When I Was a Little Girl, My Father Taught Me How to Pray

By Minnie Russaw Jordan

This book is about how God used a man that could not read nor write to instill Godly values into his children's lives. He was a man that prayed with his family, making sure that prayer was a number one priority. He worked hard to provide for the family, walking in authority. He knew how to discipline, yet show real love in the anointing of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors' Tranquility Press
• Release date: May 5, 2022
• ISBN: 9781957546766

Minnie Russaw Jordan

I was born in Miami, Florida. My family moved to Alabama when I was eight years old. I came from a large family and we lived on a farm. I enjoy gardening, reading, writing, and spending time with my grandchildren in my spare time.

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Chapter 1

Laying the Foundation (Children Get on Your Knees)

I was born on December 10, 1953, at 12:15 a.m. at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida to the proud parents of Mrs. Katie Lee Lane Russaw and Mr. Alter Russaw. My mother was the mother of four children at the time of my birth, five including me. Two of which had died in childbirth. My parents had moved from Alabama to Miami, Florida in December of 1952. My oldest sister Mary was four years old, and my sister Rosie was seven months old when they came to Florida. My mother’s mother who was my grandmother was living with us at the time of my birth. Her name was Martha Eutsey, but I really don’t remember her. She left Florida and came back to Alabama when I was one. I was told that she had spoiled me by rocking me in a rocking chair. My mother said that she should have taken me back with her when she came back to Alabama because she couldn’t do anything with me for a while.

I remember my first day of school. I was five years old. There was a little boy in my class named Mark Valentine. He had some of the prettiest hair and my best friend’s name was Tina. She lived next door to us. My sister Rosie was the one that always tried to tell us what to do. Mary was the oldest, but Rosie acted like the oldest. Rosie was the sister that always took up for me in school and out of school. She was my back-up. I remember one time when I as about six years old. There was this little girl who always picked on me. Her name was Regina. She was one of those class bullies. I told my sister Rosie about her, and we went to the playground and she was there. My sister Rosie went up to the little girl and said to her, Minnie told me you was picking on her in school and you better not mess with her again and if she tells me well you can guess the rest. I never had any more trouble out of Regina.

It was kind of cool having two big sisters. I was the baby girl and I kind of got my way around the house, but I think I kind of took it too far sometimes. I remember when I was little, and my dad was a brick mason at a brick company in Florida. When he got home we would all run to see who would get the chance to take off his shoes because the one who took them off would get a quarter. Sometimes my sister would beat me to him and get there first. I would cry then my dad would say let Minnie take my shoes off. We didn’t care how dirty they were because you could buy a lot with twenty-five cents. You could buy a soda for a nickel and then have twenty cents left. A bar of candy was also five cents, and you could get five cookies for a penny. To make a long story short, you could get a lot of snacks for a quarter. Money went a long way back then. Those were the good days but people couldn’t see it then.

When I was little I would cry to get my way and that wasn’t good because sometimes I would get a paddling when my dad caught on to what I was doing. I had to hurry up and grow out of that stage. It was fun to have a dad. My father did fun things with us. When we were small he would play ball with us. He was never too busy that’s why its hard to forget a father who deposited so many good things into my life. He would take us to the beach and let us ride his back. My father played with us all the time and that meant a lot to me. Sometimes my mother would join in but not like my dad. God was at work but I couldn’t see it the way I see it now. He was putting things in order. We had to obey out father because he didn’t play. If he told me to do something, I did it. If you were his child, you were going to obey him. All he had to do was speak and you knew to fall in line. I remember when I was about seven years old. He had taken me to the bean field to pick beans and to see the people work. He bought me this little blue pocket book. That’s what I called it back in the day. He also bought me a little pair of shades. Oh boy! I thought the world of those. I was the big show off then. I would tell my sisters to look at what daddy had bought me. I was just trying to make them jealous. You know before one lays the foundation, he has to get the ground ready to build. He has to be sure that is where the foundation will be laid. God was using my father to get the ground ready by spending time with us, letting us know that he loved and cared about us as a father should.

Matthew 7:24 - Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock and rain descended, the floods came and the wind blew and beat on the house and it did not fall for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain descended, the floods came and winds blew and beat on that house and it fell. (N.K.J.V)

When I was nine years old my mother and father had decided to move back to Alabama. They had come from Alabama in 1952. My mother said that she didn’t want her children to be raised up in the big city. I now had three brothers and two sisters and my mother was pregnant with my third sister Ella. With four girls and three boys, my mother did not want us to be raised up in Miami, Florida. So here we were moving back to Alabama on March 2, 1962. We traveled on the Greyhound bus from Miami to Ozark, Alabama but we were traveling to Louisville, Alabama to my uncle John’s house. We would stay with him and his family for the weekend and move into our house on Monday. My father was going to start sharecropping with Mr. Beaty on his farm. My uncle John’s house was a big wooden house with the porch on the back between the kitchen and the front room. You had to come out of the room on to the porch and then into the kitchen. I thought that was strange. Also, there was a room on the other side of the house with the door locked. I learned that was my grandmother Dicie’s room, who had died that following year. She was my father’s mother who I had seen pictures but had never gotten to meet.

So now that Monday we moved into this wooden house with four rooms and an out house, my father had agreed to sharecrop with Mr. Beaty. He was a farmer so now he had to teach us how to work on the farm. Every morning he would call all of us together and tell us to kneel down so he could lead us in prayer. We would recite the Lord’s Prayer and little did I know that God was using my father to teach us to pray and the words to say. Some of my brothers and sisters were small but we all would pray. We prayed every morning we got up. My dad used to say that prayer changed things. There were times on the farm when danger was all around but God kept us. I remember one time we were in the storm early one morning and my father said Wake up children. We’re in a storm and we have to pray. I mean we actually saw that tornado heading to our house but we started to pray and ask God to have mercy and he did. The storm turned and went the other way. Now that was the power of prayer. God was showing us what prayer would do.

God will hear and answer children prayers too. When your child starts to cry, you are going to want to know what’s the matter with them and you will come to see what you can do to make it better. That’s how God is too. He’ll keep his children. My father had a prayer life. He had a relationship with God and he didn’t mind talking to God. When I was very little, I used to wonder who my dad was talking to because I didn’t see anybody but when if it was now and my dad was praying, I would know it was alright. God blessed my father because of the power of prayer. God was using a father to build a foundation for his glory. This had been God’s plan all the time. God had orchestrated it all. This was God at work. We would pray before we went to work and before we went to school. My father would pray and we would recite it then when we learned the Lord’s prayer as a family, we prayed a corporate prayer. My father’s number one priority was to learn us how to pray. That kept us focused on what we were doing. When I was little, I would wake up early in the morning and hear my father praying for us and not only did he pray for us but he prayed with us. He cared enough to teach us to pray. He was doing what God commanded him to do.

Proverbs 22:6 - Train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. (N.K.J.V)

Luke 11:2-4 -

So He said to them, When you pray say:

Our father in heaven

Hallowed be thy name

Your kingdom come

Your will be done

On earth as it is in heaven

Give us this day, our daily bread

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors

But deliver us from the evil one

For yours is the kingdom of heaven

And the glory forever, Amen. (N.K.J.V)

In the fields when we were working chopping cotton, peanuts, corn and whatever else, this prayer kept us. In the hot fields, this prayer kept us. In that house where you could see daylight in the ceiling and holes in the floor, this prayer kept us. At night when it was cold and we went to bed and had to pile clothes on us to stay warm, this prayer kept us. When we got sick and had no medications and no way to get to the doctor, this same prayer kept us. When our father got sick and my sisters and I had to go into the woods and carry wood because our younger brothers couldn’t do it, this prayer kept us. We knew the power of prayer.

Psalms 121:5-8 - The Lord is your keeper. The Lord is your shadow at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forevermore. (N.K.J.V)

You know some parents teach their children everything but how to pray, let along teach them anything about God. God commanded Moses to tell the children of Israel to teach their children and tell them what happened in Egypt. The power of prayer is strong.. It will cause you to get a relationship with God. Prayer is a protective shield around you. That is why it is very important that we pray.

I remember one day in 1964, my mother was seven and a half

Reviews for When I Was a Little Girl, My Father Taught Me How to Pray

[innahlovesyou · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

First of all, a huge thank you to the author for sending me a copy of this book since I won the giveaway on Goodreads.

I am not much of a religious person, and that might be the only reason why this book didn't really touch me at all.

I liked the story though, amazing description and pace, I loved how descriptive the characters were and actually very friendly and lovable, but when it would come to the ''preaching'' side of things - not my piece of cake. Though for the ones that enjoy the religious side of things, and stories about God, this would be the perfect book for you!