100 Years of Charles Walker's Family Legacy

100 years ago today was the birth of my father-in-law. He's gone on to glory and I remember the day with fondness. His son, was my treasure, so it behoved me to get to know this, influential man in his life. In the beginning, I never dreamed that the son was the clone of the father. Years have proven that to be the case. The first introduction rings in my memory forever. The service was exciting and powerful, but my dear heart was sleeping during the sermon. This should have appalled me, but it was really cute to me, as conservative and devout as I was, there was something unique that this junior deacon could sleep in the cacaphony that was the church around him. Maybe, I fell in love, right then. Maybe, that brought the pesky maternal instinct out in me. The icing on the cake was that, after the service he would introduce me to his father. There were so many culturally unique portions of the service and I had no interpreter, in those days. I remember that I didn't understand much, except that I had heard from a dear one that the Holy Ghost was among those people and I believed his testimony. I knew that Christ was preached and that I was too ignorant to understand the language. My heart was in my throat as they called, the man who I had met as Benjamin, Deacon Benji for the offering. He walked with a little strut and couldn't keep his head straight for anything. I had the great desire to grab his head and straighten it for him, but even that carefreeness, only endeared his person to me more. He took me by the hand after the amen and brought me out to meet his father, in person. I nearly fainted. Did I have to meet him today? Maybe we could wait for another day. This was the man who changed my life immensely. Ben said, Jayne, I would like you to meet the Reverend Charles Walker. What a formal way to introduce me to your father? I was struck by the intensity of the formality. We shook hands, "God bless you heaven smile upon you!" I felt welcomed and accepted. Was spirituality supposed to include welcomed and accepted? An interesting irony to my preconceived notions of Baptists this was. They were definitely Baptists and I wasn't sure if Baptists could be saved, except that my, very respected friend had already assured me that these people were the saved kind of Baptists. I know that I loved the Reverend instantly, though it took me quite a while to learn to love his sleeping in Church son. My first real conversation with Pastor Walker was in the kitchen of the family home. We sat at the table and I don't know where everybody else was, there was always a commotion. Maybe, everybody was there and I was just enamored with the Reverend. It is very possible for a gullible and Jesus loving young lady to become totally engulfed by the discussion of religion with such a dignified and elder preacher. This was perhaps the only conversation that I talked in. He asked question after question about the Bible. He listened and said very little. Who wrote the book of Proverbs? Who wrote the book of Leviticus? I answered, definitively and he said very little and then he left me. I would find out that this would never happen to me again. I was the learner in the relationship and he would establish that after awhile. But, at first, it served his purpose to make me think that I knew something and that he wanted to know that I knew something. The lesson over this 30 something years of knowing the man of my heart is submission and the importance of the spiritual above the intellectual. I would never, ever learned that lesson any other way. It was a wrestling match through life. You are looking at that through the microscope of the intellectual, he beckoned, very little can really be discerned that way. If it doesn't please God, what matters intellect? True, dear Father-in-law. I certainly wouldn't have missed that wrestling match for the world. From the heart of the one who gave me my name and my identity, as a wife and daughter-in-law, I am sure that I never thanked him enough.