A Godly Heritage

A Godly Heritage

Outside of Jesus Christ, Thomas E. Hermiz, my father, has been the most influential in shaping my life.  Although I was sometimes disappointed with the gifts I received at Christmas, due to a lack of finances, I was never disappointed in him as a person.  He was a man of great integrity who practiced what he preached.  I never saw him conduct himself in a manner that contradicted his preaching.

When I was in junior high school, we lived in an apartment above the church.  One of our bedrooms was over the area in the sanctuary where the church board would meet.  Being a curious young man, when no one was watching, I would put my ear to the register and listen in on the board meeting.  Unfortunately, I allowed what was going on in those board meetings to make me very hard and bitter toward one of the men on that board.  He made life miserable for our family.  He would verbally abuse my father in the board meetings as well as in other public places.  I decided if this was "true holiness," I wanted nothing to do with it.

Several years after my father left that pastorate and started another church, this man had a heart attack.  The first one he called for was my father.  He said, "I'm dying and I'm not ready to meet God.  Please forgive me for the way I treated you and pray with me that I will be ready to meet the Lord."  My father accepted his apology and helped lead him back into a positive relationship with the Lord before he died.

Shortly after this event, the Lord began to deal with me.  I had been allowing one carnal church member to stand between me and God.  It seemed that God was saying to me, "Look at your father; he was the one under attack.  My father never responded in anger or with vindictiveness."  He would never allow us to speak negatively about this man in his presence.  I finally realized that if no one else in all the world was living a holy life, I had a father and a mother who lived holy lives.  Because of their consistency and faithfulness, I could see Jesus in them and I eventually opened my heart to the Lord.

Another godly characteristic of my father's life was his generosity.  He delighted in giving his tithes and offerings into the church.  He took some kind of support in every missionary that came our way.   Although he and my mother raised six children on a meager salary, our needs were always met.  When I left for Bible college, he pulled me aside and said, "Son, I won't be able to help you very much financially, but I'll be praying for you every day."  When I graduated from Circleville Bible College, all my college bills were paid and I was completely debt free.  His prayers and example of following biblical principles of stewardship have served me well over the years.

My father was a prolific reader.   He never stopped educating himself.  My brothers and I have often talked about the fact that his ministry was probably the most fruitful during the last twenty-five or thirty years of his life.  He never stopped growing in his knowledge and in his relationship with the Lord.  Therefore, he became one of the most outstanding one-on-one soul winners I have ever known.

Watching his study habits was always a great challenge to me.  He never went into the pulpit unprepared.  He was always completely immersed in the passage he was expounding on.

Due to my father's tragic childhood, he became a very angry teenager.  However, when he found Christ and experienced His saving and sanctifying grace, he was totally changed.  When I came into the world, he was one of the kindest, calmest, and most loving persons I have ever been around.  It was the beauty of Christ in his life that drew me back into the Church and into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  Thomas E. Hermiz was both my father and my hero.   My prayer is that I will also be faithful before those who will follow after me.