Drink From My Cup
Writer Author Jerry Lee Kay Sr.
Christian Article
:
Christian Living
- Fiction No
Back in the fifties my uncle Paul sent word to me, (I was about twelve years old) to come see him, he said he had a new toy he wanted to show me. So Mom made arraignments for me to go stay a few weeks in the summer. She really didn't want to because she always worried about me when I was with uncle Paul. However he was her favorite brother and she said ok.
If you have read some of my pryor stories you may have heard me mention uncle Paul, he was a half breed Cherokee married to a full blood Osage, and didn't have a lot of use for white men ways, although he liked a lot of white men. Of course being a kid, Poppa thought he was a cool old dude and loved being with him. To give you an idea what kind he was, I once went to visit him after my Aunt Annie passed away and the first thing he said to me when I arrived was, I will make coffee before we start talking son, will you join me? I agreed, he then sat down and pulled his sock off, hobbled to the kitchen carrying the sock. I thought, I best be seeing what he's about to do, so I followed him. When we got to the kitchen he got the pot off the stove (Wood burning) rinsed it out, put enough water in the pot for a full pot of coffee, poured a bunch of coffee in the sock, tied a knot in it and threw it over in the pot. He turned around looked at me and said, don't worry I just put the sock on this morning and I am out of cheesecloth, It will be okay, I put enough coffee in it to mask any other taste!.....Your probably wondering if I drank the coffee when it was boiled..(uncle Paul only drank boiled coffee),..the answer is, Yep I sure did, had several cups!..Even complimented him and told him he should keep brewing it like that....Sure made a fine cup of coffee!...Couldn't be any worse than some of the stuff I ate and drank on the mission field...Amen?
School let out and the following weekend Momma loaded me up with clothing enough for two weeks, there really was no need of that because aunt Annie had a big black wash pot and scrub board out back, but you know how Momma's are!
When we arrived uncle Paul insisted Momma spend the night, so he didn't reveal his surprise till she left the next day! Uncle Paul, Annie and Momma loved to sing Gospel songs in the Cherokee language together, we had neighbors come by and My!My! what a glorious evening we did have! Couldn't get uncle Paul to church but he loved to sing and was always singing and playing the fiddle and guitar.
Momma left right after dinner and I sure was glad, cause I was dying to see the surprise Uncle Paul had for me. Well, he gave her about thirty minutes to get down the road, he said follow me boy and out to the barn we went. Uncle Paul pulled the big double doors open and revealed a sure enough, full fledged old timey lemon colored Bi-Plane. Looked kinda like a crop duster plane except it had four wings up front instead of two. Naturally I was flabbergasted and all I could say was, WOW! How cool is that? I asked, Have you got a license to fly this thing Uncle Paul? He answered, "License! son I don't need no stinkin license to fly this thing, are you with me or against me?" Twelve years old what do you think my answer was? Fire it up uncle Paul and lets take her for a ride, ( Poppa's first flying lesson). Aunt Ann came running from the house all excited talking real fast to Paul in her native lingo, I picked up on, no your not taking that boy up in that devilish thing you only had it for a few months and Juanita (my Mom) will kill you if you hurt him! Uncle Paul turned, looked at Annie and said, get back in the house woman or I'll put you in it! She wasn't sure if he meant it or not so off she went back to the house, griping and praying.
We pulled it out of the barn, fired it up, and in just a few minutes we were airborne. He told me before we started, he never flew it over a few hundred feet off the ground so don't worry bout getting hurt! But when we were about fifty miles from his house he all of a sudden started a rapid ascent into what I thought was an attempt to go to heaven. Higher and higher and higher he went until the stuff on the ground looked like a little jigsaw puzzle. when we broke through some clouds he was still climbing, and Poppa started getting a little nervous and couldn't breath very well. Finally he leveled it off and handed me a face mask that was hooked up to a bottle of oxygen, he already had one on, he apologized, said he forgot I was back there! He continued flying at that altitude for a little while then suddenly started back down. When we finally got back to his house he sat it down on the ground and taxied over to the barn. Aunt Ann and momma came running out cackling like two mother hens, wanting to know where we went and why was he flying that devil machine so high in the air. Seems as though we had flown by mom as she was going home and I waved at her not knowing who she was. Momma got the vapors and fainted, and I ran over to see about her while Uncle Paul reached over in the plane and pulled three dead rats up by their tails and tossed them to the dogs. He said, while parked in the barn those little critters got in the plane and while flying at a low altitude, he could hear them gnawing away at the controls of the plane, and he knew the best way to stop the destruction they were causing, was to go higher and gain enough altitude to choke off their oxygen. Mostly cause a long time ago he had heard a Holiness preacher talk about the very same thing.
He then turned to me and said, "son life is like that, if you don't gain enough altitude to keep the rats and parasites from destroying your control, you will crash and burn. It is the same in the Spirit life, but if you will listen to the voice of Great Spirit, He will take you higher than the mountains, where the rats of this world can't do you harm, where hell can't get a foot hold in your life."
He said, "I know I'm not as refined as your father or John Wolf or your uncle Roscoe, but "Here is my fountain, and here is my cup: find fault if you want to; but I want you to drink of this water of life first, I only ask that you to drink before you pass judgement upon me."
I preached on that subject several hundred times over the years, when Abba Father was using me in that capacity. And I just stopped by to say, it hasn't changed in this hour in which we are living now. When the pressures of life start eating away at our control and we feel as though we are about to crash and burn, the only sure way to survive is to go to the Rock of your Salvation and He will elevate you to a higher level, a level of safety, beyond the rats and parasites of this world.
Dear friend, you may not agree with all that I say and believe, but I, as my strange uncle, invite you to drink from my cup, you can find fault if you want; but please drink of this water of life first, I only ask that you take a drink...Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem....Can You say Amen!
God Bless You
Poppa
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About the Writer Author
State:
Texas
Country:
United States
Email:
jerryleekay@suddenlink.net
Website:
www.jerryleekay.net
Profile:
Click here!
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