Spring Steel

I have a short list of folks with whom I wouldn’t want to tangle if my life depended on it. There are only four individuals on the list, and surprisingly enough, they are all of the female persuasion. That being said, in all four cases, given the occasion of a confrontation, I would scream like a little girl, tuck my tail between my legs and head for the hills running like a scalded dog. I would go further in my description, but I’m running short on clichés.  Suffice it to say, I wouldn’t mess with any of them, and I would advise you to do the same.

In no particular order these esteemed ladies are: my mamma, Bobbie Jean Tharpe Rowell; her mamma, Margaret Jane Jenkins Tharpe, better known as Granny; Granny’s neighbor to the left, Miss Irene (Irene stands alone in needing no further designation; Irene is just Irene); and my Great Aunt Doshey on my Grandpa Tharpe’s side.

My mamma was a 95 pound combination of angel food cake, devil’s food cake, sweet buttermilk and Texas Pete. She was the consummate Southern lady with excellent manners, beautiful features, a soft lilting voice, the memory of a pachyderm and a spine of tempered steel. My mom was a beautiful red rose nestled among thorns, where the fragrance was intoxicating, and the thorns had barbs. To love and be loved by Bobbie Jean Rowell was a gift from above, but you messed with my mother at your own peril.      

My Granny was the woman who bore and raised my mom. It seems to me that should be all the description needed. Granny passed down her strength, determination and self-reliance to my Mom. Mom added a bit of spice and a pleasant refinement to the mix; but given the need to stand firm, the granite that was my Granny would shine through as the flint and steel that was my mom. I’ve said before that God gave me a jewel when he gave me my Granny, but that jewel had a sharp edge or two that were best avoided.

Miss Irene, my granny’s next door neighbor, was a sight for terrified eyes. She topped out at around 5 feet tall I figure, and trapped inside those 5 feet was 200 pounds of spring steel, raw hide and gristle. Covering her frame was a dirty gray house frock she wore day in and day out without exception. Apparently she didn’t believe in washing her hair all too often either; she figured it would mess with her mystic, I suppose.

I’m not one to dream very much, but should Miss Irene venture into my subconscious, I wake up in a cold sweat every time. That being said, on the late July afternoon when that hot grease on my Granny’s stove caught fire and burned down the kitchen, Miss Irene was the first one on the scene to help as she could.

She hugged my Granny, helped her hide the tears and took a terrified eight year old off of Granny’s hands and fed him a fine meal, as I recall. Then she stood solid and firm as a dear friend and fine neighbor to my Granny. You really don’t know a person until you live through a crisis with them.

I will always describe my Great Aunt Doshey as a high haired woman of the Old South. That woman had a jet black beehive hairdo until the day she died. I believe they had to extend her coffin a bit to accommodate the thing.

Aunt Doshey stood five feet nothing while standing on a three foot ladder; but with that beehive hairdo of hers, she could try out for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Aunt Doshey was a charter member of the local Pentecostal church, so according to her she could never tell a lie. Nonetheless she swore up and down that she never used hair color despite the fact that her eye brows were as gray as Stonewall Jackson’s uniform, while that smokestack of a hairdo was always black as soot.

Despite that trivial moral lapse, she did have a couple of redeeming qualities. She had a really nice backyard with good trees for climbing and soft dirt for digging, which was appealing to a young boy. Her most alluring quality in the eyes of a little kid however, lay in the fact that she was addicted to Coca Cola. Every now and again, when Granny wasn’t watching, she would let me sneak one. You see Coca-Cola and such frivolities were forbidden on Sunday afternoons according to my Granny’s take on the Ten Commandments.

Speaking of the Ten Commandments, Aunt Doshey was a proponent for all of them as well as the rest of Deuteronomy, Chronicles one and two and every other last ounce of the Good Book.

You see Aunt Doshey was a died in the wool, hard-shell, Bible believing, slain in the Spirit, washed in the blood, Church of God Pentecostal; and you simply did not want to cross her. You just didn't. She was unwavering in her belief, vocal in her convictions and swift in her wrath.

Now while I must admit she did scare me a bit as a child, in retrospect I truly appreciate some things about her. I respect and admire her strength of faith in Jesus Christ and His saving grace. I appreciate her fearlessness when doing battle for the Lord, and I also appreciate her total reliance on the Word of God as written in the King James Version, circa 1611.

Now considering my appreciation of the NIV, she might have a bit of a problem with me in one area. You see, to her it was King James or nothing.
 
She had been taught and believed that the NIV, ASV, RSV, and any other V other than the KJV were heretical, and that anybody reading them was in imminent danger of the wrath of God descending on them right then and there. After all if the King James was good enough for Jesus, then it was good enough for everybody.   
All that aside, I sure wish we had an army of Aunt Doshey’s these days.

So let me ask you. Is there an Aunt Doshey hidden deep within? Where do you stand when it comes to the Kingdom of God? Do you have the strength, compassion and conviction of my memories? I pray that you do for the world is in desperate need for the Savior you have to offer.

1 Corinthians 15:58
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.
KJV

Love you, Aunt Doshey!
 
 Love, Pastor Tony