Never Quit

Not too long ago a dilemma got my attention. It was a wad of string. The easy thing would have been to toss it in the burn pile, but not me. I saw a challenge. I decided to unravel it.

For the next few minutes, I unraveled the string. Some knots were tight, some were multiple, and some were downright hard, but I worked until I had an unraveled string that I rolled on a spool to use again. My wife Lisa will challenge, “You ain’t going to quit until you get it are you?” She is right. It is not my nature to quit but I am tempted to often quit.

One of the largest temptations to quit was school. I love to learn and solve problems but hated school. As started in an earlier article, I would run away from school. I tell people that I started school in 1959 and finally graduated in 2002. Schools included Beloit, Illinois kindergarten, elementary, Jemison, Alabama elementary through high school, University of Montevallo, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and finally Beeson Divinity School Samford University in Birmingham. If you throw Bessemer Technical, Bessemer, Alabama, and Howard Extension in Birmingham, that is a lot of school for someone that wanted to quit.

Every Monday all four years at the University of Montevallo, four at New Orleans, and three at Beeson I wanted to quit. Each Monday I found myself in class.

In the eighth grade, a football coach encouraged me to play football. He said I had the size to be a good player. I decided to try it. Having missed two weeks of practice, my teammates decided to catch me up. There was no junior high team, so I practiced with the varsity line. They tried to kill me. I was so sore the next morning that my mamma had to dress me, feed me, and force me to attend school. There was no way to practice so I QUIT!

Another coach who worked with the junior high encouraged me to came back. He was aware of what happened. I rejoined the team. I learned a valuable lesson. I promised that I would never quit something that I started. I may stop and sit it down but will pick it up and try again.

While enroute to church, I tried to button the cuff of my dress shirt. Using my left hand to button the right cuff was a little difficult. The laundry starched the shirt and somehow the buttonholes of the cuff were closed tight. My right hand had a very difficult time trying to button the left cuff. Arthritis did not help any either.

While driving Lisa noticed my difficulty and said, “I will button them when we get to church.” I kept trying, stopping for a few minutes, then tackling the tiny buttonhole again. I have a sneaky suspicion that the cuff buttonholes are smaller on the left.

I have found that in life more people encourage me to quit than those that encourage us to continue. When I began the University of Montevallo at age twenty-nine, married with two small children, and no finances, well-meaning family, friends, and folks said I would quit. As I said, I wanted too. God placed people in my journey that said I could.

My Christian faith is one that says, “Never say quit.” That is something that former University of Alabama quarterback Steadman Shealy said in his book Never Say Quit. In the spring of 1978, his football career was thought to be over, but Steadman prayed, sacrificed, worked hard, and demonstrated great faith overcame knee surgery and severe infection to lead the 1978 Alabama football team to a national championship followed by another in 1979.

Another Alabama great, quarterback Jay Barker says, “First of all, I just want to think my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, because I’ve had so many criticisms, and the Lord says in the bible, ‘If you just humble yourself therefore under His mighty hand, he will lift you up In Due Time,’ and this has been due time for me.” Due Time: The struggles and triumphs of Alabama quarterback.

These are two of countless others that have faced life’s struggles and through faith refused to quit. The main person in the Bible that did not quit was Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.

Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath began a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Philippians 1:6 KJV

And let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Galatians 6:9 KJV

 

A Little Encouragement Makes A Big Difference

Some of the most influential people in our lives are schoolteachers and coaches.  I had, and I hope you did, some of the best.  I don’t remember my first grade teacher at South Beloit Elementary in Illinois, but I did not like her.  I disliked her so much that I ran away from school as often as I could get away with it.

In March of the first grade, we moved back to Alabama and my Dixie first grade teacher was the splitting image of the Yankee version, so I continued to run away from school.  I do not know how I advanced to the second grade, but thank God, I got Mrs. Nellie Glasscock.  My cousins recommended her, and I remember reading about Dick, Jane, and Spot running, but not away from school.

As luck would have it, third grade was like first grade in many ways.  The third-grade class had too many students and I was one of the “chosen ones” placed in the extra class with the substitute teacher who must have been a sister to my first-grade teachers.  Gee whiz, was there three of them?

By the third grade, dad and momma had broken me of my running away.  One can only be sick so much and good hiding places are hard to find.  I suffered with Mrs. Oaks until the Christmas break.  I don’t remember what I got for Christmas that year at home, but when school started back, Santa had left this beautiful young teacher in our upstairs classroom.

Mrs. Avis Harthen was so wonderful.  I went from U’s and S’s to E’s and G’s.  Mrs. Harthen would hug me and tell me how proud she was of me.  Years later when I was Beta Club president, Ms. Harthen, who had gone to bigger and higher things, spoke at our annual banquet.  I remember her telling the audience how proud she was of me and how I was her favorite third grade student.

I had real good teachers after Mrs. Harthen.  When you get the reputation that you are a good student, teachers treat you different.

Another person of influence was Coach Lamar Cost.  He and I did not hit it off so well in the beginning.  He was new to the school and had a reputation as being a hard-nosed coach.  He had coached some boys that later played at the University of Alabama.  I will say that he was a very good defensive coach.

I remember my first meeting with Coach Lamar.  Mom did not want me playing football so I had to run away from home, you might say, to play football.  When I did not show up on the school bus, mom knew I had stayed to practice football.  Every day was the same scenario.  The coaches fussed and cussed me at practice and mom fussed and cussed me for practicing.  Did I ever tell you that I loved playing football?

On the first day of practice, I had to dig through piles of discarded football equipment to round up enough stuff for practice.  I had a ragged jersey, and I could not find a set of matching pads.  My helmet was way too big.  The older and veteran players got all the good stuff and the “hamburger squad” got the culls.  In my quest I did get a pair of blue pants, like the veterans, only they were in bad shape, no body wanted them.

I wished you could have seen me when I got to the practice field.  I looked awful and of course just like all football rookies, I had my thigh pads in backwards.

Coach Lamar grabbed me by the facemask and asked me where I got the blue pants.  I wanted to be a big man and thought I would get a little smart with him.  I said, “I stole them.”  Not a good start!

Coach was tough.  One time in practice, I injured my left thigh.  I pinched the nerve.  I was dragging my left leg.  In scrimmage, our halfback run over me, which was unusual.  I thought I would cry.  Did I tell you I love to play football, but I hated practice?

Coach Lamar screamed at me and screamed run it again.  Once again, the halfback ran over me.  This time I felt someone straddle my back and grab my facemask pulling my head around off the dusty ground and telling me, “If I could not do any better than that to go to the house.”  So, I got up and started the long journey home.  Did I say that I loved football enough to walk six miles most every day?  Coach asked, “Where you going?”  I said, “To the house.”

After I showered and started home, Coach Lamar the concerned daddy asked, “What’s wrong?”  I said, “Coach, I pulled something in warm-ups, and it hurts.  I can barely walk”

I played for Coach Lamar for four years and we developed a friendship that existed till his death.  He taught me how to play defense, good enough to get college offers.  One practice during my sophomore year he told the team that I was the most improved player and that I had improved one thousand percent.

Mrs. Harthen and Coach Lamar taught me more than studies and football.  They helped me learn about life.  Thanks Mrs. Harthen and Coach Lamar!

 

When I think of great teachers, Jesus is the greatest:  Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him (John 3:2b KJV)

Be Sure To Write It Down

At a men’s rally, the speaker told of a poster his daughter made for her college dorm room.  Her favorite posters are those with Tim Tebow on them.  I would say of all the posters that college girls could have a Tim Tebow poster is pretty good choice.

To the dad’s surprise, the poster was not of Tim Tebow.  Instead, the poster was a list of the things that the dad had told is daughter as she was growing up.  He said it made him think, what I have told her and what he should have told her.

At the 100^th Anniversary of Dixon’s Mills Baptist, a representative from the Alabama Baptist Historical Society said people should write down the words of church members because so much is lost after a long period of time if it is not recorded.  With a hundred years behind, there had to be many tremendous events of Dixon’s Mills Baptist Church that future members need to know.

Very few people spoke at 100th Celebration.  I think it was the magnitude of the moment and trying to remember what had been said and what had been done.  Pastor Richard Martindale’s granddaughter took notes where at future celebrations there would have a recorded history of words from those who did speak.

I remember one of my history professors at the University of Montevallo saying, “If you do not write down an event, it never happened.”  Word of mouth will turn to hearsay, tale, fable, or legend if events are not documented.  There have been events in our lifetime that proved to be false when people discovered documented evident to the contrary of hearsay

As I reflected on Mother’s Day, I thought of a list of things that my momma told me and decided to write them down.  As I reflect, some are humorous, some are profound, and some prophetic. Here it goes a few:

            You reap what you sow.

            You cannot go swimming until you learn how to swim.

            You can do anything you put your head to do.

            You need to pray that God leads you to girl to be your wife.

            Be sure to wear clean underwear in case you are in an accident.

            If you fall out of that tree and break your neck, I am going to whup you.

            If we were picking our nose she would ask if we were cleaning out the dance hall.

            If you get hurt, don’t come crying to me.

            If someone else can do that, you can do it.

            If you runaway from home, I will beat you to death.

            If you run while I am trying to whup you, I beat you when I catch you.

            If you don’t do it right the first time, you will have to lick that calf again.

            Never kiss a girl unless you are serious about her.

            Good girls don’t call here and ask for you.

            I may not can see you, but God does.

            I got little eyes everywhere so that I can see you.

            I am going to beat you till you cry.

            I hate the name Roe. (Roe was her first name.)

            I been so mean the grass will not grow on my grave when I die. (It does not by the way.)

            What is said in this house stays in this house.

            What ever you do, do your best.

            What you’re doing will come home to you one day.

            What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

            Payday comes one day.

            Don’t let the sun go down being mad at someone

            You may never get a chance to say you’re sorry.

            Use good words, they taste better when you have the eat them.

            Don’t let nobody tell you that you are not good enough.

            Mama told my sister not to wear a dress to the garden because the potatoes had eyes

            “Say Calf Rope” (When she was wrestling us and holding until we said, “Calf Rope.”

            Go cut me a switch!

            Just wait to your daddy gets home.

            When you have kids, you will pay for your raising.

            Ya’ll will probably have to hire people to come to my funeral.

            Nobody may love us, but we love one each other.

            Read your Bible and pray.

            One day I gonna be gone and you will be sorry you said that to me.

            Stick you nose in that corner and stand on your tiptoes until I tell you to stop.

            God will take care of us.

These are only a few that brothers and sister could remember.  There were some others, but I cannot write them in this article.

I remember one Mother’s Day, I preached at Pine Hill and I mentioned Coach “Bear” Bryant’s Bellsouth commercial.  When taping the commercial, he said, “Be sure and call your mom, I wished I could call mine.”  The producers that it was corny, but the more they played it the more genuine it was.

After the service, the sermon and the commercial went viral.  Viral means it was on the internet.  Words I said and words of the late “Bear” Bryant captured for all to read, see, and hear in a matter minutes.  I am glad I took time to write down things momma said.

Proverbs 31:1 sums up the word of a mother pretty good.  The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him (KJV).