When You Receive My Vote, You Receive My Way of Life (Christianity)

By Clarence Edward Thornton

This book is dedicated to the Thornton family, Christians, voters, and believers of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit all over the world. I know that God is still in charge, and I thank Him for leading me to write about the way of life that I endured and how He gave the words to put on paper and I give all the Glory to God by saying yes and Amen. The trail and tribulations that I endured from my childhood, high school, military, VA, and college was just a setup to be the Help Ministry leader at our church for the homeless and brothers and sisters who don't know God yet. If you think about it, maybe it could have been me trying to live this life minus God. Thank you, Jesus.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644584668

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When You Receive My Vote, You Receive My Way of Life (Christianity)

Mr. Clarence Edward Thornton Sr.

Copyright © 2019 by Mr. Clarence Edward Thornton Sr.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

June 25, 2016

Presidential Election 2016

Thesis: The United States of America will be governed by the WORDS of GOD, no matter who’s the president or leader.

This book was put on my heart because of how our country has falling apart spiritually and politically. Looking at the candidates that are competing for the top job really makes me let my voice be heard for as my beliefs and morals are concern. I often look at the debates and to my understanding, neither had much to say about God’s Word. I mean, even though this country was founded on biblical principles, to me our country has turned its back on GOD and making rules and regulations to fit it’s sinful behavior. I just want to tell you what will happen when you receive my vote because I worked hard to have the privilege to vote. So whoever is elected, GOD is still in charge. My name is Clarence E. Thornton Sr., I am a Christian. I was born on September 28, 1959, in the great state of Arkansas, a little town named Readland. The population at the time was 125. It’s in the southeastern part of the state and it’s mostly farm land. By trade I am a farmer. I am the fourth child of seven. My parents are Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Thornton.

Chapter 1

Why My Vote Is So Important

I really need you to understand why my vote is so important for all elections. See, I worked so hard as a little boy in the cotton, soybean, rice and hayfields. Sometimes all day long. First let me say that we are Christians and we love the Lord. As far as I remember our family has always served God and attended our church (Bloomfield no. 1 Missionary Baptist Church), pastored by many great men of God.

I decided to give my life to Christ at an early age to make sure that Heaven was my home at my time of death. When you grew up in church like I did you heard it all the time. I like to thank my parents for showing us morals and values. Every Sunday, Wednesdays and sometimes Saturday we were at church praising the Lord. I want you to know that even after church, we had Prayer meeting at home. We all would gather in the living room to sing and pray for the Word to come alive in our lives and everyone else. Each one of us had to sing what we called a Doctor Watts type song and pray. I still remember the Lord prayer. I prayed and said, Our Father which art in Heaven, hollow would be thy name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive our debts as we forgive those who are in debt to us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil, for thine is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, forever and ever, Amen.

As I grew older, my faith in GOD became stronger and stronger, because I really needed the Lords help with the issues that I was going to face. I remember my father saying that we have to develop a stronger relationship with God far as our prayer life was concern. He in other words was telling us to make it personal, get even closer to GOD. Our church every year would have a summer revival service for two weeks out of a year. This was the ultimate time to seek the Lord and have Him to be Lord over your life. We would start off with the devotion and then the Pastor would address the church to ask for people that didn’t know God as their Lord and Savior to come forward and sit on the front seat which was called The Mourners Bench.

This was the place where we would seek the Lord and hear from Him. Mostly everyone would pray for us and hopefully the Lord would give us an answer to our prayers. We were also told that we should continue praying during the day for our breakthrough to come. I remember the day that the Lord answered my prayers. I was so happy. I challenged the Lord to make sure. You see, if you were going to be my Lord and Savior then I was going to give up my childhood life style, so I thought. So I asked the Lord that if I had religion that would save me in a dying hour let it rain just where I was standing. I waited for the rain and it seemed like a long time before it fell, just like I had asked for. I knew then that God was real just like my parents had told me. I ran in the house to tell my mother the good news and she was so happy for me.

She then asked me what sign did God give you and I told her that I asked the Lord to let it rain right where I was standing and nowhere else and He did it. That night at church I stepped forward a new child in Christ. They asked me to tell my testimony about what the Lord had showed me and I told them loud and clear. I was a candidate for Baptism for Sunday morning. I was only six years old I really did not understand everything yet but I knew that a change had come over me. That Sunday I was so happy I was a new child of the King. As we drove to the baptizing site I was getting very nervous. Then it was my turn to be dipped in that water. It was Grand Lake a place where I had fished many times. The Pastor called it that Old Jordan River.

The deacons walked me out to the water and the Pastor placed me in front of him. I watched my family with the big smile on their faces and tears of happiest. The Pastor said, On the confession of your faith, Brother Thornton, we now baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son and the Holy Ghost. The Pastor dipped me under the water with his hands over my nose and raised me back up in the standing position. I cleared my face to see everyone jumping and shouting and praising God for me. After the baptizing was over we went home to change clothes and return to the church by eleven o’clock. Church began and we were placed on the front pew and were recognized as the new church members. Then after church was dismissed we were celebrating with food, prayers and congratulation. I mean they welcomed us to the Christian army.

Well we all knew that it was time to get back to farming the next day. My job was to carry water to the field to all the choppers and it was a hard job but it was all part of helping out our family causes. You see my job title was called the water boy, because I was too young to chop by myself according to the owner but I wasn’t going let that stop me because I wanted to do my part. I enjoyed this because everyone was so glad to see me bring water to them and they could take a short break before going back down those long and dusty rows.

So I had to wait until next year to chop in the fields. My dad always had things for us to do by the way of manual labor. At different seasons we would pick up pecans to make money to pay bill and groceries. I remember one cold day we were outside picking up pecans and dad told us we needed to pick up about three hundred pounds of pecans. Now be advised that pecans were plentiful and we definitely needed the money. We knew it would take some time to accomplish the task at hand, so dad would build a fire to keep us warm.

So we basically had a way to get finances each season of the year. We sometimes use the money to buy school clothes and every year we would wait on the small annual state fair to come. It was something different and I always looked forward to going and seeing the big lights. After the fair was gone we looked forward to getting back into that same old work mode. Just going to various fields such as cotton, soybeans, rice, and hayfields. The large grass, milkweeds, coffee beans and tee weeds were so tall that it took a lot of time to cut them down and dig them up by the root. I know you are wondering wow what a way of life. This is why I want everyone to know that I had to work for all that I have received and when you receive my vote you receive my way of life (Christianity).

Chapter 2

My Childhood

God is first in my life. I remember that we would pray before going to work. We ask the Lord help us make it thru the day without having heat stroke or heat exhaustion. We would sing hymns to help motivate us while chopping the rows which seems like a mile long. God always came thru for me and I would always thank Him for His Grace and Mercy. As I grew older I could see how the Lord was leading and guiding me. See in a family of nine we would often grow our food and harvest it. We grew chickens, hogs, ducks and goats. Most of the time we wouldn’t have to go to the grocery store for too much. Now a hog, for instance, was used for so many different things. You see we got ham, pork-chops, pork-skins, bacon, and we used the grease when our money was low to fry food. We made hog-head cheese, we cooked the chitterlings, feet and pig tails. Basically we ate everything from the rooter to the tooter. Whatever my parents put on our plate, that’s what we ate or go to bed without supper.

My dad was a live off the land type man. Besides all the animals that we raised we also lived close to Grand Lake, where we were taught how to stab fish with a large fork with prongs and a long pole attached to it. While in the small part of the lake I was instructed to stand very still in about a foot of water to watch various fish swim by. Dad told us that we should get the medium to large size fish whether it be catfish, garfish, buffalo, and carp. I would stand still and watch as the fish swim past me and I made the decision which was the right size. Then I would take aim and thrust the gig into the fish and hold it down so that it wouldn’t get off the hook. Then I raised the fish up and toss it to my brother that was waiting to retrieve it and put it in the sack. Sometimes we would get as many as two hundred pounds or more.

The thing of it was to get enough for the small community and give to each family that wanted some fish. Let there be no doubt that was my way of life and this is what you receive when you receive my vote from me. As I grew older and started chopping along beside my parents it was a big different from being the water boy to chopping rows of cotton. It was hot, sweaty and I was very thirsty. I thought about how important my job was back then. Even though, I was getting help with my rows, I would often fall behind. My parents would chop in front of me to catch me up. They understood that I was doing my very best. At the end of the day the owner would come out and he would pay us. I mean he would pay my parents for the work that I had done. It was only six dollars a day, but I was doing my part and that’s what counts.

This way of life continued on for several more years. I was growing in my walk with the Lord and I was doing different ministries at our church. There weren’t many members at our small town church so we had to step up and fill in different areas of the church. We were in the Usher, cleanup, grass-cutting, junior choir, and Sunday school