Can Fathers Influence Quarrelsome Teenaged Sons?

Darrel and his kids.

Our guest blogger today is Darrel Cook. Darrel is a friend I have known for a long time. He shared with me that he had been thinking about and missing his father today. When he saw my appeal for a guess blogger, he messaged me and said, [Some] events this morning reminded me of dad. Then I saw your post and so I memorialized all of it. Frankly, it was more for me. I think you will be reminded that fathers have influence. Thanks Darrel and thank you too Mr. Cook

I don’t go to your church but I grew up with your pastor. I suppose I will call him Dr. Sallee, but frankly I feel like that’s something I should call his father, or perhaps his uncle. In any case, I noted on Facebook that Phil was looking for a guest blogger and since we kind of grew up together, I thought I would share this tale from my youth.

Like Phil’s father, my father was a deacon, a Sunday school teacher, and a member of several committees in our church. One of the committees that my father served on for many years was what we called the Benevolence Committee. He was chairman of the Benevolence Committee during my junior and senior years in high school. As a result, whenever one hard-luck story or another turned up on the church steps eventually my father was involved. This is a fact that I hated when I was 17, 18 and 19.

One Saturday morning when I was 17 my father drove me out of bed and we went down to the church and started up this very old than it used to be a Ryder Truck Rental van. The church had several campuses at that time and use the van from moving furniture, fixtures and equipment from one campus to another. First we went to the homes of several members and picked up all sorts of furniture, all of it best described as “early marriage” type of furniture. Well used at the very least. Then after we had collected all the furniture we went to the homes of three different families who were in need and drop furniture off. I could not of been more irritated at the whole experience. The last family is the one I remember best. It was a single father who had four children and a two-bedroom apartment. We dropped off three beds. One was a double or a queen, something like that and the other two beds were single beds there reminded me of the beds I grew up with as a child. I distinctly recall the wagon wheel headboards. As we were leaving their home that father shook the hand of my father and shook my hand and thank this profusely for furniture. He had tears streaming down his face and he could not of been more grateful.

On another occasion a woman lost her lease in her home and we picked up that old Ryder truck and went and retrieved her furniture and stored it in our garage for a month or so. Again, I could not have felt more imposed upon by my father.

Although I was touched by the gratitude of the single father, I was no less put out with my father for getting me out of bed for the exercise. I was especially irritated because for much of this time my dad was unemployed and we hardly had the time or resources for what I viewed as pure folly.

Fast-forward to today. I own a law firm in Dallas, Texas. This morning one of the lawyers whom I have employed for eight years made this statement to a group of people with whom we were speaking: “Darrell Cook is the most benevolent person I know.”

The statement caught me off guard as I don’t really think of myself as particularly benevolent. When I later asked her about the veracity of that statement she said, “Are you kidding? There is no question you are the most benevolent person I have ever met.”

I grew up in a home that modeled for me genuine Christian values. I’ve always told my kids that we only have one rule in my house and it’s this: treat others like God made them special, too.

These are not values you learn from reading, these are values you learn by watching and doing and you absorb them from those around you. I have taught 11th grade Sunday school for 25 years and can promise you parents that the number one influence in your kid’s life is still you. In those difficult times I trust you keep the faith and believe the Scriptures when it says “[t]rain a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (Proverbs 22:6) And try to remember the training in the home is as much something we observe as it is something we are actually taught. Are you a model for your kids? Do you treat others like God made them special, too?

I love what your church is doing and I wish I could be a part of it. God bless you.

These are the thoughts and memories of a 50+ years old successful lawyer from Texas. Yes, fathers do indeed have influence. Thanks Darrel.