Glory in the Mountains: The Sound of Many Waters (Second Edition)

By Fred B. Lunsford

Glory in the Mountains is not about me or any other earthly person or persons. Many people are mentioned in this book, but the book is about God and what He has done in and through my life and in the life of others.

I could write volumes about the times I have failed, gone the wrong direction and made bad decisions. God always does the right thing in the right way at the right time. He never fails.

In my journey, His voice has been like the sounds of many waters. At times, it's peaceful and serene, then furious and demanding. That voice has been a source of strength for me through the years. I hope this little book will help someone stop and listen to His voice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781449707507

Fred B. Lunsford

Rev. Fred B. Lunsford was born and raised in the Appalachain Mountains. More precisely, he was born and raised in the little community of Marble, NC. His education was obtained at Andrews High School, Mercer University Extension Classes, Seminary Extension Classes, The University of West Virginia Church Leaders School, Southern Seminary Conferences and Seminars and he is an Alumni of Southeastern Seminary. Fred was called to preach in 1949. He was licensed and ordained to the Gospel Ministry in 1950. Therefore, he is completing sixty years of Ministry this year of 2010. He has pastored several churches and served as Director of Missions for Truett Baptist Association for almost twenty-seven years. He was awarded the Seminary Extension Award of the Year in 1980, the Director of Missions Award for the Eastern United States in 1987. In 1991, Fred was named Director Emeritus of Truett Baptist Association. He served as a Church Growth Multiplier for the NC Baptist State Convention for several years. More recently, Fred has authored, "Golden Nuggets From the Mountains," "God's Messenger from the Mountains," and this book Glory in the Mountains: The Sound of Many Waters."

Book preview

Starting Out on the Journey

The Beginnings of my Journey

God knows about every person who is born into this world and He has a definite plan for his or her life. March 7, 1925, a baby boy was born to Pearlie M. and Inez Rogers Lunsford in a little, obscure, mountain, community. They lived on the headwaters of Vengeance Creek in Cherokee County, N. C. There was some misunderstanding about this baby. When he got to be a teenager, he had an opportunity to get a job while in high school making three dollars per week, but he had to have a birth certificate. He was instructed to go to the County Register of Deeds Office to secure such a very important document. On searching the records, the Register of Deeds discovered that on March 7, 1925, a baby girl was born to Pearlie and Inez Lunsford. This was quite an embarrassing situation for him but he lived through it all and the records were changed and the name was put on the record as Fred Bruner Lunsford. The Doctor who delivered me was Dr. Fred Herbert. So I was named after him and then the Bruner part was my dad’s idea after an old mountain horse-trader named Bruner.

My paternal grandmother was Octavia O’Dell Lunsford, commonly called Shug. She lived with my dad and mom. My grandmother said, Poor child, I wouldn’t name a dog that! I will call him Cooter after old Uncle Cooter Lovingood on Hanging Dog. The nickname stuck. My family called me Cooter and today the name is still used by many. I never remember seeing this grandmother. I was born in March, and she died in October of the same year. Later, my maternal grandmother came to live with us. Her name was Ellen King Rogers. Most people called her Ella. I will mention her along the way, because she influenced my life greatly. She was born in the North Georgia Mountains. All of her children were born in Georgia. Her husband, my grandfather, was half Cherokee Indian. They moved to Vengeance Creek at Marble, N. C. to live on tribal land when my mother was just a little girl. My grandmother never had the benefit of school, so she couldn’t read or write but she memorized old hymns and some Bible verses. She trotted me on her knees and sang old songs to me such as Amazing Grace, What a Friend we Have in Jesus, The Great Physician, and When I can Read my Title Clear to Mansions in the Sky. She would tell me stories of David and Goliath, Samson, Joseph, and Shamgar, who swapped ends of an ox goad and busted the heads of the Philistines.

My dad was a hard workingman, but not a Christian. My mother was one of the first people to be baptized into Vengeance Creek Baptist Church, which was organized in 1920. A man by the name of Grady King was staying with us working on the farm for his room and board. I was just about fifteen months old. The task at hand this time of year was cultivating the corn crop, which was vital to our survival. My dad and Grady plowed and hoed corn in the morning while my mother washed the breakfast dishes, took care of the milk from the cow, and cooked the noon meal that we called dinner. The men came from the field and ate a dinner containing vegetables, pork, and milk. My mother cleaned up the dishes and got her hoe. With me in her arms, she would go to the cornfield to help hoe. In the afternoon, she spread a quilt down on the ground in the shade of an apple tree at the end of the field and then she sat me on it. She would hoe a short distance and keep an eye on me. Grady plowed out to the end, stopped the mule, and went to check on me. He discovered a large yellow rattlesnake crawling toward me at the edge of the quilt. I was waving my hands at the snake. My friend and protector ran as fast as he could and grabbed me as he jumped across the poisonous viper. The snake struck at him as he went over it, but just missed his leg. This mountain man rescued me from certain death. Grady’s name never got in the paper, and he was never able to read or sign his name, but he has shared in the many things God has blessed me to accomplish for Him. As I share some of the things, remember, if it hadn’t been for Grady, they never could have been. I shared this story in my former book, Golden Nuggets from the Mountains, but there is something important about it that I had forgotten. It recently came to my memory. My mother told me that she asked Grady why he went to check on me and he used his own grammar to tell her. He said, God fer told me to. God used Grady to rescue me from sudden death. God has blessed me to see hundreds of souls saved in my lifetime. Grady will have a reward in heaven for all this because he obeyed God.

Life on the little mountain farm during the late 1920’s and early 1930’s was hard. We didn’t know it was hard because everybody was in the same boat. We had no electricity and there was no running water in the house. We carried our water from the spring, which was some distance from the house, and we used kerosene lamps for light. During the depression days or hard times as some people called it, if a man could get a job for the going rate of one dollar per day or ten cents per hour for ten hours, they were glad for it. However, I never had to stand in line to get a bowl of soup and I never went hungry. We grew what we ate on the little farm. We had plenty of beans, potatoes, and corn. We always killed hogs in November or December, so we had pork and some wild meat along the way. God was good to us.

I always looked forward to going to Sunday School every Sunday at the old one-room schoolhouse in the community. The pastor came and preached one weekend each month. He preached on Saturday at 11:00 and conducted the church business meeting, which was called, Monthly Conference. Sometimes, some very interesting business came up that was very entertaining to an inquisitive boy. On occasions, I remember when one of the church members would bring a charge against their fellow member for using bad language, going to parties, playing cards, drinking booze, dancing, and the list goes on. If the person confessed to the wrong they had done and asked forgiveness, they were pardoned and life went on as usual. If they didn’t confess to the wrong and ask for forgiveness, then the church would vote to withdraw fellowship with them or turn them out of the church as it was often referred to. This practice has long since been abandoned. People don’t like accountability anymore when it comes to religion. I learned some valuable lessons from these experiences. One of the things I learned was that one should never speak in anger because someone may be listening and especially because God listens. I also learned that if anything is questionable, don’t do it.

Revival meetings were held once each year and most of the time it was in the month of August. The meetings went for two weeks and sometimes longer. Day services were held each and every day at 11:00 a.m. and the night service was held at 7:00 p.m. The pastor, along with one other preacher and maybe more, would stay with the people in the community. They would eat with different families. It was not unusual to hear people praying in the woods during the day. The men would quit work, put the horses in the barn, and go to church wearing their overalls for the 11:00 o’clock services. This was a big community event. Most everyone in the community went to the revival including both sinners and saints. At the close of the revival, they would dam the creek up and have a big baptizing on Sunday afternoon. Most of the time there were from ten to twenty-five new converts who were baptized. Church was a great part of my life when I was growing up and still is.

Those dedicated Christian men and women molded my life. We children would often play church, and most of the time I was the preacher. More than once, when a dog or cat would die, my sister would sing and I would preach the funeral and then we would put flowers on the new-made grave.

My Childhood and School Days

Dreaming, Learning, and the Big Challenge

As a child, I had many dreams for my life. Therefore, I grasped every learning opportunity, but there were always challenges before me. Daily, things were happening that gave me the opportunity to learn something new. I remember the very first time my dad took me with him to the blacksmith shop. He had a plow that needed to be sharpened, so he took me along with him. The shop was a dark, drab-looking place. Pieces of metal were scattered all over the place. A furnace built out of rock was near the corner. The old blacksmith took the small plow from my dad, stirred some ashes in the rock furnace, then he reached up, and began to pull a handle overhead. He pumped it up and down. I heard a blowing noise, and then I noticed the embers in the furnace begin to smoke, then a small flame came, and he laid some small pieces of coal on them. Now a fire was going as he kept pumping the air into it. Next, the metal plow was placed in the fire with some tongs that were lying nearby. After a little while, he took the plow out with the tongs and placed it on the anvil; it was red-hot. He began to hammer it. He was able to shape it the way he wanted it to be. He then placed it in a container filled with water. It fried and steamed as it cooled off. Now the plow was ready to be used for tilling the soil. This process really fascinated me.

I had a lot of questions as to why this or that but I learned a lesson that day that has stayed with me through the years. In Romans 12:2, it says, And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. God is always seeking to mold and fashion us after His will that we may be usable in His Kingdom. The Holy Spirit blows upon our hearts, fanning the flames of God’s Word in us that we may be pliable enough to be molded after His will and purpose, rather than being molded by the world. Well glory!

From the very beginning of my life, God has in so very many ways, over and over again, sought to transform my life into something usable in His Kingdom. Many times, I have failed to yield to His making and He has had to put me through the fire to make me yield to His shaping.

A Devoted Companion

The days of growing up on the little mountain farm resulted in a life of surprises, never knowing what would be next. Of course, life any place is full of wonders.

Animals, both wild and domestic, played a big part in the life of those of us who were fortunate enough to grow up in such a blessed setting.

We had cows, mules, hogs, chickens, guineas, dogs, and cats. Then at various times, we encountered many wild animals. We depended a lot on animals for a part of our livelihood. We ate rabbits, squirrels, groundhogs, quail, grouse, deer, bear, and an opossum now and then.

From the domestic animals, we had milk from the cows, eggs from the chickens, pork from the hogs, and wool from the sheep. I heard an allegory once that went as follows: The chicken and the hog were having a conversation one day. The chicken said to the hog, We are honored to provide breakfast for our masters’ family. Do you not consider it a great honor to do this for this lovely family? The hog said, You can crow about this, but you only make a contribution while I have to make a bodily sacrifice.

One day there were some men up in the mountains above our house hunting. They encountered some wild mountain goats and killed one. It turned out that the