Tim Tebow Chooses Christ at Six

The rooster had already gone quiet when I stepped out the back door with a bucket of feed. Bob was already down by the coop, his two older boys trailing him with pails, their voices carrying across the damp grass. I had come to help for a few weeks while the family sorted through some mission paperwork, and the mornings always started the same way, the smell of wet pine and chicken manure hanging low.

I heard the screen door slap shut harder than usual. Pam stood on the porch in her robe, one hand on the rail, the other guiding the youngest boy by the shoulder. Tim was still in his pajamas, feet bare on the boards. He kept looking back at the house like something might follow him out.

Pam knelt right there on the porch. I could see her lips moving but not hear the words. Tim dropped to his knees beside her, small hands clasped tight against the wood. The light was just starting to cut through the trees, thin and gray.

Bob straightened up from the coop when he noticed them. He wiped his hands on his jeans and started walking back toward the house, the boys falling in behind. Nobody called out. They just came.

When Bob reached the steps, Pam looked up and nodded once. Tim stayed on his knees a moment longer, then stood. His face was blotchy from crying, but he was not hiding it. Bob pulled him into his chest without a word. The older boys watched from the bottom step, quiet.

Later, inside, Pam told me what had happened in the night. Tim had lain awake staring at the ceiling, the fear of dying without knowing where he would go pressing down until he could not stay in bed. He had run straight to her instead of waiting for his father to finish the chores. She said he told her he finally understood he needed saving and could not wait another hour.

They had prayed on the couch in the front room, Tim’s knees on the cushion, Pam’s hand on his back. He asked Jesus to come in, to forgive him, to make him a child of God. When they finished, he looked at her and said he knew something had changed, that he had stepped out of one place and into another.

Bob came through the door then, still smelling of the barn. He listened, eyes wet, then lifted Tim off the floor in one motion. The whole room felt lighter for a minute, the way a house does after a storm passes and the windows are opened.

They decided on the spot to drive to Epcot. It was not a long discussion. Pam packed sandwiches while Bob changed his shirt. Tim sat on the arm of the couch, swinging his legs, already talking about which pavilion he wanted to see first. The older boys teased him gently about being the reason for the trip.