The Testimony of Audrey Clay
By Audrey Clay as told to Shoji McGhee
June 2007
I can honestly say, from my heart of hearts, that I have never been angry with God. And it’s not because I haven’t faced trials either. I have suffered a miscarriage, endured the death of a daughter who only lived three days, and faced the death of my husband when he was only 42. That left me with one daughter in college and two boys, 9 and 14, to raise. If you were to ask me, even in those times, “weren’t you even a little angry with God,” I would answer, “Why would I be angry with my best friend?” The truthfulness and sincerity of that statement is based on a relationship that began many years before I would face all the difficulties.
When I was four years old my family moved to Michigan from Ohio. The first week we were there our neighbors, the Fairalls (pictured), came by and invited my family to go to church with them. My mom had been a Christian who had gotten away from the Lord and married an unsaved man. She recognized the need for her two children to be in church, so that Sunday the three of us went with the Fairall family. There were so many people in the car that I had to ride on the driver’s left knee! I felt like a queen.
After the first few weeks of attending Sunday School, my teacher asked, “Would you like to have a best friend to be with you all your life?” That really appealed to me. I don’t know how it is now, but in those days little girls always had a best friend. So, being a little girl of four years old, her approach really appealed to me. What an impact it made on me! Now that I’m 75, it’s still having an impact on my life. Through the years it has grown and grown and grown. That relationship and the lessons I learned in Sunday School prepared my life for ministry and gave me the strength to overcome all the trials I would face in life.
Audrey’s Sunday School
Scripture memorization was a key component of Sunday School class growing up. It was done through contests, which I loved. I was competitive and enjoyed the challenge. We memorized the Ten Commandments, the beatitudes, Psalm 23, the Lord’s prayer, and the books of the Bible.
“Sword Drills” were also a lot of fun. We would compete to find different books of the Bible. I was gifted at opening the scripture and finding the book that was called out. That is how I learned to find scripture.
Another thing I learned in Sunday School that made a great impact in my life was missions awareness. Our church would bring to our attention certain missionaries. Our money that was brought in was to help missions.
Doctrine was also taught. We were taught about salvation, divine healing, the second coming. I remember a Sunday School teacher teaching on the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. I learned all of those major doctrines that, of course, have stayed with me.
I will never forget the first time that I really felt the impact of my Sunday School teacher’s lesson on tithing. I jumped off the bus, (after the Fairall family moved away we had to take almost four busses to get to the church) and as I was running home I found a dollar. I remember thinking, “I’ve never had a dollar in my life.” I know it was the teaching of the class and the Holy Spirit, but I knew that ten cents was supposed to go to the Lord. It was very difficult but I knew that I had to do it. My mom encouraged me and broke that dollar for me, which kind of broke my heart momentarily. But within two weeks after I gave my tithe however, and this has never happened again, I was out walking somewhere and found a five dollar bill. Because of the teaching that I had heard, I said, “Yes. This is what happens when you give to God. He gives back.” I learned that in Sunday School.
Sunday School’s Ripple Affect
When I was 12 or 13, Sunday School provided me with the opportunity to minister. One of the classes needed a helper and I was able to begin helping teach at that age. It was a wonderful experience for me. We got to work with the flannel graph – no videos back then. We would get the flannel graph characters in big sheets and would have to cut them out. I was able to experience a lot of training then, which I think helped prepare me for ministry later in life.
When my husband graduated from CBC, we were married and pastored in a little town. It was a little building, a shoe cobbler place that had been converted, but it had a big baby grand piano. My husband said to me, “we need a piano player.” I had never had a lesson in my life but I said, “I’ll do it!” (when you’re young you don’t realize how much you don’t know – isn’t that great).
My enthusiasm and confidence to volunteer came from two places. First, it came from the Fairall family who took us to church. Ethel Fairall was seven years older than me and when she played the piano I just loved it. Whenever I was in the service I would sit and watch her. I would say to myself, “that looks easy. I know I could do that.” The second cause was because there was a need. What I learned in Sunday School was that when there’s a need, God will help you. That’s how it happened.
I didn’t know how to read notes. I had no idea what those little numbers along the side were: 4/4, 3/4. I just put my hands on the keys and I said, “now I’ll do it just like Ethel did” and I figured it out. I started playing everything in the key of C. One day my husband said to me, “sometimes it gets too low and sometimes it’s too high. Do you think you could learn another key?” So I did. I played a lot by ear and eventually learned to read notes. This would become a very important skill later on in my life after we changed churches.
After my husband unexpectedly died the church asked me to stay until they could find someone to come. The board asked the youth pastor, who had only been there four months and was a mere 23 years of age, to stay on as pastor. I had already decided that the thing for me to do was just to leave, but I didn’t know exactly how to do that with my children. But he told the board that he would only stay if I would stay, which was the answer they were hoping for. That is when I became the church’s music director and that is how the Lord provided in that situation.
As a single parent with two boys at home, I knew I had to depend on the Lord. I claimed the scriptures that He would be a father for them. A lot of the things I learned in Sunday School about God’s protection, power, and provision, I saw as more than just good stories to read and get excited about. They were lessons in life that I could appropriate. If God did it for David, he could do it for me. If God did it for Easther, he could do it for me. If God did it for Elijah, he could do it for me. And he did.
Bio
Audrey’s three children are all in ministry. Her daughter, Debbie, is married to John Palmer who is on the executive presbytery of the Assemblies of God. Her son Richard is the senior pastor of Bethany Assembly of God, the church his father pastored when he passed away. Her youngest son, Doug, is the district superintendent of Ohio.
Audrey Clay is retired, but still as busy as ever. She attends a weekday ladies prayer meeting, helps with the music for her church’s day care, ministers in a nursing home, plays in the orchestra, and attends a LIFE group. She is also very involved in the lives of her grandchildren.
She is working on a devotional book: Audrey’s Letters: More than Words for the Journey.
You can find her blog at http://aureyfromadrian.blogspot.com/
Shoji McGhee is the Web Content Editor for the Assemblies of God national Sunday School Department. He is also a weekly contributor for On Course magazine’s Music Mondays, a free e-publication covering Christian music releases and news.
