Who’s Your Daddy

I received the following this morning from a new contact on LinkedIn.  Thought I would share it.

A seminary professor was vacationing with his wife in Gatlinburg, Tennessee when they stopped at a small country diner for breakfast. While waiting for their order to arrive, they noticed a distinguished looking, white-haired man moving from table to table, visiting with each diner. The professor leaned over and whispered to his wife, ‘I hope this guy doesn't come over here.' But sure enough, the white haired man did come over to their table.

‘Where are you folks from?' he asked in a friendly voice.' Oklahoma,' they answered.
‘Great to have you here in Tennessee,' the stranger said … ‘What do you do for a living?' ‘I teach at a seminary,' he replied. ‘Oh, so you teach preachers how to preach, do you? Well, in that case I've got a really great story for you.' And with that, the gentleman pulled up a chair and sat down at the table with the couple from Oklahoma. The professor groaned and thought to himself, ‘Great.. Just what I need…. another preacher story!'

The man started, ‘See that mountain over there? (Pointing out the restaurant window). Not far from the base of that mountain, there was a boy born to an unwed mother. He had a hard time growing up in these parts, because every place you go down here, people always ask ‘Who's your daddy?' So whether the little boy was at school, the grocery store or the drug store, people would ask him ‘Who's your daddy?' Consequently the boy often avoided going places just to avoid hearing the question, ‘Who's your daddy?'

Then a new preacher arrived in town and one Sunday as the young boy leaving the church the new preacher, not knowing anything about the young boy, reached over put his hand on his shoulder and asked him, ‘Son, who's your daddy?' The whole church got deathly quiet and the preacher could feel every eye in the church watching as if now everyone would finally know the answer to the question, ‘Who's your daddy?' Sensing the situation around him and how awkward the little boy looked the preacher said ‘Well wait a minute! I know who you are! I can see the family resemblance now, You are a child of God.' With that he the preacher patted the boy on his head and said, ‘Boy, you've got a great inheritance. Go out and claim it.'

‘The little boy smiled as he walked out of Church that Sunday and he was a changed person. He was never the same again. Whenever anybody would ask him, ‘Who's your Daddy?' he'd just tell them, ‘I'm a Child of God.” The distinguished gentleman then rose from the table and said, ‘Isn't that a great story?' The professor nodded because it really was a great story! As the gentleman walked toward the door he turned and said, ‘You know, if that new preacher hadn't told me that I was one of God's children, I probably never would have amounted to anything!' And then he walked out of the diner.

The seminary professor and his wife sat there stunned. When the waitress came to their table with their bill they asked her, ‘Did you see that man who just left our” ‘Yes’ she replied. “Do you know who that he was?' The waitress grinned and said, ‘Of course. Everybody down here knows him. That's Ben Hooper. He's the former governor of Tennessee!'

{ – – Ben Hooper (1870-1957) was governor of Tennessee from 1911-1915 – – }

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James A. Restucci is the author of this blog. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Internal License.

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