My dad owns a pawn shop here in Dalton. He got into the pawn business when we moved to Dalton about 11 or so years ago. He had worked in the nuclear industry when we lived in Knoxville. Got up early every morning, wearing a suit and tie, and was off to the office. When we moved here, my parents both took some time off from work. They had no pressing need, and thoroughly enjoyed the break. My mom built a company with her brother from the ground up. Dalton is the carpet capital of the world, so they built a sample company. It has been very successful. My mom left the company about 4 years ago, but it is still doing well. My pa-paw was ready to retire about the time my dad got ready to start working again. He owned a pawn shop on the other side of town (about 20 minutes away from our house). He worked there with his son (my uncle). My dad talked with my pa-paw and my uncle, and decided to buy it and run it with my uncle. It was a big change from Mr. Suit and Tie who got up at 6 every morning. He now got to sleep in till 8am and dress casually. The job includes a lot of “shooting’ the bull” as they call it here. It was a change, but he enjoyed it. Later, one of cousins started working there, and my dad decided to sell it to my uncle and let him and my cousin run it. My dad then built a new pawn shop not far from our house. He has done very well in this business. He’s changed his location once for a bigger space. It’s so clean and nice. Most definitely the nicest pawn shop I’ve ever been in, or could imagine ever going in. I love him working there. I’ve met some real … “characters” there and have good memories of working there during summer time. That’s all some background to the real story here.
About a month ago, my dad received a memorandum informing him that as of a set date… I believe in July, it would be required that all pawn shops must take a sort of “mug shot” like picture of every person who sales or pawns an item or items, and an additional picture of that item to be submitted weekly to the sheriff’s office. Now, there are a little more details here to this new procedure, but that’s the gist of it. (Whether you think that’s reasonable or not is beside the point. I promise.) When my dad found this out, he was furious and took action immediately. He has been telling customers about this on a daily basis to raise awareness and get supporters. He’s found out who the “powers that be” are, or who he needs to confront about this issue and sent them a formal letter discussing his point of view on the matter. He’s got a petition. He put a huge add in the paper about it and providing numbers of the sheriff’s office and chairmen so others show their disapproval of this situation. Needless to say, he didn’t just sit around hoping it would get brought up in conversation so he could share his opinion. No! He jumped into action. He talked about it all the time, sharing everything he knew. He studied it so he would be more educated to discuss it. He did everything in his power to raise awareness for this cause he felt so strongly about.
So, this has really got me thinking, if this thing that is, in the grand picture, not really that big of a deal, can drive someone to tell at least a couple hundred people within a community about it in a few weeks, why doesn’t this cause that we have…. the cause of the life-saving life-changing gospel move us to such a active place? Why are we afraid to tell people about it because they may not agree or they may not do anything about it? We are not called to save lives. We don’t have the power to do so, and the fact that we don’t lead someone in conversion should not stop us from spreading the glorious truth that we so undeservedly know.
I know this isn’t really an update on my life or anything, but this is just something I’ve been thinking a lot about ever since I saw my dad get so fired up for his cause. Until next time ~ Christi
This World Has Nothing For Me 