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Dalton
Roberts |
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Some readers have written that my preacher stories were hard to believe. Except for names where I thought family members might be embarrassed, every one of them has been true. But if you had trouble believing the previous ones, todays will really be hard for you to believe. Unknown to me, the preacher who tiptoed for Jesus in Nashville and dragged chains down the aisle, moved to Chattanooga for his final years. One day I saw him in the hall at the courthouse and he said, “I remember you coming to my revivals around Nashville.” He seemed impressed that I had been elected county executive. One day near Christmas I was picking up a huge cake I wanted to take to the Orange Grove Singers who had recorded one of my Christmas songs and the lady at the cake place told me it would be 25 minutes before it would be ready. I said, “Well, I’ll just walk the mall for 25 minutes.” Halfway through my first round, I ran into the preacher again. He yelled, “Stop! Oh, thank God (he pronounced it ‘Guide’) I have run into you this morning. Guide revealed to me that you were going to be the man to do a movie on my life and to videotape my final sermon for planet Earth.” I froze and thought, “What I would give to have a tape recorder in my shirt pocket because this is going to be something unbelievable.” He continued, “I’m going to take you back to where I grew up and to the very place where Guide called me to preach. I was just seven years old and had never even heard of Guide.” “See this scar right here?” he said, pointing to a deep indentation in his forehead, “That’s where a mule kicked me right after Guide called me. See this scar right here?” he asked, pointing to a scar under his chin, “That’s where a limb stuck deep into my throat, both things happening within a week of Guide calling me to preach, brother!” I said, “Where was Guide while this was going on?” and he said, “Testing me, brother!” Honestly, I thought it a little strange that God would call a seven year old boy to preach and then test him by having a mule to kick him and a limb to dig deep into his throat but I shut up and continued to listen. By this time a crowd was gathering and in the crowd was an old East Chattanooga pal who was delighted to see me pinned down. He mistook my frozen delight for discomfort, not knowing I was praying for a tape recorder. The preacher continued, “Brother, get busy and raise the money for the movie because I may not be here long.” He quickly pulled his shirt up to his armpits showing me a long scar and commenting, “They ripped out my gall bladder and half of my stomach, brother. I’m living on borrowed time.” “Nobody is preaching the word of Guide today,” he screamed. “My preacher asked me the other day if I would go and demonstrate at an abortion clinic and I told him I was going to demonstrate against him for not preaching the word of Guide!” I looked at my watch and realize he had verbally pummeled me for exactly 25 minutes so I told him I had to go take a cake to Orange Grove School but I would think about what he had said to me. He died soon after this encounter and I was sad. I love colorful people. It might have been impossible to raise enough money to do a movie on a seven-year-old boy getting kicked by a mule but I will never forgive myself for not videotaping his final sermon to planet Earth. If I could play it for you right now, you would know that every word I have written is true.
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