I never knew much about my dad’s dad. His name was Edgar. He died when my dad was still a boy.
I know he was a hard worker. He farmed his whole life. He had no education. He couldn’t read or write. I also know he was an alcoholic with a raging temper. He left deep scars in my dad emotionally, and an indescribable void when he died.
I have asked my dad for stories, but he only has a few. I’ve asked him if he knows why his dad was such a hard man, or what his extended family was like. He doesn’t know. They weren’t connected with extended family, and those were hard times for most everyone. Children and adults didn’t discuss such matters.
Social media, in many ways, is a curse. A distraction full of noise, darkness, falsehood, and error. But it also holds blessing, light, truth, and opportunity. Last year, when I got back on Instagram, I connected with a keyboard player in Nashville with the same last name as me. I messaged him and quickly discovered that we share the same relative in my great-great-grandfather, Micajah Barfield. We started talking on the phone from time to time, and I got connected with his dad who knew more about my family tree than I did.
I learned more about my granddad Edgar. And more interestingly learned about his dad, my great-grandfather Jessie.
Jessie was the son of Micajah, and the outcast of his family. Jessie was a hard man. An alcoholic with a foul temperament and mouth. He was not a faithful man. I have to say… even as I write this, something in me whispers that I am being harsh. Let me clarify. These are the stories I’ve heard. I did not know him. And all of us are different people to those who have encountered us. Some would say we are far from kind, while others would testify with tears in their eyes that they love us.
I have felt empathy for my granddad Edgar, and for my great-granddad Jessie, as I’ve heard stories of how they failed as men. I know life can be hard, and it’s not always simple. Nevertheless, the legacy Jessie passed to his son, and the one his son passed to my dad, was one of isolation, addiction, anger, vice, and immorality.
But my dad did not accept the legacy they offered him.
My dad, barely an adolescent when he lost his father, stood on the porch of a dilapidated farmhouse. He stared up at the sky and cried for help. He said he felt God speak to his heart: I will be your Father. And it was so.
My dad became a man of faith, conviction, morality, sobriety. He gave his life to pastoring churches and caring for people. He remains married to his first and only wife. He raised his children to fear the Lord and walk in His ways. I've never heard my dad say a swear word or seen him touch alcohol. My dad broke the curse that was his birthright. Because of his faithfulness, I and my children are the beneficiaries of an inheritance of faith.
What I discovered through my conversations with my long-lost cousin was that the inheritance was meant to be my dad’s as well. The gift was only lost at some point. My grandad Edgar only offered my dad what his dad Jessie had offered him.
But Jessie had not been handed that from his father Micajah.
Micajah feared God. He raised his family to follow the Lord. His other children did, and they created legacies of faith that carried down to my cousin… the same cousin now playing keys in the same music town I live in, less than 30 miles from my house. The stories passed to him are of kindness, love, faithfulness, and commitment. A thread that weaves through the generations of his family, back to Micajah.
Somehow that thread was broken in my families lineage by Jessie. Jessie's descendants were left reeling in the loss, excluded from the fabric of a family of faith.
But my online connection with long-lost family brought once-separated pieces of fabric back together again physically that had already been mended in spirit. It gave me the realization that my dad left behind the garment of shame that was handed to him, and instead wove a new one of faith for his family. It was deep and dormant after a couple generations of darkness, but it found light in my father to grow again.
Through those conversations with my cousins, I learned of Micajah, his faith, and the other Barfields who continued that faith. I learned that Micajah’s home was still standing, barely. And that he and his wife were buried in a small family cemetery on what is left of their family farm.
My dad knew none of this. As I said, he had no connection with his extended family. And he didn’t know why. He didn't know that his great grandfather was a man of faith and that his grandfather had for some reason chose to abandon that faith and raise his son to continue the spirt of abandonment. I was able to tell him that his dad probably had a harder childhood than he could imagine. His dad was continuing the example he was given… a man who leaned on vice and expressed anger. But his great-grandfather leaned on faith and expressed love. I told my dad how grateful I was that God’s faithfulness had stirred those better things up in him, and I have benefited from the gift.
I drove my dad out to the home Micajah lived in. The farm his great-grandfather was born in. We stood under giant pecan trees that generations before us, who shared our name and our blood, once shaded under after a hard day of working the land. We walked among headstones in the graveyard where their bodies were laid to rest.
And before leaving, I set my phone on one of the headstones of our ancestors, and filmed my dad and me singing over them all, reminding ourselves of the truth of this great hymn:
Great is thy faithfulness,
Great is thy faithfulness,
Morning by morning new mercies I see.
All I have needed thy hand hast provided;
Great is thy faithfulness,
Lord unto me.
The curse is broken. Our family story is one of redemption.
Warren H. Barfield, Jr