Happy Birthday, Daddy

Today, were he still living, my daddy would be celebrating his 101st birthday. I’ve been going through some old email correspondence between Daddy and me over the years, and came across a copy of his personal testimony. Please allow me to share.

“It was July 6, 1930, my birthday. I was sixteen years ole. My dad, pastor in the church where I was born (we lived upstairs over the church auditorium,) a building in the center of town. The US Post Office was across the street. You might say I was born IN the church.

Every year since I can remember, we went to a camp-meeting called the Victory Grove Camp, held over the 4th of July, so I was always there for my birthday. The camp was located on the main highway connecting Schenectady and Albany, New York. It was a delightful, rustic setting in the woods with several small cottages with just enough room for several beds and a few chairs. The main attraction was the Tabernacle with benches of pine made rom the trees on the property. Camp lasted for ten days, and the best preachers in the country were booked for the speakers and Bible study services. Sawdust and straw covered the ground inside. The other structures were a dining hall and a bookstore.

Since I was brought up in Church and Sunday School (I had a wonderful teacher; he owned a glove factory in our town,) I not only knew the Bible from my mother and father, but my Sunday School as well. And the Plan of Salvation was completely familiar to me. Actually, I was teased and sort of persecuted at school because I was a PK…a Preacher’s kid.

But there came a time when I deliberately chose to go all the way and make a firm commitment to follow the Lord Jesus. And it was on that specific date: July 6, 1930! In the straw and sawdust at the rough wooden altar, with my brother-in-law, Theodore K. Knapp, at my side that it happened…a lifetime decision…and it is still good today, July 6, 1997.

An old song we sang back then tells the story. I use it today to explain that event in my life.

I HAVE SETTLED THE QUESTION

I remember when the Lord spoke to my soul,

I would feel the heavy burden from me roll.

When He spoke the gracious words, “wilt thou be whole?”

Then I settled the question forever.

~

I no longer walk the ways of sinfulness,

But I daily tread the paths of righteousness.

Since the day the Lord has come my life to bless

I have settled the question forever.

~

I will choose the holy joys that always last,

And reject sin’s pleasures that will soon be past.

To the treasures of true worth I’m holding fast,

I have settled the question forever.

~

Others my deny the Lord and live in sin,

But the race that I have entered I must win,

Through the pearly gates I mean to enter in,

I have settled the question forever.

~

Refrain:

I have settled the question, hallelujah!

I will never turn back from the narrow way.

I am going through with Jesus, hallelujah!

Till I reach the gates of glory some sweet day.

Peg here:

And Daddy gained those Gates of Glory on Sunday, April 7, 2002.

If you will forgive a daughter’s pride, indulge me one more time and come back tomorrow as I share Daddy’s autobiography. To say I loved my dad is a massive understatement.

If you’d like, you can read a previous post I shared that reveals what a true Bible scholar Daddy was. Just go to: http://wp.me/p5BLdw-B0