My Life

Above is a picture of me as a 5th grade teacher. I taught mostly at Upland Christian School and Bloomington Christian School. (California)

This is a poem that my father wrote. He also did the painting. He passed away when he was only 49 years old from hardening of the arteries. He was a wonderful Christian man who made a huge impact on everyone who knew him. He taught 8th grade in Baldwin Park, California for many years. He also  preached at many churches throughout California on Sundays. For many years he was the preacher at the Church of Christ in Corona, California.

I'm second from the right. I ran track on a scholarship at Lubbock Christian College.

This was me, drawing stuff in a Bible class in Abilene. For a brief time taught a Bible class at Highland Chruch of Christ in Abilene.

Stacey and I got married on July 3rd, 1977 in Abilene. I'll never forget how much she did for me. She took a wandering fool and made me into someone who had a reason to live.

My Life - Terry Hester

The journey that we make through our lifetime is full of joys and sorrow, of hopes and dreams, of excitement and disappointment. And sometimes just cold hard realities that hit us like a freight train. For me, most of the drama  that went on in my life was played out on the inside. I rarely faced overwhelming hurdles from without. I had a supportive family. Supportive friends. And most of all, a supportive God. But for me, the real battle was within, dealing with my feelings, dealing with my passions and  dealing with my fears. Learning self control and learning to do the right thing, no matter what. 

I was very fortunate to have been born into a rather idialic family. My mother came from a very strong Christian family. My grandmother on my mother’s side was the source of the spiritual momentum in our family. She had about half a dozen brothers and almost all of them became preachers in the church of Christ. So yes, the church of Christ is my church roots. 

My father was not raised in a “church going” family. But they were good hard working people. The Hester’s were poor. Right out of “Grapes of Wrath”, my father hitch-hiked from Oklahoma with his father to California looking for a better life. My mother’s family did the same, (out of Arkansas) but they were not quite as poor. Both families arrived in California around 1937 and took work on the “Limoneira Ranch” (a citrus packing ranch) in Santa Paula.

My parents met on that lemon packing ranch. My mother  took my father to church and taught him the gospel. My mother tells the story of one of the first times my father was in a Bible class. Out loud, he asked what page the scripture was at that was going to be read. The others laughed because my dad didn’t know about chapters and verses. My mother was embarrassed and apologized to my dad later. But my dad said he didn’t mind. He wasn’t going to let anything stop him from learning God’s word.

My father took to his faith like a fish to water and grew quickly in his love for God and man. My father was a very bright light in this world. He had a very big heart for people and his Lord. My father died at only 49 years of age. I remember at his funeral in Pomona thinking that I had never seen so many people in that church building. Today, I look up to my father as a great Christian man with a big heart. It’s that “big heart” for God and others that I so want to emulate today. 

When I was about 3 years old we moved from Santa Barbara to Pomona. My father was a full time preacher at the time but within a few years he began teaching. 

However, he loved preaching and continued to preach on Sundays. For years we would drive from Pomona to Corona. My father preached in Corona for about seven years. 

I don’t remember much about the Corona years. My mother used to tell a funny story about me once from those days. “Sister Burton” was my Bible teacher. In those days Bible school teachers used things called “flannel boards” to tell Bible Stories. If you didn’t have all the right characters for the story you would improvise. So on the way home from church my mother asked me “What was your Bible lesson about?” I said, “It was about Adam and Eve… But it was just Betty Crocker and some old guy.”

I do remember one other thing about my Dad’s preaching in Corona. When he prayed at the pulpit, he would disappear. By that I mean he went down on his knees behind the pulpit. We don’t do that much at church anymore. I guess we’ve grown a little too self-conscious.

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe in God. Even in my adult years I never questioned God’s existence or the truth of the Bible. This was not a “blind faith”. I have always dug deeply into Christian apologetics and I am firmly convinced on the grounds of reason and logic that God is and that He is the God of the Bible. So I never experienced a “crisis of faith” as some do.

At some point we left Corona and began going to church in Pomona. As I approached my High School years, my father began preaching for churches in various places all around Southern California. My mother and father would 

drive off every Sunday morning and I would stay there and go to church at Pomona. The church was just a stone's throw from our house. I didn’t mind at all. I think it actually may have helped me to feel a sense of independence. 

When I was ten years old my Father asked me if I would like to have some pigeons. Little did he know where this would go. From that time on until after I went to college, I lived and breathed the hobby. One pigeon related memory I have makes me realize just how sensitive I was as a child and how strong my faith in God was. It also foreshadowed just how passionate I could be about things I cared for in the future. One night I found myself standing in my backyard holding a pigeon egg. I had been counting the days when it would hatch. Finally the day came and the unborn pigeon started to emerge. In my anxiousness, I tried to give him a little help. Little did I know that this would spell disaster. Blood started coming out of the broken shell and I could feel its life slipping away. I began crying and praying passionately, begging God to spare its life. In retrospect it was a preview of things to come in my life. I could get very worked up over things that I cared about. Sometimes that was good and sometimes it was bad. I had a lot to learn about how to control my emotions.

When I was 12  years old I decided it was time to get baptized. This is where I was so fortunate to have been raised in the church of Christ. One of things that is unique about the church of Christ is its view of the meaning of baptism. Unlike most churches, the church of Christ teaches that baptism is a strategic and essential part of becoming a Christian. If you read all of the passages in the New Testament about baptism you will find that it’s hard not to come to that conclusion.

Later, In my first year of college, I went through a phase of getting rebaptized. I know this happens to a lot of people but with me it was different. I really had no good reason to get baptized again. It was just a fear thing. I was afraid that if I didn’t quite understand everything perfectly or have just the right thought in my head at the time I was baptized I would be lost forever. It was sheer madness but it wouldn’t go away. I’m certain Satan was using this to try to derail me. One day I felt that out of desperation I would go get baptized again. I saw a flier for a gospel meeting across town. I walked there all afternoon. I knew it was a long walk but it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I actually looked at a map and figured it out. I had walked nine miles! Yea, I wanted to go to heaven pretty bad.

I guess you could say that I was something of a leader among the “young people” at Pomona in my teen years. The kids I ran around with though were really just a small group within the larger group. We had a whole orphanage of kids that came to our church. “Hillview Acres” in Chino was a ministry of the churches of Christ at that time. Many of those kids were my friends. Looking back, I think about how hard it must have been for them to have to live in an institution. I was especially close to one girl, Pam, who lived there. I remember driving her home from church at times and watching her walk into that big cold building. Why couldn’t she have a mom and dad and a nice home like me? Years later, Pam married a great Christian man and they had a wonderful family. I saw Pam one more time after we moved back to California. Her husband had passed away. How quickly our lives pass before us.

Back to my youth. Often, my friends would come over to our house after church since I lived so close to the church building. I remember spending a lot of time on Sunday evenings driving kids home. This usually meant spending a lot of time talking to the other kids. I would sometimes find myself counseling some of the kids. I think this all played a part in helping me grow in my faith. I realized that I could encourage others and be useful in God’s kingdom. 

Probably the biggest single factor in keeping me out of trouble and staying on track with my faith back then was the fact that my best friends were all from Church. I had other friends, especially in the pigeon clubs. But I never felt any peer pressure from my “non Christian” friends. My little circle of friends at church was all I needed. My best friend at church was Ken Vannoy. My mother had gone to college back east with Ken’s mother. So Ken and I went way back. Ken had a brother named John. John was very quiet. Ken, John and I loved music so we would often get together and play our guitars together. Ken and I talked about our faith in God at times. It was really good to have someone like that. Even just one good friend in your life that is a solid Christian can make all the difference. Ken and I have maintained our friendship through the years to this day. We both know how important our friendship has been to our spiritual survival.

I did have some problems with anger as a teen. It was rare, but it could be quite intense. One time I ran away from home for one night. Looking back, it makes me very sad to think what I put my parents through that night. This could have easily derailed my spiritual direction and my whole life, but by the grace of God I was able to overcome my anger issues. 

I grew up in the 60’s. For someone like me that loved music that represented some serious temptations. There were several rock and roll groups that played what I would call “dark” music. The lyrics were dark and so was the music itself. The Rolling Stones was one such group and the darkest of all was The Doors. It would have been easy for me to get sucked into this kind of music and it would have been very detrimental. That’s why I am thankful for groups like the Beatles, and so many others who produced lighter and more upbeat pop music. They were a great influence on me in a positive way. For example the Beatles sang,

“For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool

By making his world a little colder.”

I loved hearing something true and positive coming out of a great piece of music.

There is no way to overestimate the influence that the old Chrisitan hymns had on opening my heart to God. I have always been highly influenced by music and I know God used those old classic songs to soften my heart and hear the message of the Gospel. 

It was mainly my experiences in the church that helped me to grow spiritually in my teen years. I listened to the sermons and thought deeply on the message of the gospel. It was in those early years that I learned the basic ideas taught in the churches of Christ about what the church was. I learned that the Bible was a book that everyone could read and understand. I learned that the only true church in God’s eyes was the church we read about in the New Testament. 

Even though my church influences made a big difference in my upbringing I certainly had some big deficiencies.

I don’t want to sound like I’m trying to blame my parents, but both of my parents grew up in households where parents had a hard enough time just putting bread on the table. Kids learned the three R’s at school, and religion at church. They didn’t have time for a lot of one on one communication. So I didn’t get too much counseling from my parents. They just assumed that I would figure things out for myself. Well, I should have, but I was too busy listening to music and messing with my pigeons to learn all the stuff I would need to be prepared for college, let alone being independent.

I was a terrible student in High School. I was always daydreaming and drawing pictures at my desk. When I got home from school I just wanted to play my music or take care of my pigeons. Fortunately, I was very fast on my feet. As a sprinter I was number one in our league. If it wasn’t for a track scholarship I received, I may not have gone to college at all. 

So I went off to college with a lot of strikes against me. Pretty much all my own fault, but nonetheless real. I was indeed clueless about a lot of things. Especially how to study and how to solve problems carefully and methodically. I was very impetuous and I tended to run away from problems instead of facing them head on.

So as I’m getting ready to go off to college in Texas, my friend asked me what I was going to major in. I said, “Bible”. They asked me why.  I said something like, “It is the only thing I could think of that was worth doing.” Wow!, where did that come from? This was not the result of some long, well thought out decision making process. It just popped out! Impulsive me. But at least this time it was in a good direction. 

In spite of a long list of things I was lacking in as a young person, I did have a couple of things going my way. For one thing, I had a very outgoing personality. I think it came from my years of being sort of center stage among my friends at church. Much later in life I spoke with someone who knew me back in those days and they told me what they remembered about me. They said that I was just so passionate about what I did. 

Another thing that I feel good about in retrospect, is that I always recognized the value in people. I wanted to be friends with everyone. And I had no interest in climbing the social ladder. I never joined a social club in college. I always saw the good and the value in everyone. I would go out of my way to get to know students who were not popular or having difficulties. I would always try to befriend them. Even though I was an extravert for the most part, at times I was a bit of a loner myself. 

Something happened in my first year of college that had a big impact on my whole family. My father had many brothers but he was especially close to one, Bill.  Bill was my favorite uncle too. Bill worked for Air America in the Vietnam war. He flew very dangerous missions. My father 

had been talking to Bill about God and the Bible before he left for the far east. But Bill had not gotten baptized. 

Then one day while I was in my first year of college they got the call. Bill's plane, flying low, had run into a mountain. I know that Bill’s death must have been so  devastating to my father. How different all of our lives might have been if Bill had lived. My father may have even lived longer himself without that trauma.  Years later I got to sit down and talk to Danny, one of Bill's three boys. Danny was just a child when his father died. Danny told me how my father had reached out to him and his family after their father’s death. He said that my Dad had a “big heart”. I asked Danny, “Have you ever heard your father’s voice?” He said, “No”. Then I gave him a short recording I had preserved of my Dad talking to Bill, Danny’s father. He was glad to get it. My father’s “big heart” was something I was very proud of and wanted to emulate.

While going to college in Lubbock, I became engaged to a girl named Jana. Jana was still in High School and I was almost 20. 

I was really clueless back then about practical matters like how to work through problems and using good communication skills. I would start worrying about some silly things and instead of getting advice from others or calmly working through it, I would let it build up in my head and become a much bigger problem than it really was. 

In my second year of college I got engaged to a girl I met at church. She was in her last year of High School. Everything went well for several months. However, I had these mental hang ups that were destined to destroy our relationship. In a moment of fear and anxiety, I broke off our engagement. The night I broke up with Jana, I walked to my house on the other side of Lubbock, probably six or seven miles. It was late and it was dark. Suddenly a huge shooting star burned its way across the sky. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was a once in a lifetime sight. Later, when I thought about the life that I had just extinguished, I thought about what I had seen. And I thought about all that I had thrown away.

It took me a long time to get over that break up.I felt as though I had thrown my life away. I vividly remember waking up one morning, to the Nilsson song “I can’t live if living is without you…”. It was one of the  most emotionally painful moments I can remember having in my whole life. 

After that I went through a long lonely period as you can imagine. I knew I had to get smarter about the decisions I was making and the way I thought. (Or didn’t think!)  I'm not saying  I went around depressed all the time.  I was always an upbeat person.

But all the pain and loneliness also helped push me closer to God. One day in my little duplex I got an idea. I was always interested in using media as an evangelistic tool and in personal Christian development. So I merged a  recording of the Bible with a classical music record. I pretty much just randomly chose the music and the scriptures but the result was phenomenal ! I totally believe that God had a direct hand in the outcome. I had three recordings on the old reel to reel tapes. One was of the sermon on the mount. One was Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus in John chapter three. And one was the last few chapters in Revelation. 

With no planning on my part, the music seemed to synchronize with the music at every turn. It was amazing! It was as if the music had been written specifically for those scriptures. I listened to the recordings over and over for months. I listened so much that I later realized that I had basically memorized several chapters of scripture without even realizing it. Those scriptures went deep into my heart and mind. Looking back, I know that God was at work. It was a time of deep spiritual growth. 

In my last year at Lubbock Christian, I took a class in Hebrew. Hebrew is not considered an easy subject and language was not my thing. But for some reason I did pretty well in the class. Unlike many of the teachers I had had in the past, Dr. Kearly made me feel good about myself. I think this was a turning point for me. I mention this because I believe God knew I needed some confidence in my intellectual abilities if I was going to become a leader in the church.  

After Lubbock, I moved to Abilene. I would like to tell you that moving to Abilene was due to the call of higher education. But that’s not the case. I went to Abilene for one reason: to find a Christian wife. I could have stayed in California. But I knew my chances of finding a Christian wife were much better in Abilene.

I started taking some “post graduate” courses at ACU and as a result started meeting other students. Most of them though were several years younger than myself. But before long I had a group of college kids coming over to my little apartment on Houston street for a Bible study. It felt like old times in Pomona when I was the youth leader. One of the girls decided she wanted to get baptized. We took her to a local park where there was a little lake. I was going to baptize her so I stepped into the edge of the lake thinking it was shallow. I went straight down all the way under the water! So I got baptized that night too!  

I continued taking classes at the college. One of them was called, “Restoration History”.  In essence it was all about the history of the church of Christ. It was there that I met Stacey. Stacey sat behind me and we would talk. As I got to know Stacey I came to realize just what a spiritual woman she was. I realized that we had a lot in common and that she was fun and easy to be around. I also realized that she was really just what I needed. I was kind of moody and had a lot of loose ends. Stacey was like a rock and no matter how much I bounced around, she just kept being a rock! I told myself, “If you marry this girl, your chances of going to heaven go way up!” So, for me, marrying Stacey was partly a spiritual decision. I just knew how much I needed her stability and her spiritual qualities.

So after we got married we continued living in Abilene for a while and I decided to go back to school. I spent a year or so doing some graduate work and earned a degree in “Ministries and Evangelism”. Strangely enough, it was one of the few times my classes tied in with what I was really interested in doing.

So after college and marriage I began working as a youth minister. I loved working with young people. I was only in it for about five years, but it was for the most part a good fit. Fact is, I was really just a kid at heart myself. Of course that was a problem as well. One of the leaders at the church in Lexington Kentucky once told me that I was the best “one on one” person he had ever known but the worst when it came to organizational skills.  

He was right, all my life I had flown by the seat of my pants. As a sprouting youth minister in Pomona it was always just “Hey, what do you want to do?” I didn’t really know how to be organized and plan things. But my ability to talk to the kids and my love for them did make a difference. In some cases it made a big difference. I would do anything for the kids. A young lady named Wendy in Houston for example, had a lot of problems. I would stay up late talking to her on the phone. To this day I stay in touch with Wendy. She now has a wonderful family and works as a nurse in Mississippi. Yea!

Later, after moving back to California, my career goals would change and I became a teacher. I went back to college again, and got my teaching credential. But I ended up teaching at a private Christian school. Later, my teaching credential would prove valuable as I did a lot of substitute teaching in public schools.

In the private Christian schools I mostly taught 5th grade. These were good years. Except for my first year. Most teachers will tell you that’s the hardest. Anyway, I survived. 

I taught 5th grade both in Upland and in Bloomington. Along with the three R’s, we could also teach our students the Bible. This is what I loved about teaching in a Christian school. In some ways my hands were tied. I couldn’t just tell all the kids that they needed to be baptized! These were “fatih only” Christian schools run by “faith only” churches. So I decided, if I couldn’t talk to the kids directly about baptism, I could still try to teach them to understand that everything they believe and practice needs to be based on the Bible. None of my coworkers could argue with that! So I would bear down on this concept quite a bit. I think some of the kids actually tuned in.

In 2001 I attempted to make the transition from private to public school. I ended up in an intolerable situation. I was not really qualified to teach Algebra. I knew just enough algebra to be dangerous! But I took the job doing so in a public school in Fontana thinking that I could do what I did when I taught algebra in Upland: just stay one chapter ahead of the kids. But after I took the job I found out that they were in transition. They had no text book!  

Another major problem was discipline. These were not 5th graders. This was one of the toughest junior highs in the state. These kids were vicious!  And to top it off, I couldn’t get any support from the administration. Being in a classroom with highly disrespectful kids and no way to deal with it was something I just couldn’t deal with. All things combined, I ended up terminating the job without completing the school year. 

I didn’t know that eventually I would be happily back teaching in a Christian school again. To me it looked like the end of the world. I went into a major depression that off and on lasted for years. At times it was very bad. I never considered ending it all, but I know that there were a couple of times that I was very close to a breakdown of some kind. 

Every day I would go to what I called “my horse place”, after work. It was a big open horse ranch near our house in Fontana. There I would just look out across the big grassy fields and pray. This daily soul calming went on for years. Eventually, through prayer and a big remodeling project on our little cabin in the mountains, God got me out of that pit and returned me to my good old happy go lucky self.  

Our spiritual life got a big boost around 2008 when we started going to church in Anaheim Hills. For the first time in a long time Stacey and I both felt that we were a part of a very alive and loving church family. 

When we learned that Stacey had cancer in early 2018, I entered the most difficult 16 months of my life. The day the doctors told Stacey that they could offer her no hope was the most terrible day of my life. I had done a lot of praying in my life but now prayer was all we had. 

Throughout her time of suffering I did everything I could to lift her spirits even just a bit. But I just felt so helpless. I knew that I was going through the most important and critical time of my life. I knew I had to do everything I could all of the time. Each night I would massage her feet and back. We would try all kinds of drugs to deal with the cancer and the effects of chemo. Some things were helpful. But perhaps the most helpful thing was a little kitten that showed up one day. Stacey  loved that kitten and it was a great distraction for her for a long time. 

It was in the middle of all of this that I got some kind of virus myself. The doctors had to put me into an induced coma for almost a whole week. When I came out of it there was Stacey holding my hand with a big smile on her face. She was her old self again. No longer worrying about herself. Just happy that I made it through. The doctors were very surprised that I did. One big spiritual lesson I learned from that is that serving other people can change your whole mindset. It really is the best medicine.

I had an army of doctors while recovering. I want to mention one in particular. She was an older woman doctor from India. All the other doctors would come in and give me the facts or give me a pill. They were good doctors. They were doing their job. But the lady Indian doctor was different. She would quietly give me some useful information, but every time she left my room she would give me a big warm smile, lean over and kiss me on the forehead. I think I got more healing from those kisses than all the pills combined. 

I had a lot of time to think as I went through my rehabilitation. I was very appreciative of all the ways that so many people in the church had reached out to me. I was also very impressed with the doctors and nurses who treated me so well. At Casa Colina I got stronger quickly. I remember taking a long walk in the courtyard with the lady who was the director of the therapists. Turns out she was a strong Christian and I got to tell her my story about how God had brought me through to the surprise of the doctors. She was very impressed. I was beginning to realize that I needed to share my story with more people. Like the woman at the well who told all her friends, “Come, see a man who… “ I wanted everyone to come see the one who had healed me. 

Dialysis is not fun. I had to spend about 5 hours a day just lying there getting the transfusions 2 or 3 times a week. I was terrified to think that this might be a permanent situation. 

Well, I just kept surprising the doctors. They were shocked that I came through it and then my kidney doctor took me off dialysis. He said that he had seen that happen only a handful of times in his whole career. I was able to share my story with everyone at church one Sunday morning. Everyone who was praying for me was there. I know it was a powerful testimony. 

Stacey on the other hand continued to get worse. One day after my “miraculous” improvement, she asked me, “Do you think there’s room in this family for two miracles?”. There were many heartbreaking moments with her as she reached out for some kind of hope.

In the midst of all her suffering and depression though, Stacey never blamed God and she remained faithful to the end. I would say her one haven of comfort in those very difficult times was when I would read the Bible to her.

My health continued to improve. So it seems that God pulled me through my ordeal in order to help Stacey in her closing months. I’m so thankful for that, even though I didn’t feel like I was much help, especially in the closing weeks. 

When Stacey’s time came I sat beside her. She was having labored breathing and I knew her time was at hand.

For twenty minutes I sang to her, “God is so good.. God is so good,... God is so good, He’s so good to me….”

Then she breathed her last breath. I knew the angels were right there to bring her home so I put my hand up in the air above her head. Now I know what it’s like to touch an angel.

I did not mourn like some people I knew mourned. I knew what Stacey had gone through and I was very relieved to know that was over. I knew that she finally had her joy and her peace back. Yes, I missed her very much but when I thought about how happy she was in the arms of Jesus and with all of her friends and family up there, I would just get a big smile on my face. 

One of Stacey’s good friends in Abilene was a girl named Andrea. Andrea passed away several years before Stacey. Sometimes I would think of Stacey in heaven with Andrea standing there beside her, helping her transition into her new heavenly home. Thanks Andrea.

My boys have been a wonderful blessing from God. Nick and I disagree on almost everything except our love for music. But he still loves the Lord and for that I am forever thankful. 

Robin, my autistic son, well he’s just been a huge blessing since Stacey passed away. He keeps me busy and he gives me someone to love. He’s a great movie companion too. I’ve become quite the SpongeBob fan.

And God brought someone else into my life after Stacey’s passing. Someone who brought me back to life and taught me what it means to have and to be a true friend. 

So you see, even though I am now old and battle scarred, inside, that little boy is still standing there, holding that egg, begging God to spare a life. Begging God not to give up on him. And he never has.