NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Two Tennessee authors have written devotionals that were inspired by their father and grandfather.
In her book, 31 Days of SONshine, Dr. Janice Browne shares inspirational stories from personal experiences she has had with family and friends. One of the individuals that impacted her life was her father, the late Washington Johnson, Sr.
“He was a man of deep conviction, integrity and love,” Browne writes in the Dedication section of the book. “His positive imprint is seen throughout this book, and will positively imprint your life as you read it.”
In the last devotion of the book, Browne writes affectionately about her father’s influence on she and her five other siblings. You might say he had a way of speaking things into existence.
“Whatever he thought he saw in us as a profession would be the name he would call us,” writes Browne, who lives in Whites Creek. “He would refer to my younger brother as ‘Preacher,’ and sure enough he became a preacher. He referred to one of my sisters as ‘Editor,’ and years later she studied journalism and became an editor. The name he had for me was ‘Professor.’ I became a professor in the field of psychology. Each of us acquired professional names and became those professionals – all six of us!”
In his devotional, Wisdom: From Generation 2 Generation, Dr. Fred Batten, Jr., recounts – at times humorously – some of his grandfather’s words of wisdom that he remembered hearing as a child.
“My grandfather, T.D. Wade, Sr., without the title of life coach, planted seeds in the soil of my life which are bearing fruit some 40 years later,” says Batten, who pastors a church in Memphis.
When he was a kid, Batten says he didn’t always understand what his grandfather meant when he said phrases like, Every tub gotta’ stand on its own bottom, and The ground will give what you put in it. But now that he’s older and has experienced decades of life, he understands what his granddad was talking about, and he unpacks his wily wisdom in his book.
“The American culture needs to reclaim the notion of respecting those who are older,” writes Batten. “The purpose and goal of this book is … to open the channels of sharing wisdom from generation to generation.”
https://www.amazon.com/31-Days-SONshine-devotions-reflections/dp/0998824992
https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Generation-Jr-Fred-Batten/dp/1948877015
