Gò0dNews for Everyone
The Voice at The End of The Line
W
by Rhonda Lane
hen I was a teenager, there was an
thing we all have, if we will accept it, is a father.
AT&T commercial starring the late
A Heavenly Father. There are no long-distance
Bear Bryant, legendary football
charges and no dead cellphone batteries when we
coach at the University of Alabama. Although I
need to talk to Him. We just talk, we just groan,
don’t remember the entirety of the ad, its message has clung to my memory for some forty-plus years. The beginnings of the commercial probably espoused the virtues of using AT&T, as is the aim of most commercials. The last line, however, was the bombshell. Coach Bryant, by this time advanced in years, wistfully questioned his audience in a tender voice, “Have you called your Mama today? I sure wish I could call mine.” I was sitting next to my own mother, whom
we just cry. (“Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth
I saw every day, whom I talked with every day,
our infirmities: for we know not what we should
and whom I had teenage squabbles with almost
pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh
every day when this popular commercial aired.
intercession for us with groanings which cannot
Immediately, at a rather late hour, my mom
be uttered,” Romans 8:26). He immediately hears
jumped up from her seat, went to the phone,
it all, interprets it all, and listens to it all. Talk to
and dialed her mother’s number. At my age, I
your Father.” ‘
understood her motivation, though I was too young to yet feel it. It remains one of the most
Have you called your Mama today? I sure wish I could call mine.
Many people don’t have a mother anymore, including me, and some never had a mother. One 36 // June 2022
About The Author
memorable moments of my life. Rhonda Lane is a native of Dalton, Georgia, and is an orphaned, old maid, and only child trying to find her way in the world and lose herself in Jesus Christ.
