Faith of My Father

There are many things I love about West Virginia...any season...  One of the things that have always charmed me about West Virginia are their churches...

Little, white wooden churches with simple names...dotting the hillsides on old country roads...

with wooden pews, people still singing out of hymnals--no megachurches here with flashy, audio-visual displays.

And the church is the pillar of the community...the center of  community life.

Four years ago today, I woke up for the first time without my father in this world.  This is him being baptized by his minister and a visiting evangelist.

I miss him every day...but his faith that he lived daily, continues to live in me...all because of this (the actual church) country church of my father.

There's a little mountain church in my thoughts of yesterday
Where friends and family gathered for the Lord
There and old fashioned preacher taught the straight and narrow way
For what few coins the congregation could afford

Dressed in all out Sunday best we sat on pews of solid oak
And I remember how our voices filled the air
How mama sounded like an angel on those high soprano notes
And when the roll is called up yonder I'll be there.

   Looking back now that little mountain church house
   Has become my life's corner stone
   It was there in that little mountain church house
   I first heard the word I've based my life upon.