"A PLACE TO PRAY"

"For I will declare mine iniquity..."

Even so, as a child, he was a child of the most high God. He walked with God, and God walked with him, even as it was in the time of old Eden, long before the memory of man. The ancient southern soil grew both farmers and preachers, sometimes they grew twined as one, a man who would farm, and would, in time, preach. To the one or the other, was a calling, few were called by God to be both. It seemed that a man who farmed well, who would be burdened with "the call," to preach, had to serve first, and well on his farm. A man dedicated to God and family, to suffer both blessings and burdens, that his tongue be tempered, in preparation for the other. God called men of the cities, and of the sea to preach, but to those like him, who understood him, shared a heritage. A city man to preach fervently to those in the cities, a man of the sea, to bring the word to men of the sea, who thirsted for the word, even be it tinged with the salt of the sea, it quenched their thirst. A man born of the soil, nursed of it, brought to manhood of it, with a mind made fertile by God for His sake, and the sake of the brethren, could sally forth with the Word like no other...nonpareil. Such a man was Pharoah Phillips, a man filled with loving kindness, and strict adherence to King James Bible farming, and living. Maybe you wonder over such a thing said of a man who was to farm the King James Bible way. He might study the almanac and peruse the Progressive Farmer Magazine month in and month out, but his KJV Bible directed all of his ways. When the love of a woman came to him, he married her. As sure and certain as to the resurrection that he would never know the love of another, as he felt God had brought her unto him for a helpmate. Their children came soon enough and regular enough, their home always loud with children except when they grew tired at days' end, and it grew happily quiet of a late evening. The work of a farm was doled out to children according to their abilities, little ones did little things, and grew into bigger chores and work on it, in their time. A farm wife and mother never had enough children to lighten her load, the more the young ones did the more there was for her to see to and direct. They all grew old before their time. It was the lot of woman to bend and become bent, to wear away her youth and beauty a bit at a time. If she spoke little or never of it, she saw it. It took her bit by bit, and delivered her into old age even when the calendar said not. No beautiful farm wife was allowed to keep her beauty, and the mirror on the wall was not a magic one. Magic mirrors were no longer to be had. Angela Dawkins had beauty and Pharoah had to have her. As soon as he saw her, he told himself that God meant her to be his. She was a good pastor's wife to Preacher Pharoah Phillips, a good farm wife, and mother. Pharoah was sure God had meant her for these things, never questioned it, never gave thought to any of it. Her children adored her. When Alton, their eldest, was in his seventeenth year, and Fay, their youngest of their five was in her eighth year, Angela went away. There was no asking why nor where, she left, and left a void none could fill. Pharoah asked his mother to come live with them to help. She, their dear grandmother committed to seeing them all grown, and when Fay married the Fortner boy, she soon passed into Heaven, having done her very best. Pharoah kept his own counsel, and never spoke more of it than needed be spoken of it. It brought him such a sadness that all could see, but it never took him to bitterness, and he and they healed as much as a family may heal with such a raw wound that never closes completely. It was soon after "she left" as it was referred to, that Pharoah had made himself a place to pray, a place for him alone, alone but for God. He had his place to pray, and as often as he could get away he walked alone to the very old walnut tree that stood alone, overlooking the valley below the farm that had been their family farm for three generations. His place to pray was on the west side over the valley, with the farmhouse and farm buildings behind him, all he could see from there was solitude, no work, no farm, no church, just aloneness with his God. His children never bothered him there, not once, it was clearly his and no other's, a place sacred to their beloved father. They knew that "her" leaving had left an emptiness in him that no one could share nor understand. Their father's quiet acceptance and peace that was beyond their understanding, made it so for them too. No need to ask questions that the asker knew could not be answered. When Alton saw their father making his countless treks to that ancient tree on the ridge, he knew that someday he would need a place like that, a place to pray. He would know where it was when God would show him. He was a Godly man like his father. The years walked in and out of their lives as years always do, leaving loss in their wake, yet eternal hope as well. Pharoah Phillips had abided well with the piece of earth God had granted him to tend as had his father and his before him. A great old age was given him, and he had done his best in the pulpit and at home. There came a cold winter day when Pharoah had made his sacred journey to that special place, and God gave him to know it was his last, that it was beyond his thin old legs' to carry him once more to that soil that held his heart. The Lord blessed him with the "double pneumonia" as Dr. Harris called it. His children came to see him one last time, his board of deacons came as a group to sit a while also. God gave him might to breath until all who needed to come, came. Then he sent dear Fay, his baby girl grown almost old as well, to send her brother Alton. Her father pulled her back one last time and held her tight, then nodded her away to fetch her brother. Alton came, hat in hand, a heart filled with love for this dying man who had sacrificed so much for them, given more than his all. Pharoah's eyes glistened, closed, and opened again. He held his son's wrist in his bony grasp and said, "bury me under the old walnut tree, facing the valley...beside your mother." Alton saw life depart from the old face, and his father's words, "beside your mother," made his legs weak.