The Lords House - As We Lived It. . .!

Diary - Entry 9

My mood is very dark (when is it not these days), with all the commercials on the television it brought to mind one christmas that as usual, I will never forget. It was during one of the times we stayed with Memoo and Papaw.   I got a "Kerry" doll, (remember, the one that you pushed in her belly button and her hair grew, then turned the knob on the back and it got short again), you and Vic got tractors with tiny discs.  We were sitting in the livingroom playing on the floor, when you said you missed mommy, then Vic said it and I said be quiet.

My grandfather, the Reverand Lonnie McFarland. . . closed his bible, got up from his recliner and said "your mother is a whore and a slut, I have told you never to speak her name in this house, which is dedicated to the Lord!"

He layed his bible down gently, reached over and grabbed Todd and Vic up by there arms, stripped both of them  naked and threw them outside into the snow, all the time I was clutching my doll, screaming and crying  for him to stop . . . "that they didn't mean it".  He slapped me so hard  with the bible he had picked back up, I cut my lip open and he made me stand and watch them shivering in the snow. They started wetting themselves and shaking.

At some point, my grandmother said,  "Lonnie, that's enough" and she brought the boys back inside, put them in pajamas and we all went to bed.

Under normal circumstances, people would think this is some type of horror story, but when you lived it daily, it some how became routine and you learned to keep your thoughts to yourself, we spoke only to one another about our parents, when we were sure that we were completely alone, then we would talk, hug and whisper our secrets.

Church was the order of the day. We had no television, we listened to the Wynne News everyday and "christian" music the rest of the time. Every day the door was open, we were in it.  Wednesdays and twice on Sundays.  This doesn't seem like alot of time, but when you are brought up Pentacostel and you see people speaking in tungs, running up and down the aisle taking there clothes off. . .and the service would get to be 4 and 5 hours long. . . it was exhausting, scary and as there was no 'Sunday school', us McFarland kids where right up in the front pew. . . witnessing it all.  I hated it, every time we walked through that door I was filled with terror, dread and a prayer that nothing crazy would scare Todd and Vic.

His Revivals were worse. . .they were the epitome of all his sermons, laying on hands, speaking in tungs, twisting about, people simply could not get enough of him. That is one of the reasons I never saw the movie
"The Apostle", my grandfather could have been its role model.  As pius as he was on the pulpit, his gross
impropriety was blatant at home.