Tag Archives: Father

The Grateful Series: My Favorite Aromas

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Psalm 115: 4-8 (NIV)…But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk, nor can they utter a sound with their throats. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them.

In the second part of this series seeking to instill gratitude in our hearts that the Father made us the way that he did, I’m going to be honoring the sense of smell. Our creator has blessed us not only with these bodies to function with, but also with 5 wonderful senses that bring those parts to life. Unlike the endless false idols man uses attempting to usurp God, we can see, smell, taste, touch, and have ears to hear. Do we not take this for granted? For those missing one of these senses for whatever reason, they certainly do not take any of the others for granted. But we sure do. These simple list exercises help to instill appreciation and thankfulness for these miracles. I encourage the reader to make their own lists.

My sense of smell is easily my weakest. I’m not sure why, but no one would ever mistake me for a blood hound. However, it does work well enough for me to have a list of favorite aromas and memories of great smells.

It the spirit of gratitude for our Father, here are some of my favorite aromas 🙂

1. Walking in the doors of Godfather’s Pizza from 1980 to 1984 at Park Road Shopping Center in Charlotte, NC. “Wow, that’s intensely specific,” you say? Ha! That’s my favorite smell of all-time. Nothing has topped it yet. Everyone knows how great the smell is when you first walk into a pizza joint, but this one in particular was ridiculously great. At least that’s how it lives in my memories.

2. The Evergreen Trees at the summit of Calloway Peak in North Carolina. Sitting at 5,964 feet, this is the highest mountain in the Blue Ridge Mountain range. After a strenuous, long hike to reach the summit, the first reward is not the incredible view. It’s the aroma. It smells like Christmas exploded in the best possible way. The commercialism evaporated in God’s wrath, and all that remains is the pure and wonderful smell of natural growing evergreen. When you reach that peak you know you’re somewhere super special. Your nose tells you.

3. My wife’s dirty hair. “What???” That’s right, I said it. My wife’s hair when it hasn’t been washed? Dude. It smells fantastic. I stick my snout in there until she swats me away like a pesky gnat. Then I come back for more 🙂

4. The blooming Jasmine bush Easter Weekend 2019 in Savannah, Georgia. We were staying at an Airbnb on gorgeous Jones Street in Savannah, and upon checking in late at night I could smell something great but I couldn’t see what. The next day I discovered the source. A gigantic Jasmine bush/tree/whatever they are called, in the courtyard of the townhouse. In full bloom. And sending out waves of awesomeness aroma. That bush had strong smell game.

5. Smoldering wood sending smoke wonderfully wafting through the air at any real BBQ place in the Southern United States. It doesn’t matter which type of wood is burning: Hickory, Oak, Cherry, Mesquite, Peach, Apple…it’s all a delight to the sniffing senses. In my opinion, THAT is the official smell of the south. I crave the scent.

6. Freshly cut grass in the summer. Isn’t this a universal favorite smell? Have you ever met anyone that said they didn’t like that smell? No, you haven’t.

7. The aromas of the South Carolina Coast. This goes beyond the obviously great smell of salt air that we all love and identify with as the beach, but also to those unique things about the South Carolina coast that are so amazing. Shrimp boiling or frying, footlong hot dogs being served to your table, the myriad of aromas of a beach boardwalk…I could go on all day. This time next week I’ll be there once again. I always come home.

8. Play-Doh. I was one of those kids. I didn’t eat it, but I wanted to, because it smelled so freaking good to me. I could just bury my snout in the cup and stay there. (Btw, this might be one of the weirdest things about me, but certainly not the only thing). I’m not the only one in this boat I’ll have you know. If you Google, “the smell of play-doh,” you’ll get this description: “Hasbro formally describes the trademarked scent as a unique scent formed through the combination of a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla-like fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, and the natural smell of a salted, wheat-based dough.” See???
They do it on purpose 🙂

 

 

 

To Be a Godly Husband and Parent

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(Photo taken by me of my family in San Diego, California Summer 2015)

Colossians 3: 19-21…Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.

In the United States, this is a strange time in our history to be raising a traditional (western sense) family. The support systems and structures of the American family are crumbling in all directions. If no deeper reflection is taken, this is quite threatening to traditionalists and desperately frightening. Wrong is now right, right is now wrong, dark is good, light is bad. At least that’s how it feels to many Americans. But is that really so? Was right really right before, and wrong really wrong? Was light true light? Was dark true darkness?

History is always written by the victorious. For traditional Americans, the past was glorious and the present is an abomination to its legacy. It’s like when you go to a funeral and the person that has passed away is only spoken of in the best possible memories and thoughts. But that person was just as deeply flawed as the rest of us here on earth. We are only presenting the best of what we experienced from them in their lifetime. We whitewash the negative. The victorious do the same with history. The life structures of man are merely a byproduct of what he’s been taught. We were taught one way, and today they teach a new way. Guess what? If it’s worldly, it’s all just a flip of a coin. It’s just darkness taking turns who gets to be the good guys and who are the bad guys in the ongoing deception that separates mankind from the Creator. I made a decision long ago that I would not follow the trends of the world raising my family. I would follow God.

To be a Godly husband and parent runs counter in every way to being a worldly version of either. It’s as if you’re on an inner tube trying to use your hands to paddle – upstream. Against a powerful current. Temptations by the millions rushing past you trying to get you to just let go and let the current take you easy. “Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh with them. Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” That reads like truly sound advice. Because it truly is sound advice. It’s Godly instruction. But to put it into practice? I send you back to the imagery of your hands paddling upstream. You can’t do that alone. You’re not strong enough. Only the strength of Christ can push you up that current.

To be a Godly husband and parent is to possess the Fruit of the Holy Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. For it’s these qualities that allow a man to fulfill Paul’s ordained instructions in the matter. It’s not you…us…we. It’s the Spirit. When one of my daughters does something that angers me as a parent, how I react is going to make all the difference in the world for her future. Early as a father, my reactions were mostly born from – me. I’m a fairly decent sort, so sometimes I got them right just by my nature. But I’m also the same flawed human as everyone else, so when I allowed my anger to dictate, it got ugly in a hurry. Anger is not listed among the fruits of the Spirit. Patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control are. As God has continued his purging of me from me, and filled back with his fruit, my reactions have become more aligned with the ultimate goal of the family – peace and love. The same goes with my marital relationship. Where selfishness once held a primary role in my regard, now there is a partnership of goodness and kindness. Faithfulness. As a family we are united. Not perfect. But harmonious in our loyalty to each other. That’s of God. Not the world.

Any Christian pastor worth his salt when counseling a couple about to be married will tell them – Always keep Christ in the Center of your marriage. My wife and I were blessed with such a pastor at that time, and his words (instructions) have never left us. They’ve seen us through the entire 20 year ride to date. It’s for that reason I love the picture I included in today’s post. My wife and children sitting happily under that cross in California. It’s the perfect symbolism of what God has done for our family. Our shelter. Our refuge. My job to be the same type of shepherd for them as Christ is for me. That’s what it is to be a Godly husband and parent.

What is the status of your own marriage and family? Are you going with the current, or are you powered by Christ upstream against the waves of the world?

It matters not what the trends of mankind are in any given era including this one. The war has already been won. Jesus is Victorious. My best advice to you? Follow the winner.

Gary Abernathy

If You Struggle to Believe…

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(Photo taken by me June, 2017 at Brookgreen Gardens, Murrell’s Inlet, SC)

1 Peter 2: 9-10…”But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

In much detail, I’ve described my experiences with the Holy Spirit the past 3 years here on this blog. If one is getting to know me by this site only, they may get the impression that I’ve been that certain way my entire life. Completely false. My human life has largely been spent far away from the Father in rebellion, yet my soul has indeed acknowledged the “pings” of his presence for as long as I can remember. God chooses us, we don’t choose him, and when we are ready, the time and place is at his disposal to offer the one thing we do choose to accept or deny individually – Salvation via the Son, Jesus Christ. If you struggle to believe, if you’ve read scripture and it lay dormant on the pages, and your heart is far away from God, but yet you still feel his “ping,” do not be discouraged. I’m of the firm belief that if your soul receives those reminder hints in the midst of your otherwise denial, that you are God’s possession. It’s just not time.

I recently read a great example of this in the autobiography of, Jack Barsky, titled – “Deep Under Cover.” If you’ve ever watched the television drama, “The Americans,” which is one of my all-time favorite shows, Jack Barsky’s story is a real-life version. Born and raised in Cold War East Germany, he was brought up in the atheist-communist system of the Soviet-bloc, and eventually became a spy within the KGB. He spent 10 years undercover for the KGB in America as a computer specialist named – Jack Barsky. A totally assumed identity. He would later defect to the FBI and eventually assumed that identity as his real one. It’s a fascinating book and worth the time. However, there’s a much larger piece to the Jack Barsky story, and it’s exactly what I’m talking about here in this post – God’s hints during the path of our rejection of him until the day of reconciliation.

Jack’s parents were both school teachers and he loved every bit of the process of learning. When he was in 3rd grade an optional class named – Religious Instruction – was added to the school’s curriculum. That by itself I found intriguing to learn, as this was the mid-1950’s during the time of Sputnik and the Space Race, and religion all together was considered as nothing but “opium for the masses” according to strict Marxist doctrine. Total malarkey for simpletons. Nonetheless, they began offering this class on Saturday’s at the end of the regular school day. Jack wanted to check it out. His father said no.

“But, why not?” I asked. “Albrecht” (Jack’s real name), my father said with a glance at my mother. “The stuff they teach in that class is mostly fairy tales. It’s not good for you.”  I looked at him quizzically. “Fairy tales are not good for me? I just finished reading the entire Brothers Grimm, and I like fairy tales.” My father seemed annoyed by my precocious argument and tried to explain further. “The Christian fairy tales make people believe in things that are not good for them. In the past, this has helped the rich to suppress the poor. I don’t want to explain anymore – just believe me, this stuff is bad for you.”

That strange denial only made the class seem more appealing to Jack, as now he saw it as dangerous and was even more curious. So, he and a friend snuck under a half-opened window, and listened in on the teacher.

Indeed, the teacher seemed to be sharing a fairy tale with the students, but instead of using the Brothers Grimm, he used a book called – The Bible. We listened with rapt attention as the teacher told a story about three kings who went on an arduous journey, riding camels through the desert, guided by a bright star, to visit a newborn baby by the name of Jesus.

After being discovered by the teacher and shooed away, Jack went home and engaged his father in conversation once again.

“Dad, do you know anything about the Jesus fairy tale?” His face showed instant disapproval. “Where did you hear about Jesus?” he demanded.

From that day forward, his father required him to come straight back after school. But a few months later while visiting his grandfather during Christmas, which they celebrated purely in Pagan tradition, he happened upon a bookshelf and found a title that caught his eye – Die Bibel. He knew it was the book that contained the Jesus fairy tale. He noted that his grandfather was the “only adult in our family who seemed to like me,” and that he was a kind man. “It seemed strange to me that my father was his son.”

My heart picked up a beat as I turned the pages of this forbidden book and began reading from the beginning. I didn’t see any mention of Jesus. By the time I reached Genesis 10 and 11 and the lineages of Noah and Abraham, I had yawned enough times that I decided to close the giant book. I didn’t open another bible for the next forty-five years.”

From there Jack would go on into his work spying for the Soviet Union in America largely unconnected to Christianity. He later looked back in retrospect that God was protecting him from harm all those years, though he never acknowledged such a thing. After his defection, he achieved a very successful career in corporate America, but his personal life began to crumble. His marriage became dysfunctional and his children had all grown and left home. “I came to the painful realization that I was lacking a spiritual anchor, and there seemed to be no refuge for what had become a lonely soul,” Jack discloses in his personal testimony on the site – http://www.outreach.com

Despondent, Jack wrote in an email to a friend – “All that is left for me is to become the best person I can be. I did not really know what ‘best person’ meant, nor did I know how to get there. With the benefit of hindsight, I now know that this email was my first prayer for salvation.”

God knew I was ready, so he answered my (non) prayer. Within three weeks of sending out the email, I hired a new administrative assistant. What impressed me most about this young lady was an incredible peaceful glow on her face and certainty about all things in life. “How is it that you have arrived at such a marvelous inner peace?” I asked. The answer was eye-opening, but at the same time hard to believe: “I take my strength from Jesus,” she said. “How can one take strength from somebody one has never seen?” I thought to myself. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, and one month later I was baptized.

 

 

Talk to your Father.

 

Gary Abernathy