Sometimes, a song comes into your life, and its impact is felt immediately. So it was when I heard this song for the first time yesterday. My parents did not ever use a belt on me, but there was always the chance that they might resort to that if the behavior called for it. I respected and feared them for that. The Bible was taught to me from such an early age that I cannot remember life without it. My parents read scripture and a devotion to us every night before bed. The Daily Bread. The three of us kids would be in our beds with our lights out, and my parents would stand in the hallway between our rooms with the hall light on. My mother would read the devotion, and my dad would pray when she was done. We feared the Lord and trusted that His word was The Truth.
I watch a lot of court shows. Call it a guilty pleasure of mine. I've actually learned quite a bit over the years. There seems to be a recurring theme among many of the cases, though. There's a lack of taking responsibility for one's actions. Time after time, litigants will argue that something is not their fault. They cast the blame off onto someone else or just flatly deny wrongdoing. The most alarming pattern I've seen is parents making excuses for their children's bad behavior. Gee, I wonder why the kids are behaving badly in the first place? If my parents had been willing to shift blame off onto someone else every time I did something wrong, I would have tried to get away with all kinds of nonsense. Why not?
Our world is becoming filled with people willing to accept any excuse for someone's bad choices. How can we ever expect to be respected and feared, as a country, if we allow lame excuses to rule public sway? We need to declare what we stand for and stick to it if we are to be the great country we once were. We cannot be swayed by every group with an agenda that gets offended by the convictions upon which our country was founded.
Okay. You can have your soapbox back....for now.
Click here to listen to this wonderful song.
A Bible and A Belt by Joey & Rory
They were both made of leather
both black and frayed and worn
I was brought up to respect them
since the day that I was born
One came here from England
it's been handed down for years
The other one was ordered
from a catalog at Sears
One my momma read to me
'til I was well into my teens
And I thought all the other one was for
was to hold up Daddy's jeans
'Til I told a lie and learned
it had another purpose too
out behind the shed my Daddy said
"This'll hurt me more than you."
Cause one had my daddy's name on it
The other said "King James"
With love they taught us lessons
but we feared them both the same
One led us to Heaven
and the other left a welt
Those were the days when kids were raised
with a Bible and a belt.
I remember when I was twelve
I stole a dime store comic book
and how Momma read where the scripture said
to take back what I took
When I refused, my daddy grabbed
my arm and said, "Come on"
I needed more, he knew, than just
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
Well sometimes they made me cry
Sometimes they made me fightin' mad
and I'd wish I'd been raised without them
like some other children had
But now I'm grown with kids of my own
and I know just how they felt
You know, it seems to me what the world still needs
is a Bible and a belt
Cause one had my daddy's name on it
The other said "King James"
With love they taught us lessons
but we feared them both the same
One led us to Heaven
and the other hurt like Hell
Those were the days when kids were raised
with a Bible and a belt.
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