When I was a teenager, my daddy became a pastor of a very small church in Temple, Georgia. Oak Hill Church of God of Prophecy. There was an elderly man there who was in his 80s. He was there every time the doors opened. His wife had passed away in 1942, but he had never remarried and lived alone in a little shack on Rainy Road.
We visited him at his home when he wasn’t feeling well one time, Daddy took the opportunity to ask him a question he had wondered a long time.
“I’m just curious. How is it that your car is ALWAYS clean and spotless. I’ve never once seen it have dust or mud on it. With so many dirt roads around here, I’m just amazed.”
Mr. White (no relation) laughed and explained that he had a simple solution for that.
“I wake up early every morning, and I get my exercise by taking a clean towel while the dew is still on the car, and I rub it down. I’ve been doing it for years.”
That sruck me hard that someone so determined to remain active, relevant, and have a certain appearance that was important to him as a retired minister himself
When I was 22, Mr. White was in a car accident and not expected to survive. During lunch, I went to visit him in the hospital, and he was racked with so much pain that his body was in constant motion. No sounds. Just whole body spasms responding to excruciating pain.
I burst into tears and called the nurse and asked her why he wasn’t being given pain medication. She said it was because they saw on his paperwork that he was a member of the church Daddy had pastored. She said she knew that they didn’t believe in taking medicine.
I was crying so hard I almost yelled at her that she better get him some pain medication NOW. She argued with me for just a moment, and I could tell she had a bias against people of that faith and was letting him suffer out of pure spite. Standing at the foot of his bed, she had no smidgen of compassion or empathy.
I finally told her I was going to call the police if she willingly refused him pain medication. She left the room to go call the doctor to get the order for pain medication. (I suspect the order was put in when the doctor admitted him but she and the others at her station had ignored it.)
To this day, all these years later, I think of Mr. White’s agony for no reason other than somebody hated his faith.
It occurred to me just now how this isn’t a new thing seeing healthcare professionals on tiktok and YouTube talking about intentionally and criminally causing conservatives to suffer under their watch. It’s just that evil has found a platform for their voices that have been relegated to just their actions.
This kind of demonic personality has been inflicting pain and suffering on humanity since the beginning of time. We just have to pay attention and put a stop to it for those not able to fight for themselves.
I’m hoping and believing somewhere Mr. White knows that I honor his memory often with snippets of his smile during his sermons, the way he sat in an armchair with his hands together resembling a praying posture. I’ll never forget the image I had of him as a young boy just converted when he spoke during one of his sermons how, if the only reason a person lives a godly life is because they are afraid of Hell, the,n let that be the reason. He said God would take care of the rest.
There is no doubt in my mind that, today, Mr. White, a good, GOOD man is Resting.In.Peace. 😇🪽🙏
