James Dobson shares the testimony of his paternal grandmother Juanita Dobson. She was married to a man’s man, a six-foot-four-inch railroad conductor. He had never been physically ill in his life, going to work every day and giving a hard day’s work. He was ill but did not know it. He had the worst kind of illness—the deadly spiritual kind. He let Juanita go to church and participate in the activities there, but he never went and did not want anyone to try to get him to go. He was as good and moral as anyone else and saw nothing he needed at the church.
Juanita knew what he needed. She never said anything to her beloved husband. She simply prayed. Every day she prayed. Regularly, she fasted and prayed for her husband’s salvation. She saw no evidence of change. Nothing gave her reason to think her prayers were being answered. Still, she prayed.
Decades passed. At age 69, he still showed no signs of listening to God. Then strokes felled him. He became partially paralyzed and bedfast. He was devastated. One afternoon, his daughter carried out her daily ritual of straightening the bed, giving him his medicines, and seeing what else she could do to cheer him or comfort him. Suddenly, she realized he was crying. No one ever remembered seeing a teardrop run down that leathery cheek before. Gulping down her shock, she bent over the bed and asked, “Daddy, what’s wrong?”
“Honey, go get your mother,” he replied.
The faithful Juanita ran up the stairs as fast as her aging legs would carry her. She took his outstretched hand and heard him say, “I know I am going to die, and I am not afraid of death. But it is so dark. Will you pray for me?”
Words she had waited forty years to hear! She called to heaven for her husband. He accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior. Her heart sang, joining the heavenly chorus in rejoicing over a lost sinner who was saved. Two weeks later he died, saying what Jesus meant to him. Later his devoted prayer-champion wife joined him in heaven, where he was because she never gave up in her dedication to seeking the lost (Dobson, When God Doesn’t Make Sense, 205–206).