Thank God for fathers. Just imagine
how many single parents have had to be father and mother to their
children.
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| Unique father |
Last Father's Day I talked about my
father. This Father's day I want to talk about a unique father and
that is my deceased first employer. This employer just happened to be
my pastor at the time.
Employer/Pastor
I was only 14 years old when I first
started working as secretary at my church. I have talked about this
often. Besides the fact that my pastor taught me about bookkeeping
and paying bills in a timely-fashion, I realized this carried over
into my adult life. These were life lessons. He would emphasize, “Always
pay your bills on time.” This was a good thing. It was also mandatory for all
those that held paying positions of the church to tithe from their
earnings received from the church. So I learned to always tithe from
my earnings.
I recall my first bulletin was a disaster. Every
word was misspelled just about including my employer's name. I felt so bad. I wanted to hide, but there was no hiding place. He did
not realize when he hired me I could not type and I did not tell him,
because I really wanted the job. He was very mad at me and did yell
at me stating, “If you were working for someone else, you would be
fired for this." “I thought to myself, “He is right.” I assured
him, “I am taking typing this semester.” I do not think that was
to reassuring to him at that time. Also, I spoke about how soft
spoken my biological daddy was in the article
http://anointedtoday.blogspot.com/2014/06/fathers-day-my-daddy.html.
Well my pastor was the total opposite. He was a yeller at times,
but I knew under it all he always wanted the best for me and all of
his children. He always wanted things done the right way.
Baptist Convention
I went to my first baptist Convention
with my employer/pastor, his son, and another young girl. It was in
Milwaukee. I thought this was so exciting. I met other teens my age
and went to classes daily. Now his son had other ideas. His son
skipped class with a girl he met. My pastor found out about it and
he was furious. I guess as teenagers we forget that our parents have
been there and done that. Also, he never knew that his son had kept
me and the other young girl up all night playing cards. We were so
tired, but he kept saying, “Just one more hand.” The young girl and I continued playing until we said, "Enough." The exposure
to this convention was just and awesome experience for me.
Oratorical Contest
My pastor entered me in my first
oratorical contest. This was huge for me. He always wanted to be
first seemingly in everything. I came in second place. I felt bad
and hung my head down knowing that I had let him down. Surprisingly,
he said, “You did a great job.” I was not expecting that from
him. Now since that time, there have been many first place winners
at that church while he was pastor and since he was deceased.
The events I just talked about really
influenced me for the good and I am so thankful that he exposed me to
that.
Root Problems
Now it does not stop there. I have to
give credit to my present pastor. One day in Sunday School he asked
us to write a letter to 8 people that had influenced us for the good.
He was one of the person's that I wrote a letter to. My letter to
him explained how he helped me through Bible Study.
Before I joined my present church I
came to Bible Study for about a year. One thing that really helped
me was when pastor taught about getting to the root of problems. I
had many problems
when I came to my present church. We
all know we may have some type of habit, but he even elaborated about
habits. I always thought you get rid of a habit, but I learned you
replace bad habits with healthy habits. He also taught me about
cleaning up the inside of yourself with the word of God, because even
though our bodies may change physically we may renew our spirit
daily.
So there are father figures in the
workplace, in the ministry, and many other places. Again thank you
to the Fathers. Can you think of someone that is not your biological
father, but has served as a father figure for you.
Photo Caption: Wikimedia Commons,
Brookie, Creative
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