Finding Daddy

CBN.com Lisa Ryan sat down to have an intimate talk with Ron, who is the author of a brand new book called Kisses from the Father.

LISA RYAN: Ron, you had a pretty tough childhood. What were your early days like?

RON PHILLIPS: It was very difficult. Mother and Dad were both working. Mother was primarily working because at my early age, Dad was what I called 'a weekend alcoholic': He was making good money, but he would drink a lot of it up on the weekends. At that time, he became a frightening person.

LISA RYAN: Did it ever get abusive, either verbally or physically?

RON PHILLIPS: Verbally, not often. Physically, though, the threat was there. One time in particular I did get hit, but I kind of asked for it. Dad and Mother were in an argument, and he had been drinking. I was 14. I stepped into the breach. He took a little glass bowl and broke it over my head and said, 'Get out!' So I ran out of the house. I ran away, really. My intention was never to come back. The devil told me, though I had already been saved, 'You ought to just kill myself.' I walked down a railroad track up on a trestle. I figured the train will either get me, or I will jump off and die. Either way, I am out of here. It was then that I heard a voice. I knew that God still speaks because God spoke to me. He said, 'Get up, son, and walk off this bridge.'

LISA RYAN: How did it change him. How did your family life change after that?

RON PHILLIPS: All of a sudden Daddy just stopped drinking. He started going back to church more regularly and serving the Lord. Dad always wanted to help people.

LISA RYAN: How did your relationship with your father change after that?

RON PHILLIPS: I started preachingwhen I was 14! Between 14 and 15 years old I got called to minister. I couldnt drive. I kept failing the driving test at 16. I failed it twice. I kept wondering, 'Lord, why are things happening to me?' It was so I could have Dad drive me to where I was preaching. That is how it began. It was during that season that I began to hear him tell about when his mother died when he was 5, and how he was moved in with an aunt who mistreated him, and how he really had no place to sleep. He slept under the stairs. My mother met him when he was a teenager and said, 'R.P. always had a lot of money.' That's what they called Dad. Dad kind of lived in the underworld of the lower Alabama Mafia. He ran moonshine as a 16-year-old boy. They dropped it off at some governors' mansions in Southern states.

LISA RYAN: Probably just in order to survive.

RON PHILLIPS: In order to survive. The other things I found out about, when we got to Dads funeral, you couldnt get in the building. There were all these people we didn't know. There was a black guy standing at the casket weeping. I said, 'Who are you?' He said, ' Your Dad and I were in the Airforce together. We came out here together. Your Dad was my insurance agent.' I said, 'Why are you so upset?' He said, 'I wouldnt have had a job if it wasnt for your Dad.' I saw that Dad had poured his life into a lot of areas wherever he could, so there was a side of him that wanted to pick people up that were hurting.

LISA RYAN: How did your perspective of your father change when you realized not only his broken past and the hurts he had been through, but also the way he had given himself to people you didn't even know about?

RON PHILLIPS: It was astounding. He could have ended up in jail, or dead in World War II, wrecked and killed himself in a car while drinking. There are so many things that could have happened. That he came out on the other side is a miracle story. When I discovered this healing in his life, it is part of the message of Kisses from the Father.

LISA RYAN: How did your fathers death affect you?

RON PHILLIPS: It was a terrible thing. I really didnt get closure on it. Writing the book helped bring closure. A few months ago, I was with Tommy Tenneys daddy, T.F. Tenney. He didn't know anything about this. He was about to pray over me and he said, 'I am going to speak a Fathers blessing over you,' and I am telling you, something left and something came. That was powerful. For the first time, I guess I settled the issue. I thought, 'Boy, if I could have just told Dad this or that. God said, 'Don't worry. Your Dad knows, and he likes what you are doing.' Im telling you, healing came.

LISA RYAN: What is the message you want to share with fathers from this book Kisses from the Father?

RON PHILLIPS: Somebody has to carry the message to this generation that you have a Heavenly Father that will take care of you even when your earthly father is not there. You have got a Daddy God that loves you, a Daddy God that wants to protect you and provide for you. God knew our families would be dysfunctional. The Bible says that when the prodigal was a great way off, He saw him. That is the same word for "far country." There was never a day when the Father's eye wasn't on that boy. There were many days that boy never thought about his Daddy. But there is never a day that your Daddy God is not thinking about you. It is an awesome, overwhelming, powerful truth. God didn't send His Son to die on that Cross just to keep me from going to hell. He wanted to have a relationship with me, to love me, and take care of me and everybody else.