It’s back to beans and taters here on One Writer’s Journal. A preacher at our little country church used to say that after we had a guest speaker or some kind of special program and then he was back in the pulpit bringing us a message.
So, if you went on the Scavenger Hunt last weekend, then that was the filet mignon or the strawberry cheesecake of blog fun. And I hope you enjoyed reading all about the new books showing up this spring and maybe some of you might have won some prizes along the way. The winners in my giveaway were Mandi from Michigan and Melanie from Utah. Mandi picked my books Words Come True and River to Redemption for her prize, and Melanie chose The Song of Sourwood Mountain and In the Shadow of the River. Oh yeah, they got that Blue Monday candy bar too, or at least will as soon as I get to town to buy them.
I appreciate all of you who read my post, “The Enduring Mystery of the Dancing Lady.” I hope it made you want to read about how I worked her story into my story, The Pursuit of Elena Bradford. Only about three weeks until release day on May 6th. More giveaways will be showing up then. One is going on right now on Goodreads. My publisher, Revell Books, is giving away ten copies. Check it out. You might be a winner.
But back to these beans and taters that Br. Fred was always ready to feed us when he was preaching. He was our preacher for thirty-seven years before he went on to heaven to do some celebrating with the Lord. And his beans and taters were always pretty good. Br. Fred had a lot of country sayings to mix in with his Bible knowledge. He could read Hebrew and had studied the Bible for many years. Best of all, he had a way of making the Bible stories easy to understand for those of us out in the pews who hadn’t gone to Seminary Bible classes.
Another of his favorites was that when you said you’d be somewhere “God willing and the creek don’t rise,” he’d say, “And we can wade the creek.” When we had Bible study, if his cell phone rang, he’d say he wouldn’t answer it unless it was the Lord calling, but then if he looked at if and saw it was his wife, he’d say that was close enough and click that phone on.
He grew up in Arkansas and for a while lived in a house that had dirt floor. Or so he said. He used to say if you looked up “poor” in the dictionary, there would be his growing up years. His mother was a devout Christian who trusted the Lord in bad times and good. She had her time with the Lord every day at ten-thirty in the morning, and he knew better than to bother her then.
Br. Fred planned to go to college to be an engineer. I think that’s what he said. But one Sunday morning when he was about seventeen and had skipped church to wash his car in the shade of an oak tree, he heard a voice speaking to him from up in those tree limbs. He said the words were plain as day telling him that he was to preach God’s Word. He stopped washing his car, got in it and drove to his church. Said he went inside in his work clothes and walked down the aisle and surrendered to the call to preach. His mother was in the congregation. She told him she wasn’t a bit surprised, that she had been praying he’d be a preacher all his life.
And a preacher he was. He knew the Bible frontwards and backwards but was always asking new questions and finding new answers. Well, not really new answers, but the answers that were there for him and for us all the time. It just sometimes takes us a while to see them or even to need to see them according to what is happening in our lives.
My beans and taters you are going back to here on my blog are nothing like his. My posts are just this and that, whatever comes to mind when I sit down to write my weekly notes to you. But I do like writing to you and hearing what you think in return.
Do you have any country sayings that make you smile when you remember whoever said them?
I’m smiling thinking about Br. Fred tonight and his beans and taters sermons.
Comments 11
Br. Fred sure sounded like an interesting preacher.
I do remember a saying my husband had said several times “and Katie barred the door” meaning that someone was going to get awful mad and cause a big fuss.
I love your “beans and taters” blog post. Hope Darrel is on the mend.
Hugs,
Shelia
Author
He’s coming along, Shelia, but wishing for faster healing and a smaller cast. He goes back to the doctor the end of next week and I’m hoping we will have a cast that won’t be so cumbersome for him. Glad you liked the post.
There are some I remember, though I can’t remember for sure who said them! lol!! The “Lord willing and the creek don’t rise” I heard from a lot of people!
Author
I think that saying comes from some places in the Bible that say we shouldn’t do too much planning about what we are going to do because we need to see if the Lord is willing, and of course, after the floods we had in Kentucky last week, we were definitely seeing creeks rise to hinder our usual activities. Not mine, but people down the road who live near a creek had houses full of water.
Daddy used to say “Well, I’ll be doggone.” when he was amazed at something. I thought everyone said that phrase. As I became an adult, I learned that the phrase was not used every place. haha!
Author
It may not be all that common, but I’ve heard it a lot, Melissa. Or doggone it when something isn’t going exactly the way we want it to. I knew a guy that would say “thunder” as as expression of wonder or irritation, according to how he said it.
I often say I grew up “in the middle of nowhere.” One of my Words, Wit, and Wisdom: Life Lessons from English Expressions” blog posts explores it.
Author
I’ll have to hunt that one up, Diana. Those posts about the various expressions are so much fun. I usually just say I grew up out in the sticks. And then when I wrote my Frontier Nursing story, These Healing Hills, I found out there was a mountain call Thousand Sticks. People there really did grow up in the sticks. 🙂
My pastor saying that first comes to mind is, “‘I love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck!” We have a very loving church family and always express our love for one another. The other one that comes to mind is “ I’m fine, hun, finer as frog hair!”
Author
I’ve heard both of those a bunch, Victoria. In fact, I’ve been known to tell people I’m finer than frog hair which has to be pretty fine.