Tag: son

Posted in Family, forgiveness, Grace, love, Scripture

A Daddy’s Love

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

“And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, “Abba, Father.” Galatians 4:6

I might have been just a little difficult when I was little.  I can remember when I was quite young that I wasn’t very quiet.  I also remember that I had a hard time standing still.  I used to rock side to side sometimes and I can remember Momma asking, telling me, to hold still.  I’m sure there is a name for it now but back then it was just kind of a weird normal. At any rate it might explain some of the things I did that got me into a hot mess.

I can remember the time that I stuck my daddy’s water hose in the ground and couldn’t get it out.  We lived in North Florida and the soil was very sandy.  I discovered if you turned the water on and pressed the end of the hose against the soil, it would kinda self-drill into the sand.  On a good day I could get the hose three or four feet into the ground.  That was the easy part.  The problem was getting it back out of the ground.  You see, the water and sand created a seal around the hose and no matter how hard I tried…it was stuck.  I suppose you can imagine how upset, maybe angry, my daddy was when he came home and tried to water his roses and his hose was stuck in the ground.  Hmmm…not good, not good at all.

Of course then there was the time I found some leftover firecrackers in the workroom we had attached to the back of the house.  I decided that I could make a rocket of sorts with the firecrackers and a can.  I went to the trash and found a tin can, poked a small hole in the bottom and then fed the fuse for one of the firecrackers through the hole.  Then, I dug a hole just the size of the can, put the can in the hole and lit the fuse and…ran.  The firecracker exploded as planned and that propelled the can up in the air probably twenty or thirty feet.  There was only one problem.  I had dug the hole for the can right next to the front of daddy’s car.  Well, what goes up must come down and that can came right down…and landed right on the hood of daddy’s car.  Since this was a long time ago, it was when cans were made a lot stronger than they are today and when that can hit the hood—it definitely left a mark…a dent in fact.  Hmmm…not good, not good at all.

The worst of them all was the time I shot my daddy in the back with my BB gun.  We were hunting squirrels and daddy had let me take my BB gun along.  I was walking along and violated one of the big rules of gun safety—actually two of them.  First, make sure your safety is one and two, keep your finger off the trigger.  Well, I apparently flunked gun safety because my safety was not on and I had my finger on the trigger.  I stumbled and shot daddy dead in the back.  Now calm down.  The good news is he had on a heavy hunting coat and the BB gun was pretty weak.  The bottom line is he hardly felt it but he did feel it enough to turn around and give me “the look.”  I’m sure I had to retake Gun Safety 101.  Hmmm…nor good, not good at all.

So you would think after these three things and probably a couple of dozen more I can’t remember, my daddy promptly disowned me or at least sent me off to reform school or the French Foreign Legion.  But the truth of the matter is…he didn’t.  Oh, I’m sure there was some sort of punishment but one thing was for sure.  He never stopped loving me…he never disowned me. No matter what…I was still his son and his love, a father’s love, never failed. I know for some of you that is hard to understand, because it just wasn’t that way with your daddy.

Let me share some good news with you.  No matter what kind of daddy you had growing up there is another Daddy in heaven who loves you no matter what.  In fact, the Bible says He is an Abba Father…or Dearest Daddy and He is just waiting for you to be a part of His family.  And that happens when you ask and when you believe—ask Him to forgive your sins and believe that His Son Jesus in fact died for your sins making that forgiveness possible.  Trust me…it is the greatest gift and the greatest decision you will ever make.  Why not ask Him today?  Why not let Him make you His.  I promise you won’t regret it.  If you are afraid you’ve messed up to bad…well, don’t you worry about that.  No matter what you have done you can be assured that, “He’s got this.” Bro. Dewayne

Posted in Family, Grace, gratitude, life, Southern born, thankful

Stonehenge

Posted on by Dewayne Taylor

For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” Luke 19:10

Roy Smith Allen was a genuine, authentic, real-deal Southern good ole boy.  I met him on the road to falling in love with his daughter.  I can remember virtually every detail of meeting Judy but Roy, well, its like one minute he wasn’t there and the next he was.  I met Judy at her church on a Wednesday night.  I walked in the side door and she was standing with a group of five or six girls.  It was as if the others weren’t even there.  She stole the show…and my heart.

I found out that when I started dating Judy, I also started dating her family.  They were a crazy bunch of fun-loving people who turned every get together into a ruckus of stories and one-uppers.  Right in the middle of the craziness was Roy.  Well, for some reason, Roy took a shine to me.  Judy will tell you that both of her parents liked me more than her. That probably wasn’t true. But I guess they trusted me because truth be known she was a little too young and I was a little too old. But here we are forty-four years later so we must have met somewhere in the middle.

Roy was a hard core, church going, deacon. He worked for the county as the superintendent of roads and had been the assistant warden at the county work camp.  He had a gun…he carried a gun.  He told Judy and I upfront he didn’t believe in pre-marshall (translated premarital) sex.  We both agreed with that so the gun stayed in the holster which was a good thing.

About nine months after I started dating Judy, I asked her to marry me.  It happened to be on April Fool’s Day which was kinda funny.  But I was dead serious and happily she said yes.  So, by now Roy had become Pops to me.  So I knew I had to ask him if I could marry Judy.  After his first heart attack, his doctor suggested he begin a walking regimen. One evening I joined him walking around the track at the park and I said, “Pops, I would like to marry Judy.”  It wasn’t a question but it was a statement that needed a response and he gave one.  “No you don’t, boy.”  Pops called me “boy” a lot.  It wasn’t derogatory but more akin to him calling me “son.”

I persisted and said, “No really, I want to marry Judy.”  He stoically gave the same answer, “No you don’t, boy.”  Well, I can’t remember how many times we bantered back and forth but eventually I took it as a yes.  We were officially engaged…as soon as I could afford a ring.

Somewhere along the journey, her parents allowed me to stay in the spare bedroom at their house on weekends.  The base was about twenty-five miles away so it seemed to make some sense.  Pops liked to get up early and work hard and I became the “young buck” of his Saturday operations . He was building a shed about 20 miles out in the country and he saw in me some free labor.  So, he would come in the bedroom at about 4:30 am and declare, “Time to get up, boy.”  I would groggily roll out of bed.  We would head to the Gold Plate Restaurant for a hearty breakfast with hot, strong coffee and then head to the building site where I wished I hadn’t eaten quite so much.

Pops had acquired some huge, like 10×10 inch, used bridge timbers from the county.  While he supervised, I began digging holes and setting these monstrous beams.  Then, we (make that me) had the pleasure of trying to hoist them up to form the roof.  Well, it near-bout killed me.  We never finished the building and I am sure forty-four years later those timbers are probably still standing like some sort of South Georgia Stonehenge.

In the fall of 1975, at church one morning, I went from being a church goer to a Jesus follower.  That day I finally figured out that being religious was not the same as having a relationship with Jesus.  It was and is a big deal.  Everyone was really happy that I had made that commitment.  There were plenty of hugs and words of affirmation but none matched Pop’s.  He simply said, “I knew there was something wrong with you, boy.” It was apparent Pops wasn’t gifted in the affirmation department.  But that was Roy…that was Pops.  I was pretty sure he loved me and I know loved him…especially since he didn’t shoot me.

So, about a year later, Judy and I were married and in spite of a bad heart he was there to walk her down the aisle.  When Judy and I were assigned to Germany, Pops flew there twice to see us.  When we were assigned to Missouri, here came Pops.  He came out to see our new daughter and his new granddaughter, Rebecca.  And then just six weeks later he was apparently working in his backyard there in South Georgia and sat down to rest.  Sometime during the break, Jesus came and took him home.  Pops was gone but the legend, the legacy lives on.

Roy Smith Allen had a lot of rough edges, a lot of warts, if you will.  But buried somewhere beneath the rough exterior was a good hearted man.  I’m sure he required a lot of God’s grace but don’t we all?  None us could make the cut for heaven based on our own merit.  We all are just like Pops…sinners in need of a graceful, loving God.  The Book says that Jesus came to seek and to save lost people.  People like Roy, people like me and people like you.  And if we are willing to be found, He is will to forgive us and invite us into His family.  In his backward way, that is what Pops did.  Every time he called me “boy” he was calling me “son.”  I like that. So if you find yourself bumping along in life, rough around the edges, you might try what Pops tried.  It wasn’t church…it was Jesus.  I know it changed my life. It didn’t make me perfect but it did make me forgiven.  And the best part?  In this crazy, upside-down world, He is always there.  I can always go to Him, rest in Him.  I know, He’s got this.