Our Children in the Eighties (12)

NOTE:  I didn't realize I had deleted this posting.  It is out of sequence.

Perhaps Preachers are Called, But Does the Call Extend to P.K.’s

Our youngest child was Gary.  He started the decade in junior high, and by the end of the decade he had dropped out of college.  Gary was determined to do things his way and call the shots for his own life.  He didn’t like the notion of being a PK (Preacher’s Kid), but there wasn’t much he could do about it.  I’ve thought about this phenomenon quite a bit.       

    

 I chose to be a preacher of the gospel.  Was it is call?  Yes, I think it was.  I heard no still small voice, but God placed me in an environment in which I was encouraged to go in that direction.  There was the desire of my father (which was something I resisted for a long time), the young men’s training class taught by Marion Hays, the trips we made to West Texas churches to deliver five minute talks, youth activities hosted by ACC, the encouragement of John Estes, and all the elders at Clyde.  By the time I reached my senior year of high school I knew I wanted to preach.  I felt like God had given me that ability and opened the door.  It made sense to me to walk through the open door.

Ann chose to be preacher’s wife.  Sometimes she had second thoughts about it, but it was a choice she made.  There have been various times when people have told her, “You shouldn’t be a preacher’s wife.”  Gary came by his desire to live independently from the expectation of others from his mother.  She and I may march in step with the same drummer, but she hears the tune differently.   For that reason, there are some people who don’t think she’s a good preacher’s wife (They are very much in the minority).  Ann didn’t have much of a choice if she remained married to me. She didn’t want to stand in the way of a call either.

For the children it was different.  I once heard one P.K. ask another, “Did you go crazy before you left home or after? It’s not a question of ‘Did you?’  It’s only a question of ‘when.’  I wouldn’t want to say that Gary went crazy, but he did push the boundaries of family expectations in an attempt to assert his own independence.

I won’t go into the scrapes, the shouting matches, the attempts at tough love, the disillusionment, and anxiety that characterized the relationship between Gary and me for several years.  It is now a mutually supportive relationship, and we enjoy each other’s company, but it took a while to get there.  On the way to our current relationship, we walked down some rocky roads.