TITLE: Poppa By Lance Wilson, Sr. 05/12/06 |
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God Bless
Poppa
by Lance K. Wilson, Sr.
My own father passed away on December 11th 1977, just a few weeks shy of my 19th birthday. If I had to sum up the way he touched my life I would have to say it was through self sacrifice. I remember the Christmas that he worked three jobs just to make sure that my brother and I had what we wanted. He was a strict man yet not once during my life did I ever feel that he didn’t love me. There was always time for vacations. We’d go to Bear Mountain or West Point. But he loved picnics. Mom would prepare most of the food the night before and we’d get up at five or six in the morning and drive out to some picnic ground were we’d spend literally the entire day there. He knew his way around a grill and to this day I have never tasted any barbeque sauce that even comes close to the homemade concoction that he would prepare. My older brother says that he has the recipe, but in all honesty, it’s not as good has daddy’s. Close, but not there.
He would from time to time bring a stranger home for a meal. He would meet some soul on the subway or near his job. One time he bought home an elderly man he met while walking around the block. The fellow ate with us and then he and my daddy sat on the porch and talked as though they knew each other for years.
I remember that he had these huge hands. They were calloused from years of hard work. When he put those things on your backside you KNEW you were hit. He never shrank away from spanking us and in my case it was more often then not. He never went overboard. Three whacks and you were no good, down for the count, out of the game, ready to be the best behaved child that the world has ever known. He never spanked us when he was angry. So sometimes we go for about three or four days with no retribution, thinking that he had forgotten. Then out of the blue he’d call your name and bring your transgression back to your remembrance and then it was light’s out, down for the count, out of the game.
He was an avid fisherman. He fished the piers at Canarsie in Brooklyn or we’d head out to Montauk Point and he’d fish the Captree Basin. I have seen him catch flounders, blowfish, and monkfish (which he called Hackleheads). He loved my mother with all his heart and was never afraid to show it. He loved us too. And he loved the Three Stooges. Sometimes I forget how his laughter use to reverberate off the walls when they were on. Just hearing him laugh was enough to crack me and my brother up.
He suffered two strokes within a years time before his 54th birthday. During his recuperation, we became closer. I spent hours talking to him during that time and it was then that I was fascinated by the knowledge he had in the Bible. And he’d tell me stories of my grandfather, how he came to this country from St. Thomas, worked in the garment district and went to seminary, eventually becoming a Minister at Macedonia AME, in Flushing Queens. I grew to love my daddy more and more during those times. Just when we seemed to be bonding even more he had a heart attack and was called home. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him. I miss his voice, his smile, his laughter, even those rock hard hands that would chastize one minute and then lovingly protect you the next. If I were not a Christian my hope of seeing him would be dashed against the rocks of unbelief and doubt. But I know that we will be together and for that I am ever grateful to God.
Paul told the Corinthians that, “Ye have ten thousand teachers in Christ; but not many father’s....” (1 Corinthians 4:15) Whenever I meditate on this passage I always think of my daddy. The life lessons that he taught me I still use today with my son. After thirty some odd years he is still missed and never leaves my heart.
You know God never leaves us fatherless.
I met my next ‘father’ on a summer night in 1981 at a christening for my brother’s oldest daughter. He was playing spades with his wife and my older brother and my sister-in-law, in a kitchen in my older brother’s home. His name was Ted Cobb. He was about six feet two or three with an infectious smile and I deep voice reminiscent of James Earl Jones. I didn’t know it then but he would soon be my father -in- law.
He was a man of principle, integrity, and believed in justice. He spent most of his life championing the rights of the African - American and the elderly. I never met a more intelligent man than Ted. Nor have I ever met a man so staunchly for the family as him. The first time I took his daughter out on a date he sat me down at this huge dinning room table and looked me square in the eyes and said, “Just what are your intentions with my daughter?” Needless to say I was made well aware that I had better watch how I treated this young lady. It was Ted that I came to when I decided to give her an engagement ring and he gave me his blessing. Through the years that she and I were together he led me in my finances and in my home life. He always had a tale to tell, whether you wanted to hear it or not. He was loved by many of the people he worked with and was crazy about his grandchildren. When I think of the silly things he would do with them it brings a smile to my face. His death was a shock to us all and I miss him terribly.
“ Ye have ten thousand teachers in Christ, but not many father’s..”
Now I come to my spiritual father. I met Deacon Wirras Faircloth shortly after I became saved. He was cleaning up the debris around the church and I asked him how he became a deacon. He handed me a rake and we began a friendship that has lasted to this day. He was the one that helped me through the tough times of my divorce. He encouraged me to fast, to pray and to stay faithful to God. He’d call me on the phone and we’d talk for hours then he’d pray for me. We have cried together, laughed together, and have cleaned the church well over a million times. He has adopted me as his son in the faith and the Lord has made me accountable to him. He calls me Junior, ( after the guy on HEEHAW ), and I call him ‘Pop’.
Although I have learned a great deal from the word of God and from my Pastor and my teachers, it is Pop that show’s me faith in action. Just like a father is suppose to. When I am off course he is ever present to pull my coat tail and get me back on track. He leads by example. Which is what all father’s are suppose to do. I know that he has had some rough times himself . He had some deaths in his family, financial troubles, and personal illness. Yet through it all he has never wavered from his love of Jesus, has never stopped believing, never stopped worshiping and praising God. He has a limited education by the world’s standards. Yet I have never known anyone wiser. He can take the most difficult theological doctrine and explain it so that a child could understand it. The power of the Holy Spirit is on him constantly and anyone that knows him or that meets him for the first time, can see the glow of the Lord on him. I love this man very much.
Now you may be wondering where does all this sentiment lead? As many of you know this is a generation that is virtually fatherless. There are more fatherless children in this country, now , than there has ever been previously. In the church there are also many fatherless children. Children that need the covering of mature Christian men to cover them , to be accountable to.
As mature Christian men we should be reaching out to the children in our congregations that we know have no male figures to look up to. Especially the young boys. It takes a godly man to raise a godly son.
A woman can teach a boy only so much. She may teach him how to treat a woman, but she is only teaching him how she would like to be treated. How her father treated her mother is an important factor. What one woman likes another may find offensive. She can not teach a boy how to be a man because her view on men may be tainted. This is why some boys grow to be selfish, or abusers, because they have been taught that ‘All men are dogs!’, and this is not just moms fault, she can only teach from experience. The man that she has dealt with was a dog. He hurt her and may have left her or her mother and this becomes part of her teaching process.
Now I am sure that those woman that are saved are not teaching their children these things. But from what we can see in the world, those that are unsaved are teaching these things. There are some instances where the child is totally unaware of the negative traits that the father may have possessed and that is a credit to the mother and the power and grace of God. But don’t take my word for it. Let us look into the word of God to see what the True Father has to say to all us fathers here in this present world.
In Proverbs, the book of wisdom, God lays down hundreds of foundational truths on parenting in general and fatherhood in particular. In the first chapter He tells us that BOTH parents are to be obeyed (verse 8).
It is the fathers responsibility to teach the child the ways of righteousness. To teach through example how to worship, how to pray, how to study, how to live holy. When a father fails to do this his child becomes a ‘reproach’ to him and saddens his mother. When this is done correctly the child will honor both parents with his behavior. Check out Deuteronomy 11:19-21; Proverbs 13:1; 15:5 and 15:20.
Let us not forget our first scripture from 1 Corinthians 4:15. A child will have ‘ten thousand teachers in Christ, yet not many fathers...’ the importance in being a father is critical in the well being of the child. Therefore it stands to reason that a father needs to be godly as well as nurturing.
I know that the concept of nurturing, showing love, affection, constantly pouring the water’s of life on a child, weeding out those things that would stunt their growth, is more of what some would call ‘woman’s work’. After all men have be given the label of ‘PROVIDER’, the ‘Hunter-Gatherer’. It is considered a sign of weakness for men to nurture their young. If your thinking runs along this line then you have missed the whole point of being a godly Poppa. Showing love to your wife in front of your children is essential. Hold her hand, hug her, kiss her. My kids use to give us that look every time my wife and I kissed. You know the one that says, “Yecccchh.!!!” But they knew without a doubt that we loved each other. And it is that trait that my daughters will seek in the men that court them. It is that trait that my son will want to emulate in his adult life.
The biggest problem nowadays is young men seducing even younger women, producing babies and then moving on to their next ‘conquest’. These young men are neither taught nor rebuked for their behavior. In fact in some instances it is a “rite of passage”. Babies making and raising babies. Children playing house. It is up to us as Christian men to take the up the banner of holiness and to stand firm against the world view that condones this behavior among our youth. We should be shouting it from the pulpits and in the classrooms.
For those of us that have children. We have to start showing biblical principles at home. Bring the family together to pray. Drag the kids to church. Love their mother the way Jesus loves the church. Show them the humbleness of being a servant by serving them. Do not be afraid to discipline . Again in Proverbs the third chapter, “For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth,” in the 13th chapter 24th verse, “ He that spareth his rod Hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” it is sobering to note that the verse says nothing about spoiling a child, but speaks about hating him! In the 23rd chapter we are told that beating a child will not kill them, in fact correcting behavior by spanking will save them from Hell, vss. 13,14.These principles have kept me from prison. I was more worried about catching a whipping from my daddy then I was about being caught by the police. Children of today are more bold and much more disrespectful then when I was coming up.
As a father it is our duty to show the love of Jesus toward our wives. Treat them as jewels. They are our queens and yet some treat them as slaves, abusing them mentally and physically. If you are a Christian and you treat your wife this way then God have mercy on you because man’s law won’t. So treat your wife with love, with tenderness. Show your daughters how a man is to treat a woman by loving their mother. Show your son how to be the priest of his home by the way you treat his mother. This is why God exhorts us to , “Give instruction to a youth about his way, Even when he is old he turneth not away from it.” Proverbs 22:6 (Youngs Literal Translation). Yes, instruct, compel, exhort but be a Poppa first.
Our greatest example is the Almighty One, God. We call him by the respectful term ‘Father’, but we can also call Him ‘Daddy’. Because He is both, a teaching father, a father that encourages us to move higher in our lives, a father that will chastize us when we are disobedient, a father that compels us to live holy lives because He is holy. And He is daddy, the one we can run to when we scrape our knees, the one who will protect us from the bullies, the one who lovingly holds us to His chest when we are alone and in despair, a self sacrificing daddy that gave Himself up for an offering that we might live for eternity. His love is unconditional and has no boundary .
Oh, to be like Poppa that should be the goal of every child.
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