The Lord's Name on a Street Sign?

“Should the Lord’s name be used on a street sign?” I wondered, after I saw a newspaper article about a strip of road in Fayetteville, N.C., that was recently named “Jesus Christ Way.”

“Drive down Dudley Road, deep into rural Cumberland County, and there it is: a brand new, bright green street sign proclaiming a short stretch of sandy road as Jesus Christ Way,” wrote Chick Jacobs of The Fayetteville Observer newspaper (July 22, 2011).

Jacobs said that Jesus Christ Way is simply a sparse, sandy strip running from the pavement of Dudley Road to Bethel Elelohe Israel Missionary Baptist Church, a small, brown wooden structure. Warnette Patterson pastors the church, and her husband Samuel is co-pastor.

“When I was ordained, the Lord gave me a vision,” Warnette Patterson, 67, said. “He told me to put his name before men.”

Jacobs wrote, “Of the 8,000-plus named streets in Cumberland County – and of the hundreds of thousands across North Carolina – none were named for Jesus Christ.”

Warnette Patterson said she called the Cumberland County Courthouse. The name wasn’t used on a street in N.C., so Jesus Christ Way was approved, Jacobs wrote.

Warnette said she wants to make Jesus’ name known, because of what he did for her.

“I’m not proud of my earlier life,” she said. “I did a lot of things. The Sunday I was saved, I was out drinking the Friday before.”

Jacobs wrote, “Her husband was serving in the military and stationed in Korea. Patterson says she was living on Fort Bragg, hiding from bill collectors and creditors.”

“They couldn’t get to me there,” Warnette said. “But the Holy Spirit could. I began feeling worse and worse, like I was going to die right then. I had to get to a church. Any church. I didn’t think I’d last long enough to get off base, so I ended up at the chapel on Smoke Bomb Hill and fell down and started praying.”

Warnette came forward a few weeks later at Mount Olive Missionary Baptist Church on Raeford Road in Fayetteville. She became the first woman pastor ordained by that church. She organized a church called Bethel Elelohe Israel. The name means “the house of the Lord of Israel.”

I’m glad Warnette promotes Jesus, but I wonder about putting his name on a street sign. Folk from other religions may want their leaders’ names on street signs, too. What about religious names on street signs paid for by the government?

We often think of “taking the Lord’s name in vain” as hearing someone curse and use God’s name. Using Jesus’ name in a funny or offhand way might also be “taking the Lord’s name in vain.” If a person does something “in vain,” that means it “amounts to nothing.” Is having Jesus’ name on a street sign an example of “taking the Lord’s name in vain”?

The third Commandment states, “Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain” (Exodus 20:7 KJV).

The New English Bible translates that: “You shall not make wrong use of the name of the LORD your God; the LORD will not leave unpunished the man who misuses his name.”

Doug Knigthon, a retired military chaplain, says misusing the Lord’s name has more to do with how we live than what we say. In comparing “taking the Lord’s name in vain” with marriage, he says, “If you take the name of God, at a ceremony, and tell the world that you are now part of the ‘bride of Christ’ as the church is called, yet you do not live like a ‘bride of Christ,’ you have taken His name in vain, and you will not be considered guiltless.”

Beth Scotch, a kindergarten teacher, shared with me a story that goes like this: Beth’s daughter was in elementary school and got into trouble. Her teacher wrote the daughter’s name on the board. Beth’s husband Dave learned about his daughter’s misbehavior. He asked his daughter, “Did you get my name put on the board?”

“No,” the daughter said, “I got my name put on the board.”

“But your last name is the same as my last name,” her father said. “When you get your name put on the board, you get my name put on the board.”

Perhaps having a Fayetteville street named “Jesus Christ Way” is not a problem. Maybe I should stop worrying about that street sign and spend more time thinking about how to avoid taking the Lord’s name in vain by the way I live. I don’t want my name and His Name “put on the board.”

'Over Home,' 'Over There'

Rex Parker (pictured) of the Sandy Flat Community of Greenville, S.C.


In June 2011, I talked with my Uncle Fred E. Crain, 86, of Greer, S.C., about the Parkers who once lived on Keller Road in the Sandy Flat Community of Greenville, S.C.

Fred’s maternal grandparents, Jesse and Hattie Parker were members of Enoree Baptist Church. They had five children: John, Lillian, Hovey, Lucille and Rex. John died around age 18 in the 1917 flu epidemic. Fred’s mother, Lillian, married Carl Crain and had two sons: Fred and my father, J. B. Crain.

Here is the story of Rex in Fred’s words:

Rex died around age 21. He worked somewhere, maybe at Southern Worsted Mill. He played the guitar and sang. Then, people sang songs like “Let Me Call You ‘Sweetheart,’” “John Henry,” “Nellie Blythe,” “Down in the Valley,” “It’s Lamp-Lighting Time in the Valley” and “Red River Valley.”

Rex went with Hovey and Genelia and their baby Marian to make music. 

(Hovey's Uncle Pinckney "Pink" Parker, a banjo player, was also in the car with them, according to Mr. John Collins. Mr. Pink Parker was John Collins' grandfather.) 

They were coming home, going south on Locust Hill Road (Hwy. 290) around 11 p.m. on a Saturday. They came around “Dead Man’s Curve”; it’s been rerouted since then. Rex was driving. The left front tire blew. I understand they went off the road to the left. It was a convertible, a 2-seated touring car, around a 1930 model. This was Hovey’s car, black with a canvas top. Genelia was in back. 

The car rolled and threw Genelia out over a gully onto a bank of a field. She held Marian in her arms, didn’t turn her loose. Marian didn’t get a scratch. Genelia wasn’t injured. Hove neither. The car flipped to the left onto its side, and the running board on the left came full across Rex’s chest and stomach area. 

(According to John Collins, his Uncle Pink Parker broke his neck and "spent a long time in Chick Springs Hospital." Collins adds, "I don't think he traveled to pick again afterwards.") 

Grandpa Jesse couldn’t sleep that night; He got up and walked out in their yard. He saw the car’s headlights light up the night sky as the car flipped. He was far enough away – a mile or more – not to hear the sound, but he saw lights shine in the sky. He wondered what it was. In a while, someone came and told him. Somebody carried Rex to the Greenville Hospital. He didn’t gain consciousness.

I remember Daddy and Mama, me and J.B. going over to the hospital early on Sunday. We eat dinner before we went. They wouldn’t let me and J.B. in. I was five; J.B. was eight. We stayed around the car on the street. About 4:30 (p.m.), Mama came out with Daddy and said, “He’s gone.”

Grandma cried, couldn’t sleep, walked the floor. They had a time with her. Rex was her baby. I don’t think she ever got over it. Grandpa just clammed up. He couldn’t talk about it. He’d walk around like he was studying about something. He’d tell about them lights in the sky, though.

Mama was very sad. She’d want to go to see Grandma very often. She called it “going home.” She’d say to Daddy, “Carl, let’s go over home.”

After hearing Fred’s story about Rex, I wondered how many families past and present have experienced the heartache of losing a young loved one, taken “in the prime of life.”

The family circle will sooner or later be broken here on earth. Time will see to that. We may enjoy moments, perhaps during a family reunion or at a church fellowship gathering, when we feel “this is perfect; I wish we could always feel the togetherness we feel right now.” But life goes on, and if our hearts are in tune with God, we will sense the truth of these words found in an old gospel song: “This world is not my home. I’m just a-passing through.”

The writer of Hebrews tells us, “For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.”

Paul wrote to Christians in Corinth, “For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling….”

After her brother’s death, my grandmother often wanted to “go over home,” but “home” for the Parker family of the early 1930s had changed.

D.W.C. Huntington wrote about a “home” for those who accept Christ. He penned these words to the old hymn “O Think of the Home Over There”:

“O think of a home over there / By the side of the river of light / Where the saints all immortal and fair / Are washed in their garments of white / Over there, over there / O think of the home over there / Over there, over there / I think of a home over there.

“My Savior is now over there / There my kindred and friends are at rest / Then away from my sorrow and care / Let me fly to the land of the blest / Over there, over there / My Savior is now over there….”

Perhaps you can no longer “go over home” and visit loved ones who have departed, but you can trust Christ and “think of a home over there.”

'With Meaning, Many Things Are Bearable'

Have you ever felt as if you wanted to give up because life’s pressures piled up? “With meaning, many things are bearable,” someone said.

Perhaps you’ve heard this old expression: “That’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

Some people shorten that saying to “That’s the last straw.” An expression such as that is called an “idiom.” According to Wikipedia, an idiom is an expression, word or phrase whose sense means something different from what the words literally imply. There are an estimated 25,000 idioms in the English language.

Wikipedia states that the idiom “the straw that broke the camel’s back” comes from an Arabic proverb about how a camel…is loaded beyond its capacity to move. “This is a reference to any process by which cataclysmic failure (a broken back) is achieved by a seemingly inconsequential addition (a single straw).”

As a child, I heard that expression and visualized a camel standing while someone placed one last straw on a heavy load of straw already on his back. In my mind, he suddenly went down, uttering an anguished bellow as he “bit the dust.” That last straw broke his back, finished him, did him in, caused him to kick the bucket, buy the farm, give up the ghost or whatever other idiom could be used to describe the camel’s demise.

There are many irritations in life. Irritations are like flies buzzing around an old horse standing under a tree. Mr. Horse tries to rest, but flies continue harassing, as he flicks his tail to keep them away. He sometimes raises a rear hoof and hits the ground with it to ward off flies.

There are also “vicissitudes of life” which are defined as “difficulties or hardships attendant on a way of life, a career, or a course of action and usually beyond one’s control.” Vicissitudes include pain, sickness, flat tires, problems with relatives, money problems and even death. Vicissitudes concern life in general.

The statement “With meaning, many things are bearable“ rings true. If a person believes there is meaning to life beyond present circumstances, that person can “take the heat” and “weather” difficult times or suffering much better than the person who believes life is mere “existence” and “then you die.”

Some people seem to have little patience to deal with the irritations and vicissitudes of life. A few years ago, a young lady interviewed at Gulistan Carpet, the carpet manufacturing company where I work. The lady had a 2-year degree in something from a college near our mill. Our customer service department hired her, but she was assigned to work in product development, where I work, until the next customer service training cycle began – a matter of a few days. Our office manager gave the young lady a job of stuffing envelopes with letters going to our sales force.

Near lunchtime on the lady’s first day on the job, our office manager looked for that lady who had been inserting letters into envelopes. She was missing, so our office manager called the personnel department. The personnel manager said the young lady came by his office and said, “I didn’t go to school to stuff envelopes.” She left in a huff. If she had waited a few days, she would have begun training for what I consider a pretty good job. She seemed to have little patience for a “better tomorrow.” She appeared to have minimal tolerance for delayed gratification.

Many people can’t take much frustration, because they don’t believe there is a God, a Jesus or a heavenly reward. They don’t believe God is in control. There are times when we should make changes, but sometimes we give up too quickly. Comedian Bob Hope said, “Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”

Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. He was falsely accused by his owner’s wife and went to prison. He trusted God through it all and was, in time, chosen to be second-in-command in Egypt. I believe that if he had died in prison with no justice or recognition given to him, Joseph would still have trusted God. He had “meaning” in his life, and he could bear many things.

The writer of Hebrews tells us we should keep our eyes fastened on Jesus, “the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2 KJV).

Jesus believed in his reward, “the joy (the prize) that was set before him,” and he endured the cross. “With meaning, many things are bearable.”