What Goes Around Comes Around, Part 1 - A Father's Day Reminiscence

Thus begins what is a long and convoluted tale that required almost half a century to properly fall together, and reach its unlikely conclusion. It is so long and convoluted that in the telling I fear you may lose track of this or that important bit of information, and thus miss a crucial feature that makes the story most of what it is.

My mother had me in church from “day 1,” though to be sure it was what I have always referred to as a “high church,” and it lacked, (what I later learned was) a particular piece of furniture; perhaps the most crucial and significant piece of furniture ever installed in a church.

…An altar.

The “social gospel” was, at least during this season, preached there, and it would be years before I heard the one beginning with a capital “G.”

However, during a two week period during the summer of 1967, I not only graduated from high school, but I met the lover of my soul.

…Jesus Christ.

I cannot tell you my parents were elated about my new found faith, nor even acquiescent. In short, they reacted negatively to the news, and more so when they discovered the nature of the people, and the church environment which I’d adopted as my own. You see, it was a “full-Gospel” message I’d heard that night, and it was a local full-Gospel (Pentecostal) church I adopted.

As a result of my experience I decided I’d like to attend a nearby Bible college; one which espoused the same things which I’d recently been taught. If my parents were upset about my commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, they were doubly upset over my decision to register for my freshman year at this institution of higher learning.

As a result, my dad drug me to his pastor for a consultation, and also subsequently arranged a meeting with my new pastor’s wife, and the business manager of the Bible College. It so happened that Mrs. Asbury was the Director of Nurses at a nearby nursing home, and thus the meeting was scheduled at her facility.

I might say that my father was, at best, a nominal Christian, and at worst an agnostic; probably more the latter, than the former.

I’ll always remember the two meetings described in my recent four-lined paragraph. Neither was especially contentious, but rather, serious, and forward, and interactive in nature. At least interactive in terms of all parties except one.

(I’ll let you guess which one).

Ultimately I followed the advice of my dad’s pastor. He advised I attend my first year at a local community college, and if I were still determined to attend “Southeastern Bible College,” I could always do my sophomore year there.

And since my dad’s finances were mixed up with mine, you can imagine this is exactly what I did.

Fast forward almost half a century. (In my opening paragraph you might recall I inferred this was the most protracted experience of my life).

…well, my friend, it was.

Just three years hence, as I write these lines, my dad sustained a fall, which as it fell together, (no pun intended) turned out to be the result of a stroke. Daddy was initially admitted to the hospital, subsequently was offered in-patient physical rehabilitation, and eventually given the option of going home, or doing long-term rehabilitation in a skilled nursing facility.

We took daddy home.

…not the best idea in the world.

We children had various commitments, including work, and our involvement was limited. Just over a week later, my mother decided she was not up to caring for my father in his “altered state.” As we sat down with my dad that day, it took some slight persuasion on the part of my sister and me, all the while being careful to call the facility a “rehab,” (and not a nursing home) when my father finally whispered,

…”Well, if you really think I should.”

It suddenly occurs to me that throughout this long passage of time, this was the third of three meetings, devoted to the status of one or the other of us, and which my dad and I attended together.

Throughout the period my father was in the hospital our minister, “Bro.” Kern sporadically stopped by to visit him, and as he prepared to leave, prayed with him. Did I mention that our pastor and church are not only Christian, not only conservative, not only evangelical, but full-Gospel?

(You may recall I alluded to this persuasion earlier in this story).

“What goes around comes around.”

 

To be continued... (See Part 2)

 

(By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 4)