Welcome to Pastor Jack Buckley's weekly blog and podcast. You have three ways to hear his weekly message:

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I was born in Bronx, New York in 1932. My father was German and my mother was a Jewish lady from England. Dad was a hard working man and good husband and father. He died early in his 60s. My mother lived to be 83 and accepted Jesus as her Savior the day before she died during an operation.

I was raised never hearing the Gospel as a young person.

I married for the first time in 1950 and served in the United States Army for three years. After I got out of the army we moved to Florida. Our first daughter, Patricia Ann, was born in 1954. The second daughter Roberta was born in 1957. Things were not good between us and we separated when Roberta was three months old. This part of my life was buried and forgotten. The family moved out of state and I never knew where they went.

In 1958 I met my wife Patricia. We married in October 1959 and moved to New Jersey. I had several jobs and began working in a steel company in 1964 where I worked until retiring on disability in 1992.

My wife accepted the Lord in 1973. In 1974 the Lord gave us our son Jim who completed our family. We went to church as a family but I fought accepting the Lord into my life. Too many things in my life got in the way. Lots of head knowledge over those years.

In 2004, while my wife was at work, I got a phone call from my youngest daughter who was searching for her father over the Internet. I told her she had the wrong person. After hanging up I thought this can't be happening. I thought the past would always be the past. Guilt overcame me and I called her back admitting she had found her father. Now I had to tell my wife and son about this. After 46 years with Patricia, she had to know. It took two days as things kept getting in the way. Both of them were upset and angry that I had never told them of this family. I think I would have lost her if I had before. This now was God's time for me to tell them.

I wanted to visit my daughters who had moved to Tennessee many years ago, but wanted my wife to meet them also. Not sure how to handle this but my wife suggested she drive us down to Tennessee. The Lord was working in our lives in a mighty way. They were very nice and made us feel welcome. I found out that along with my two daughters, I now had four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

Three more great-grandchildren have been born since then. God has blessed me, but the biggest blessing was yet to come.

The third day in Tennessee my daughter Pat led me to accepting the Lord as my Savior. This was in September of 2004. You see, all those years I had Jesus in my head, but never in my heart. Now I felt free to let him in. I was fighting God all those years, but guess who won.

We went back to New Jersey and told our pastor who had counselled us when everything happened. He baptized me but I had been washed in the blood of the Lamb and all my sins had been forgiven.

And here I am.

We came down here to a new family and we also found a new family right here at Mars Hill Baptist Church.