, God took Eve from Adam’s side. When he spoke with other Christians who had experienced similar abusive situations, and then the loss of that partner.

They also experienced a similar sensation. A hollowness, but not an empty one, like one would think, there was pain and hurt that were removed from his side and filled with God’s presence.

I stated, “He removed that damaged section from her.”

“Yes,” 

He took a deep breath, then said something even harder.

“I know I failed you and your sister terribly as a father,” he said.

I nodded yes, but I said but….

I told him, I didn’t blame him, nor was I angry with him. We were all abused by her, and that is something that takes a hell of a toll on a person and sometimes a lifetime to recover from.

I told him there was something he excelled at, and that he needed to hear and know this.

He is why my sister and I are believers, and why his grandchildren are believers. 

That despite everything that happened when I was younger, I looked to him for guidance in God, not her abuse of the Bible. He was always my solid, unwavering anchor.

And as I grew up and started exploring my faith on my own, he kept me in the right direction; he was my compass to God.

“If I could do it all over, I would have gotten you both counseling. I thought counseling was bullcrap back then. I know I’ll be the one to answer to God for what happened, the failed marriage, the failed family, not your mother.”

I told him his slate is clean. He is forgiven and loved by God and me. And that one day we will see her again, and yes, to those reading, we do believe we will. There is more to Neil and my story than can be told here.

Only God could heal us to the great extent we are healed, that allow us to forgive and have such an open, honest, and loving conversation about what we went through, when the world teaches hate, holding onto grudges, and revenge.

My father’s forgiveness and faith, through everything he has endured, come from God’s love, mercy, and constant presence in his life.

He is the kind of man who will drive an hour to sit down with a stranger over coffee and talk about God for hours. He will drop everything to be at your side. He will answer his phone at 3 in the morning for prayer, and he is part of more prayer chains than I can count.

Statistically, neither of us should be the believers we are today, after what we went through at the hands of someone who used the Bible to abuse and manipulate.

But that is the power of God.

Hold onto Him, and He will carry you through anything.

My father believes because he has seen God’s hand at work in real time.

© 2026 Neil Allen. Want more content like this? Explore more articles in the Why We Believe  series.